Book Review: Coastal Convoys, Nick Hewitt

I'm torn between giving this four or five stars. In some respects it's fantastic. And I have really enjoyed reading quite a lot of it. 

But, rather like the conditions of the conflict it describes, there are moments of, well... if not boredom, perhaps ennui? In part this is due to a degree of repetition and duplication (probably nigh on impossible to avoid given the subject), and in part because the narrative kind of fizzles a bit around mid-war, mostly as a result of delayed reactions to first Operation Barbarossa, and the subsequent Eastward shift in German attention, and then the entry of the US, and another seismic shift of maritime operations (on the global scale) to the Pacific.

But, on the positive side, throughout the whole war Britain, who initially stood alone (sort of, remembering of course our Empire/Commonwealth resources, etc), had to 'keep the home fires burning'. And it was essentially this (as well as other domestic and international stuff), the supply of coal in particular, that drove the coastal shipping Hewitt covers in this mostly very fascinating and informative account.

A photograph taken from what I guess is a destroyer escort, of a typical east coast convoy.

The book and its jacket blurb make much of the gap-filling nature of this account, pointing out that it's a largely ignored aspect of the British naval war, overshadowed primarily by the convoys and conflicts of the Atlantic. Ironically I've now read more (i.e. this book!) on this 'neglected theatre' than I have yet to read - I have Dimbleby's 'War in the Atlantic' (unread) - on it's more oft-covered cousin.

Hewitt makes heavy and mostly very good use of all sorts of 'primary' sources (heavily footnoted, etc.), which can and does make some of this very compelling and, as several heaping praise on it in the blurb note, very human. This unglamorous traffic of, in the main, 'dirty little coasters' was essential to Britain's survival: coal came down from the north, to the energy-hungry more heavily populated south; and trade, both domestic and international, had to go on.

The 'dirty little steamer' visible here is typical small fry of the coastal convoys.

Having geared up for submarine warfare, WWI style, WWII instead saw increased use of mining, air power, and E-Boats, with U-boats only occasionally intruding, meaning Britain started at something of a disadvantage. It's the drama associated with initially coping with and then more or less overcoming these challenges that makes the first half of the war (and the first two-thirds of this book) most interesting.

As much as I enjoyed this, and I really did, and as valuable an addition to the maritime history of WWII as it appears to be, I felt I had to go with four stars on my Amazon review. Here on my blog, however, I can give this four and a half stars, so I do.

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This famous bit of footage is mentioned in the book.

Book Review: Hitler, Ian Kershaw

'an unimaginable harvest of sorrow ... a level of destruction never experienced in human history'

Whilst the quote at the top of this review is actually a truncated observation Kershaw makes regarding Operation Barbarossa, or the battle on the Eastern front, between Russia and the Third Reich, it could actually stand for the whole war, and the epoch of Nazism. Whilst Mao's China and Stalin's Russia can also boast death tolls that defy comprehension, yet still WWII - or Hitler's war, as it can be justly called - remains in a league of its own. 

Compressing the two-volume Hubris and Nemesis into a single book, in large part by stripping out the 'scholarly apparatus' (footnotes, etc.), this single volume edition nonetheless remains a chunky tome, the main body of the text being just shy of 1,000 pages. In addition to the 969 pages of text there are 80 pages of black and white photos, and ten pages of fairly basic maps.

Also available as a two volume monster...

... under the subtitles, Hubris and Nemesis.

This is a fascinating and compelling account of the man whose life story became a focal point in the unfolding of one of the twentieth century's greatest traumas. As Kershaw tells it Hitler's early unfocused slacker lifestyle was brought sharply into focus by WWI, during which he found a role, or position in society, that gave him purpose and direction, and his first real sense of self-esteem, having previously been something of a loner and failure as an artist in Vienna. 

His sense of injustice at the outcome of WWI became a monomania, which he combined with a particularly virulent strain of antisemitism, both of these things seemingly commonplaces in German culture at the time, forming his lifelong creed: never again, Hitler swore, would Germany suffer the shame it had in 1918. And the alleged enemy, international Jewry - be they capitalist or Bolshevist (for many, but perhaps few or none more so than Hitler, the Jews were an all-purpose bogeyman) - would be made to pay.

Hitler and croneys in prison, during his lederhosen period. [1]

Kershaw covers it all admirably thoroughly, if occasionally rather academically. One of the parts I find most fascinating, perhaps in part because I'm a bit of an art-school drop out, is Adolf's rise from art-school reject to beer hall demagogue, and ultimately Führer.

Early on in that 'resistible rise', during Hitler's interment - see the above photo - after his failed putsch (Munich, 1923), he wrote, or rather he dictated (how appropriate!) Mein Kampf, in which he laid out the manifesto he would later implement, seeking 'lebensraum' (living space) for Germany in 'the East', the east chiefly being Russia. 

During this erratic and uncertain ascent a dynamic set in which, prior to 1941, seemed to some to cast Adolf as an infallible leader of indomitable will, but after that point rapidly overreached itself and unravelled, revealing itself to contain the seeds of its own destruction.

Hitler and a photographer rehearsing demagoguery. [2]

One of Kershaw's chief contributions to the massive literature on all things Third Reich appears to be the 'working towards the Führer' idea. I don't know if this is an original idea of his or not, and it does seem like just the kind of term to arise in academia. Kershaw's a professional academic as well as author.

I must admit such phrases often irk me somewhat, but it has to be conceded that it fits the bill here admirably. Kershaw is also very strong on the notion that Hitler achieved his form of leadership only by dissolving norms of government, such that the whole system inevitably evolved into a complete mess (and having recently read Albert Speer's Inside the Third Reich this clearly was the case), the only common thread in all the chaos being the clarity of 'working towards the Führer'.

I do have a few gripes: given the massive range of sources available, Kershaw's repeated recourse to Goebbel's diaries was at times so frequent as to be a little annoying. Also, in some areas - e.g. air warfare - he occasionally appears to be happy trotting out familiar clichés (which other books, for example Paul Overy's Bombing War, elucidate more accurately). But all things considered this is undoubtedly an excellent rendering of a hugely important and massively fascinating dark chapter of our recent history.

20th April, 1945, Hitler's 56th birthday. [3]

Despite the smile the strain is showing.

As a modeller and wargamer I love the German army in WWII, even the SS elements. But as a human being I also have to recognise what an appalling project they were serving. I once visited a concentration camp in Germany, and it was extremely sobering to stand on the very ground where unspeakable and barely believable barbarism occurred - and the camp I visited was only a 'transit' and not a 'death' camp - so close to home both in time and space.

One can only hope we might learn something from history.

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NOTES:

The author.

[1] Hitler in Landsberg prison, where he served time for treason after the failed Beer Hall Putsch. Left to right are Hitler, his chauffeur and Mein Kampf amanuensis (along with Hess) Emil Maurice, Herman Kriebl, Rudolf Hess and Friedrich Weber.

[2] One of a series of photos in which the aspiring politician practised his dark arts, and which he later sought to ban from public circulation. He also sought to suppress images such as the one below.

[3] This picture and the one below it, both from the same medal award ceremony, were taken on one of Hitlers's last days above ground, both literally and metaphorically. By this point the Russians were shelling Berlin, and Hitler, living deep below ground in his Reich Chancellory bunker, had just 10 days left.

Book Review: Army of Steel - Nigel Cawthorne

NB: The pictures used to illustrate this post are not from the book under review.

I got this at The Works, for just £2, brand new. RRP was £7.99. At that low a price I thought I might as well take a punt on this. Army of Steel is a small paperback, running to just over 230 pages, and it's a light, easy read. There are a few black and white maps and photos sprinkled throughout, but it's not lavishly illustrated. Subtitled 'Tank Warfare 1939-1945', the focus is primarily on the 'panzers' of the German armed in forces in WWII.

How it started: Pz I, Poland, 1939. 

The book starts with a brief and fairly vivid account of the rapid conquest of Poland, before backtracking to look at the rise of tanks as weapons (their role in WWI, Britain/Churchill's championing of them [1], etc.), and their subsequent ascent to a position of central importance in the new 'Blitzkrieg' approach to war, that initially served the Germans so well. The chapter titles convey the arc of the narrative:

1) The Plains of Poland
2) Tanks and Tank Tactics
3) The Making of the Corps
4) Blitzkrieg
5) Into the Desert (This is one of the biggest chapters! Slightly over-represented, perhaps?)
6) Operation Barbarossa
7) Soviet Superiority
8) Tigers in Normandy
9) Last Gasp in the Ardennes
10) Panzer Kaput

Guderian en route to the Ostfront.

Army of Steel is liberally sprinkled with quotes from a wide variety of sources, ranging from inter-war British theorists (Liddel-Hart, Fuller, Churchill), to Panzer commanders like Rommel and Guderian, right down to crews in the thick of the action (characters like Schmidt and Von Konrad), which definitely make for a more lively engaging account. I've heard it said that Rommel's and Guderian's reputations are over-inflated, the former mostly by admirers (inc. many amongst the Allies), the latter mostly by himself. Certainly this book leans heavily on Guderian, and seems to prortray him quite sympathetically. [2]

This book reminds me of Delderfield's Napoleonic history books, in that it was easy, quick and great fun to read, and not a stodgy academic book attempting to cover all the bases, or trying to come up with some new or unique angle or source (such books are often very good, but often also very long, and frequently quite hard work). I would suggest Army of Steel would make a good intro to the subject of tank warfare, especially as it was in WWII, and in particular from the German perspective.

How it ended: a Tiger II, or King Tiger, amidst the ruins of the 1000 year Reich.

What emerges is that, despite Germany's undoubted verve in tank design, the mass-produced standardised tanks of Russia and the U.S. eventually won out by, if nothing else, sheer weight of numbers. Germany's industry, including her access to raw materials, and her tendency to proliferate and over-engineer, all spelled doom in the long term.

As an avid reader of certain aspects of military history, and a model maker cum wargamer, I found this very enjoyable indeed. It covers a lot of territory, in every sense, but remains basic, and easy to digest. I read it over two days, and I'd definitely recommend this as a light entrée to a big and potentially very heavy subject.

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NOTES:

T-34s on the Eastern Front.

Initially outclassing German panzers when they first met, and continuing to outproduce them throughout the whole war, the T-34, as pictured above, typified the Russian war effort. And as if the 'Red hordes' weren't enough, the Germans had to face U.S. Shermans; another front, another superpower enemy, and another standardised tank in seemingly unlimited numbers.

Shermans on the Western Front.

[1] Cawthorne gives the same basic outline as can be found here, at this IWM link, from which I'll quote the following:

 "The name 'tank' came from British attempts to ensure the secrecy of the new weapons under the guise of water tanks. During the First World War, Britain began the serious development of the tank. Ironically, the Royal Navy led the way with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, establishing the Landships Committee in early 1915."

[2] Most of books I've read on the Ostfront quote Guderian, and usually apparently taking him at his own word. I've ordered both his books: Achtung Panzer and Panzer Leader. The former, published before WWII, is cited by Cawthorne as explicitly counselling against war with Russia, a position Guderian maintained he adhered to, right up until Barbarossa began, after which he stoically did his duty, albeit... well, he paints himself as something of a maverick, in his disobedience and openly critical relations with both the high command and Hitler. He was certainly put out to grass on occasion, even if usually called back in. An interesting subject for further reading?

Pictured above and below, unfinished King Tigers. Had Germany been able to build enough of its end of war weaponry, such tanks as these, along with their jets and intercontinental missiles, might well have significantly prolonged the war. The biggest issues, aside from the proliferation of competing designs, were raw materials and production capacity.