Battle for the Bocage, Normandy 1944 - Point 103, Tilly-sur-Seulles and Villers Bocage

Battle for the Bocage, Normandy 1944 - Point 103, Tilly-sur-Seulles and

Villers Bocage written by Tim Saunders and published by Pen & Sword

Books - £25 - Hardback - Pages 376

This is the story of the fighting in Normandy by the veteran desert formations brought

back by Montgomery from the Mediterranean in order to spearhead the invasion;

50th Infantry and 7th Armoured divisions, plus 4th Armoured Brigade. Heavily

reinforced by individuals and fresh units, their task beyond the beaches was to push

south to Villers Bocage with armour on the evening of D-Day in order to disrupt

German counter-attacks on the beachhead.

Difficulties on 50th Division’s beaches and lost opportunities allowed time for the 12th Hitlerjugend SS Panzer Division and the equally elite 130th Panzer Lehr Division to arrive in Normandy, despite delays of their own caused by allied fighter bombers. The result was 4th Armoured Brigade’s thrust south encountered opposition from the start and was firmly blocked just south of Point 103 after an advance of less than 5 miles.

A major counter-attack by Panzer Lehr failed, as did a renewed British attempt, this time by the vaunted 7th Armoured Division, which was halted at Tilly sur Seulles. From here the fighting became a progressively attritional struggle in the hedgerows of the Bocage country south of Bayeux. More and more units were drawn into the fighting, which steadily extended west. Finally, an opportunity, via the Caumont Gap, to outflank the German defences was taken and 7th Armoured Division reached Villers Bocage. Here the County of London Yeomanry encountered the newly arrived Tigers of Michael Wittmann, with disastrous results. The Desert Rats were forced to withdraw having lost much of their reputation.

There then followed what the battalions of 50th Division describe as their ‘most unpleasant period of the war’, in bitter fighting, at often very close quarters, for the ‘next hedgerow’.

This is an excellent book if you're into detailed, and comprehensive descriptive writing that easily details the fighting battle of almost hand to hand combat. If you enjoy reading about the war around the Normandy area, this will definitely be a book for you. The book mainly centres around Point 103 and the area around Bocage, these hard-fought battles are well written and bring the heat of the battle and fear to the book. The book is also well divided up in its chapters, so your not overwhelmed by the knowledge and combat which some could find a little confusing. Certainly a well written book by the author Tim Saunders. I really enjoyed reading this book and would think it would most certainly appeal to fans of the fighting in the Normandy area of France in WWII.

British Transport Police - A Definitive History of the Early Years & Subsequent Development

British Transport Police - A Definitive History of the Early Years & Subsequent

Development written by Malcolm Clegg and published by Pen & Sword Books

- £25 - Hardback - Pages 256

This book traces the history of the British Transport Police, the National Police Force

responsible for policing the railways of England, Scotland and Wales. The roots of

the Force go back almost 200 years, starting with the development of the railways

during the Nineteenth Century. Hundreds of railway companies were founded and

although mergers and amalgamations took place, by the end of the century, well over

100 railway companies were operating, most of which employed railway policemen.

The first railway policemen were recruited to work on the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1826. Other railway companies quickly followed and by the 1850s, railway policemen with their smart uniforms and top hats were a common sight on Britain’s railways.

During the Twentieth Century, railway companies continued to merge before being nationalised in 1948. The following year, the British Transport Commission (BTC) was created to oversee not only the newly nationalised railway network, but also the nation’s docks, shipping, inland waterways, road transport, road haulage and other companies.

Also in 1949, the British Transport Commission Police (BTC Police) was created to take over the policing of these newly nationalised institutions. All the former railway, dock and canal police forces were then absorbed into the new BTC Police Force.

The BTC was abolished in 1962, having incurred serious financial losses. The BTC Police was renamed the British Transport Police in 1963 and has continued to operate ever since. It no longer polices the docks, harbours and canals for reasons outlined in this book.

Well this was an interesting book, and quite a revealing book in that I learnt quite a bit about another part of the police force and how it has progressed over the years. I suppose to today, that we would generally think of the British Transport Police as being London centric, but it certainly didn’t start out that way, in fact its origins were in the north of the country working for specific companies. It was also intriguing to learn that it expanded its scope to include not just railways but places like docks, canals and the road network too. The book also explains the development of these and eventually the demise really as these specific workplaces were then bought under regional forces.

The book also looks into different types of crimes encountered too or those that were specific to transport hub type places. The author has done a really good job in setting this book with plenty of good level research and detail. I’ve learnt a lot from this book and it was nice to read a book about the police that was different to ‘Jack the Ripper’ and murder cases. The back of the book has lot of additional information too which I found quite moving but good to learn about. This has been a brilliant book to read and would happily recommend it to anyone, especially if you were considering joining the police force. 

Defeating the Panzer-Stuka Menace - British Spigot Weapons of the Second World War

Defeating the Panzer-Stuka Menace - British Spigot Weapons of the Second

World War written by David Lister and published by Frontline Books - £25 -

Hardback - Pages 264

Unlike conventional mortars, a spigot mortar does not have a barrel through with

the round is fired. Instead, the general concept involves a steel rod – the ‘spigot’ –

onto which the bomb is placed before it is fired. This design was, as David Lister

reveals, the basis of a number of successful weapons used during the Second

World War.

The myth of the PIAT man-portable anti-tank weapon is, for example, tied closely to British paratroopers struggling in the ruins of Arnhem with an inadequate design, one inferior to the German equivalent. Similarly, the myth of the Blacker Bombard is of a useless weapon, one of dubious quality, that was dumped on the unsuspecting Home Guard.

In reality, neither scenario is the case. Both weapons were devastating creations of war, often superior to any other nation’s counterpart.

At sea, the Hedgehog anti-submarine weapon was another powerful spigot weapon. It was undoubtedly capable of sweeping the U-boats from the sea and even winning the Battle of the Atlantic before it had really begun. That it did not is one of the great scandals of the Second World War, one hidden by wartime secrecy until now.

In Defeating the Panzer-Stuka Menace the author explores a large number of spigot weapons from the Second World War, many of which were created by the fertile mind of one of Britain’s great weapon inventors, Latham Valentine Stewart Blacker.

I must admit I started to read this thinking I wouldn’t really find it interesting, but quite the opposite, I really enjoyed this book. The book looks at small arms weapons that would be used against anything bigger than a man. We had the spigot gun used to take out a tank from a roadside, a PIAT, another anti tank weapon and then the Hedgehog, a weapon that would shoot small rockets to attack submarines. A whole range of weapons were shown, displayed and explained. A really fascinating read, and I commend the author David Lister for writing a detailed well explained book which was easy to read and understand. The book was complemented by some really good photographs and diagrams which also helped understand the weapons and processes they went through. I would definitely recommend this book.

Hitler’s Traitors - German Resistance to the Nazis

Hitler’s Traitors - German Resistance to the Nazis  written by Susan Ottaway

published by Pen & Sword Books - £19.95 - Hardback - Pages 224

This is the story of the groups and individuals that opposed Hitler and his government

and tells of their heroic, but largely ineffective, efforts to rid themselves of the most evil

regime in modern times. They came from many different backgrounds - Protestant

pastors, catholic bishops, politicians, military men, students and even a member of the

Waffen SS. Sadly, by the time the Nazi regime came to an end most of those Germans

who had resisted it were dead, arrested, imprisoned, tried and executed in the most

barbaric manner.

This book takes a look at individuals and groups that were opposed to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. While I found this book an interesting read, the book starts out with the rise of Hitler and the emergence of the NSDAP party in post-war WWI Germany. Then the last two-thirds of the book was dedicated to the resistance against Hitler, which was good and interesting to read, but it wasn’t really anything new or anything we hadn’t already heard before. The book felt like a book of its time of publishing both in style and reading. The book was published in 2003, and while the info is good, it feels of the year 2003. I must say though that the b/w photos in the middle of the book were of interest, and a number I hadn’t really seen before. A good book if you're interested in getting into the subject.

March Past! Memoir of a Commando Leader from Lofoten to Dieppe & D-Day

March Past! Memoir of a Commando Leader from Lofoten to Dieppe & D-Day

written by Lord Simon Frazer and published by Frontline Books - £25 -

Hardback - Pages 400

At the outbreak of war in 1940, Simon Frazer, the 15th Lord Lovat and a former

Guards officer, was mobilized from the reserve list to join the Lovat Scouts, the

British Army’s first sniper unit that had been formed by his father during the Boer

War. The following year he volunteered for one of the new Commando units then

being created.

Lovat was personally involved in the training of the Commando troops on the West coast of Scotland. He was eventually attached to, and led, No.4 Commando. On 3 March 1941, Nos. 3 and 4 Commando launched a raid on the German-occupied Lofoten Islands. In this successful attack, Operation Claymore, the commandos destroyed fish-oil factories, petrol dumps, and even eleven ships. They also seized encryption equipment and codebooks, as well as captured 216 German troops.

Promoted to temporary major, Lovat led 100 men of No.4 Commando and a 50-man detachment from the Canadian Carleton and York Regiment in a raid on the French coastal village of Hardelot in April 1942. For this action he was awarded the Military Cross on 7 July that year.

Lord Lovat was involved in further raids against the German-held French coast, most notably Dieppe, during which No.4 Commando destroyed the coastal battery at Varengeville-sur-Mer in a text-book commando attack. This resulted in Lovat being awarded the DSO.

Such was the effect the Commando raids had on German morale, Lovat had 100,000 Reichmarks placed on his head, dead or alive.

Promoted to brigadier, Lovat formed the 1st Special Service Brigade (later the 1st Commando Brigade) which stormed ashore on D-Day to secure the eastern flank of the attacking forces. In this, he famously instructed his personal piper, Bill Millin, to pipe the commandos and himself ashore, in defiance of specific orders not to allow such an action in battle. In the subsequent fighting Lovat was seriously wounded, effectively ending his active career.

March Past! Is a book about Simon Frazer, the 15th Lord Lovat who would become on of

the original men who help set up and train young Commando soldiers based up in Scotland.

In fact if you read those old Commando comic books as a kid, Lord Lovat was one of those

men the comic books could have been based upon. His career, where he fought, what he did

and achieved were feats of heroes. This book is based upon his memoirs and they have

been put together in a great way that shows the real portrayal of a real hero who achieved

some astounding feats in WWII. The other thing that stood out was this was a man who was

blessed with being from a ‘higher’ position, and yet he was one of those men who mixed well

with his fellow soldiers, he was one of the guys. A really good book put together well and

really sells the story of a real hero.

Hitler's Henchmen - Nazi Executioners and How They Escaped Justice After WWII

Hitler's Henchmen - Nazi Executioners and How They Escaped Justice After WWII

written by Helmut Ortner and published by Frontline Books - £18.99 - Hardback -

Pages 136

Helmut Ortner reveals a staggering history of perpetrators, victims and bystanders in

Hitler’s Germany. He explores the shocking evidence of a merciless era – and of the

shameful omissions of post-war German justice.

Johann Reichhart was a state-appointed judicial executioner in Bavaria from 1924 until the end of the war in Europe. During the Nazi era, he executed numerous people who were sentenced to death for resisting National Socialism, including many of those involved in the 20 July 1944 bomb plot on Adolf Hitler.

As a member of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, the SS organisation responsible for administering the concentration and extermination camps, Arnold Strippel served at a number of locations during his rise to the rank of SS-Obersturmführer. These included Natzweiler-Struthof, Buchenwald, Majdanek, Ravensbrück and Neuengamme, where he was responsible for murdering the victims of a series of tuberculosis medical experiments. Like Reichhart, Erich Schwinge was also involved in the legal sphere during the Third Reich. A German military lawyer, in 1931 he became a professor of law and, from 1936, wrote the legal commentary on German military criminal law that was decisive during the Nazi era.

Aside from the part they played in Hitler’s regime, these three men all had one further thing in common – they survived the war and restarted their careers in Adenauer’s Federal Republic of Germany.

In Hitler’s Henchmen, Helmut Ortner uncovers the full stories of Reichhart, Strippel, Schwinge and others like them, Nazi perpetrators who enjoyed post-war careers as judges, university professors, doctors and politicians. Had they been gutless cogs in the machinery of the Nazi state, or ideologized persecutors? Ortner reveals that it was not only their Nazi pasts that were forgotten, but how the suffering of the victims, including resistance fighters such as Georg Elser and Maurice Becaud, and their relatives was suppressed and ignored.

This book looks at various people that were part of the Nazi regime managed to escape blame and carry on a significant lifestyle after the war. The whole book was well written and quite interesting, with quite a bit of research gone into it in what is usually a complicated Nazi regime, but I should probably say that I preferred the second half of the book. Which veered off more into two lesser known assassination attempts on the life of Hitler. In summary I liked this book and I found it quite interesting, but I felt it was two books in one.

Hurricanes in Action Worldwide

Hurricanes in Action Worldwide written by Adrian Stewart and published by

Pen & Sword Books - £22 - Hardback - Pages 224

The Hawker Hurricane was the RAF’s most valuable fighter asset in the Second World

War, yet even today is relatively under-appreciated by the general public. Yet from the

early months of the war it was the single engine fighter most often encountered by the

Luftwaffe and during the Battle of Britain it made 80% of the successful interdictions of

enemy formations.

As this superbly researched book written by a leading authority on the air war reveals, this was only the start of the Hurricane’s war service. Its reliability and versatility ensured that variants saw action in more war theatres worldwide than any other fighter. Indeed, as the RAF’s Official History recalls ‘Everywhere the Ubiquitous Hurricane was to be seen’.

This book follows the ‘Hurri’ to Russia, Malta, North Africa and as far afield as Burma, Sumatra and Java.

Seaborne versions fought in the Battle of the Atlantic and defended the Mediterranean convoys. In the ground attack role Hurricane fighter bombers made countless sweeps over occupied Europe. Pilots’ first-hand accounts supplement the text.

Readers are left in no doubt as to the massive contribution that the Hurricane made to ultimate victory.

As the blurb says on the back of the book, the hurricanes were the planes of the RAF that were doing the donkey work of the flying rather than the ‘glorious’ Spitfire that gets all the praise. This book intends to sell the hurricane to the reader which it does do a great job in doing, as it talks about the heroes, the dogfights and we hear all the stories from around the world where the hurricanes had a strong influence. But there was a minor point for me in the book and that was that it seemed to be missing something, maybe there was a lack of characters, or maybe it was just me and all we wallow in is the glories of the Spitfire. But other than that this was a good read, and it was nice to read about the Hurricane rather than the Spitfire. The book has enough good pictures, and those who are big fans of the Hurricane will enjoy this book.