Author Archives: James - Page 130
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Absolute Friends
This is John Le Carre's latest book, a post-cold war spy novel about two of the cold warriors just over a decade on in the wake of 9/11. This is just a fantastic story, incredibly detailed and well researched (where it follows the historical/factual stuff). It starts off as a fairly normal story, told by flashbacks from 2003-4ish, about a chap who gets caught up in the 68-69 student protest movement in Berlin. After a gap of about ten years he eventually settles down and gets a job with the British Council. This draws him into a meeting with his old student protest chum who is now an East German security type. There follows a cold war double agent story, which in itself is excellent. The falling of the Berlin Wall brings an end to that episode and our protagonist…
St.Valery: The Impossible Odds by Bill Innes
This is a collection of first hand accounts, mainly posthumously published from three men who were ordinary soldiers in the 51st Highland Division in 1940. None of them were officers (although one was commissioned after his escape and return home). The main part of the book is a personal account originally published in Gaelic and subsequently translated into english as "A Cameron Never Can Yield". This forms just over half the book and tells the story from the start of the German attack on 10 May 1940 through surrender at St Valery on 12th June 1940, escape on the march into Germany and then life in Marseilles in the winter of 1940-41 followed by a winter crossing of the Pyrenees and time spent in Spanish prison camps before returning to the UK. The other two stories are relatively similar, although…
The Battle for France didn’t end at Dunkirk
The title of Saul David's "Churchill's Sacrifice of the Highland Division" is possibly erroneous, the book doesn't come out for what happened to the 51st Highland Division in June 1940 as being a political gesture of allied solidarity on the part of Churchill. It is certainly the fullest account of the 1940 campaign of the 51st Highland Division, expanding hugely on Eric Linklater's HMSO publication in 1942 (which perforce had to be limited for security reasons). The Highland Division was in the Maginot Line attached to the French Army when the German assault started on 10th May 1940 and so wasn't with the rest of the BEF. By the time the ferocity and direction of the German plan was understood by the French & British High Commands most of the German Army was between the 51st Highland Division and the BEF; so there was…
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Blue Fires, Gary Hyland
"Gary Hyland owns a successful company that produces original sculptures. He has a long-held fascination for the Nazis' development of new technologies during the Second World War." Do I need to add any more? Synopsis This is one series of speculations about how the nazis might have invented (and built prototype) flying discs at the end of the second world war. There are parts that come across as well researched, particularly when describing the problems of the nazi era for scientists. However there is absolutely no evidence cited for what is contained in the book and even where it introduces things as speculative it then goes on later to treat them as if they were hard fact. However it does have a high entertainment value. That and I discovered that someone has rcently built a small flying disc out of…
Battle of the Hills, 21 January 1943
Image via Wikipedia This is a short article about the advance of the 51st Highland Division in Tunisia in the follow up from El Alamein. I wrote this to be played as a tabletop wargame using Command Decision. Ground The coast road between Homs & Corradini in Tunisia. On the right (from the perspective of the British advance) is the sea. The coast road lies a few miles inland at places. There is a steep coastal ridge on the left flank of the battle area with desert to the south. Within all this there are a large number of steep sided, but small, wadis running from the hills to the sea. There are also one or two significant hills that sit astride or on the road. To quote Captain Watt (OC B Company 5th Seaforths). “At the Assembly Area we…