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    #61
    Working my way through Ralph Whiteheads 3 volume set, (soon to be 4) The Other Side of the Wire, on Germany's 14th Reserve Corps on the Somme.

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      #62
      Panzers in Berlin 1945 by Lee Archer, Robert Kraska & Mario Lippert.

      Another superb book on the Battle of Berlin 1945. It begins with descriptions of the German units in the Berlin area that were equipped with tanks including a welcome chapter on the Panzerkompanie (bo) Berlin which operated the immobile tanks dug in at various road junctions. The majority of the subsequent chapters are location based and cover areas such as Wannsee, Tiergarten & Reichkanzlei. The final chapters cover oddities & unknown locations and the various breakout attempts including a comprehensive identification of the wrecks left around the Friedrichstrasse area.

      The photos are mainly after action or early post war photos and include a number of colour plates of photos which I understand will be of interest to the military modeller. The book comes with a separate map of the location of many of the wrecks with QR codes which makes it easier to find the locations via Google Maps.

      A fantastic book in it's own right I have used this as a companion to Bloody Streets. One such example is the story of King Tiger Tank 311 which starts on page 139 in Bloody Streets and is damaged and has to retreat for repairs. The Panzers In Berlin book has photos of this tank which adds depth to the story.

      Currently out of print but with a 2nd printing imminent https://www.panzerwrecks.com/product/panzers-in-berlin/ it is another recommendation from me.



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        #63
        Recently finished "The Longest Winter" by Alex Kershaw.

        Have "Velikiye Luki 1942–43: The Doomed Fortress" by Robert Forczyk incoming. I had pre-ordered it and got notification today that it's finally on the way.

        Longestwinter.jpg VL.jpg

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          #64
          Originally posted by IanC View Post
          Bloody Streets: The Soviet Assault on Berlin (2nd Edition) by Aaron Stephan Hamilton

          I missed this book the first time around and with copies of the first edition for sale at £250+, the £35 price for the second edition is a screaming bargain. Following a prelude, the book moves to the Battle for the Seelow Heights and the advance on Berlin. At this point there is a pause in the main narrative for a chapter on Red Army after action reports before resuming with the assault on Berlin and finishing with the breakout attempts and the aftermath of the fighting.

          It comes with a map book which is an inspired decision because it means you can orientate yourself with the battlefield and see where units were without a context switch. The maps themselves are in various formats and are well presented. The map book ends with colour photos taken following the end of the fighting. Recommended.
          I have to agree 100% on this, this is an excellent work. I was recently recommended this book and took the plunge and have barely put the book down since.

          Along with the 'Pnazers in Berlin 1945' book you also mentioned and the 'Berlin Then & Now' as part of the After the Battle series, these are IMO benchmark works on the Battle for Berlin.

          Regards Richard.
          Always looking for Luftwaffe Kampfflieger related document groups. In particular anything to Kampfgeschwader 2.

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            #65
            I recently finished two books by Vincent O'Hara, a fine writer on naval history of both world wars. "The US Navy Against the Axis; Surface Combat 1941-1945", a chronicle of both major and minor surface actions, backed with first class detail and statistical data.
            "Six Victories" covers the Mediterranean actions between the Royal Navy and the Regia Marina from late 1941 to early 1942, the nadir of British naval control of the Med.
            I also enjoy alternative history and recommend both volumes of Kim Kerr's "Kriegsmarine Victorious".
            Finally read "The Story of the Guards Armoured Division" by the Earl of Rosse, written soon after the war when memories were fresh.
            For Luftwaffe enthusiasts like myself, I highly recommend " Mit der Kamera an der Front " by Axel Urbanke; great photos & history.

            Bob Shoaf

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              #66



              Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the 1999 National Book Award for Nonfiction, finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize and the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, Embracing Defeat is John W. Dower's brilliant examination of Japan in the immediate, shattering aftermath of World War II.

              Drawing on a vast range of Japanese sources and illustrated with dozens of astonishing documentary photographs, Embracing Defeat is the fullest and most important history of the more than six years of American occupation, which affected every level of Japanese society, often in ways neither side could anticipate. Dower, whom Stephen E. Ambrose has called "America's foremost historian of the Second World War in the Pacific," gives us the rich and turbulent interplay between West and East, the victor and the vanquished, in a way never before attempted, from top-level manipulations concerning the fate of Emperor Hirohito to the hopes and fears of men and women in every walk of life. Already regarded as the benchmark in its field, Embracing Defeat is a work of colossal scholarship and history of the very first order. John W. Dower is the Elting E. Morison Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

              Selden on Dower, 'Embracing Defeat. Japan in the Wake of World War II'

              https://networks.h-net.org/node/2205...e-world-war-ii


              Embracing Defeat

              "Embracing Defeat, John Dower's magisterial chronicle of Japan under U.S. occupation, is the summa of his four important studies of twentieth-century Japan and the U.S.-Japan relationship.[1] Its sweep is ambitious, ranging from political and diplomatic history to innovative attempts to locate the Japanese people in the flow of change, including the first efforts to chart cultural and social dimensions of the era. Central to the work, and to the continuing debate about the occupation, are three intertwined political issues whose resolution would profoundly affect Japan's postwar course: the emperor, the constitution and democratization, and the war crimes tribunals. In taking discussion of these and other issues far beyond the official record, Dower offers fresh social and cultural perspectives on Japan and the U.S.-Japan relationship, perspectives that cut through dominant images and stereotypes on both sides of the Pacific, and from Washington and Tokyo to broad strata of each society.

              The early occupation emerges in these pages as the boldest, yet in many ways the most Quixotic, attempt at social engineering ever attempted to refashion another society as a democratic nation. "Initially," Dower tells us with characteristic incisiveness and irony, "the Americans imposed a root-and-branch agenda of 'demilitarization and democratization' that was in every sense a remarkable display of arrogant idealism-both self-righteous and genuinely visionary." (p. 23) Drawing on a wealth of archival, documentary and published sources to illuminate kaleidoscopic Japanese and American perspectives, he highlights MacArthur's arrogance and peccadilloes while positively assessing American contributions to an enduring democratic political transformation. "Never," he concludes, "had a genuinely democratic revolution been associated with military dictatorship, to say nothing of a neocolonial military dictatorship . . ." (pp. 80-81).

              The work is at its very best, however, in showing the hybrid and contested character of the occupation. For if MacArthur ruled with the absolute authority of a military dictator who brooked no criticism, it is Dower's achievement to reveal how the Japanese people, from the highest levels of imperial and state power to the grassroots, speaking not in a single voice but expressing great diversity, shaped many of the outcomes. They did so at times by reinforcing, at others by subtly subverting, the vision and plans of their American military rulers through the skilled, even brilliant, use of gaiatsu tactics that were facilitated by the American decision to rule indirectly through the Japanese government.[2]"




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