by RNS | Aug 29, 2022 | Beating Tsundoku
Jon Diamond, Burma Victory 1944-1945 (Pen & Sword, 2022)
The Burma front provided some of the most vicious combat in the whole of World War II, and it was often fought in the most inexplicable terrain imaginable. Burma Victory surveys the Allied fightback in 1944 after being pushed to the border of India just two years previously. It is a story told in words and photographs in the latest Pen & Sword Images of War series.
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Diamond establishes the background to 1944’s Allied offensive with an overview of the Far East theatre and the different plans on either side. Along the way, we meet many of the major players in the fightback, including Stillwell, Slim, and Wingate. It is the latter’s command of Operation Thursday and Stillwell’s assault on Myitkyina that Diamond describes next. These involved the famous Chindits and Merrill’s Marauders, but also the local Kachin forces whose help for the Allies proved crucial. Diamond pauses his narrative to take a closer look at the commanders on both sides and their armies. We get back on track with the incredible Allied defence of Imphal and Kohima from March 1944, where the Japanese came within the width of a tennis court from breaching the Allied lines but fell back in disarray. From then on, the Japanese retreat gained momentum with the Allies in hot pursuit. Diamond returns to American operations south of Myitkyina and the building of the famous Ledo (Stillwell) Road, linking Burma to China, before signing off with poignant photographs of graves and Allied officers awaiting their Japanese counterparts to surrender their forces in Burma.
For an Images of War book to succeed, it must illuminate and inform visually and through its text. Burma Victory does that more than satisfactorily. Diamond’s text doesn’t set the heather on fire, but it is functional and tells the story well. The selection of photographs also does its job, highlighting the problems the Allies faced from the weather and terrain as much as the Japanese. We should also note the maps Diamond sprinkles throughout the text, which prove useful to follow what was quite often a complex campaign. The most significant aspect of this book, however, is Diamond’s willingness to emphasize the roles of the many different nations and cultures that fought the Japanese in Burma. Thus, we see photographs and read about Ghurkhas, Sikhs, Africans, and, of course, the Burmese in addition to the British and American soldiers. That alone makes this book stand out as a more than useful introduction to the latter half of the Burma campaign.
by RNS | Aug 27, 2022 | Beating Tsundoku
Ilkka Syvänne, Gordian III and Philip the Arab (Pen & Sword, 2021)
The Roman Empire in 235 C.E. The Emperor Alexander Severus lies dead beside his hated mother in his campaign tent. His rival Maximinus Thrax is about to assume the Purple, but he will also lead the Empire into a crisis that will last most of the rest of the century. In this book, Ilkka Syvänne narrates the military history of the crisis through biographies of the four emperors who made it happen.
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Syvänne’s academic credentials are on show from the beginning, with an analysis of his sources. They are few and lean towards the earlier period, and the book’s structure follows a similar path. Syvänne acknowledges that he accepts sources where others might not, though he declares his speculations in the text, and he is inclined to use the theory of ‘military probability’ based on his military education. As the reader, if you can allow Syvänne that latitude, you will enjoy what follows. Syvänne’s second platform for understanding the narrative is a description of the 3rd Century Roman army complete with drawings of soldiers by the multi-talented author.
We step into the reigns of the emperors next, starting with Alexander Severus and his dominating mother, Julia Mamaea, from 222 to 235 – Syvänne uses the unfortunate term ‘mama’s boy’ to describe Alexander, a blip in an otherwise well-written book. This was a period of rebellions, Persian invasions, and Roman counter-invasions, out of which Alexander’s military reputation did not emerge unscathed. When Alexander, or Julia, abandoned a planned invasion of Germany, Maximinus curried favour with the army, who deserted en masse, while Alexander was assassinated. Maximinus ruled through fear and savagery. He also conducted campaigns into Germany lasting three years in which the Romans won the pitched battles but were dogged at every step by Germanic hit-and-run tactics. However, when Maximinus attempted to raise extraordinary taxes in Africa in 238, he set off a widespread series of revolts in what became known as The Year of the Six Emperors. Gordian I kicked off the revolt but he was soon dead along with his obese son. The Senate nominated two more emperors, Pupienus and Balbinus, to carry on the rebellion, which they did while raising up a boy, Gordian III, to become a figurehead emperor. Syvänne picks his way through the resultant confusion and conflict, including Maximinus’ assassination by his soldiers, and ending with the murders of Pupienus and Balbinus.
That brings us to the reign of Gordian III, and we run into source problems for him, particularly how to treat the Historia Augusta. Syvänne tells us that Gordian faced more military problems from 238-241 and narrates the Persian War from 241-244. The man behind the throne during this period was Timesitheus, but he died to be replaced by Philip the Arab, who became co-emperor, then probably murdered Gordian to become the outright emperor. Syvänne notes that our sources are down to mere fragments for Philip but does his best to fill in the considerable gaps. Philip made peace with the Persians in 244 but was soon at war in the Balkans and faced revolts, most notably in Egypt. Decius usurped Philip in 249 and had him killed. Syvänne argues that Philip has been under-rated as emperor and as a commander. And here, Syvänne’s narrative ends.
If you haven’t read much ancient history and are just looking for a good story, you might find Syvänne a bit heavy going. He likes to get into the weeds and shows his readers the inner workings of constructing a narrative through interpreting evidence. But this is the joy of Ancient History, collating the evidence to see what is hidden and then debating the results. Syvänne’s skill is in making that accessible to readers outside the academic sphere. He writes well and with obvious superior knowledge of his subject. This book is no different in that regards. In this book, Syvänne shines a light on a murky period in Roman history and provides a better understanding of the complex events that made up the crisis of the 3rd Century.
by RNS | Aug 21, 2022 | Beating Tsundoku
Dick Kirby, Missing, Presumed Murdered (Pen & Sword, 2022)
There is a common misconception that there needs to be a body before someone can be convicted of murder. That is not the case as the murderers described in Dick Kirby’s new book found out to their cost.
This lopsided book features six murder convictions where a body, or bodies, were never found. Five are given single chapters, including the infamous acid bath murderer, John George Haigh. The sixth case is a lengthy exposition of the kidnapping of Muriel McKay, covering multiple chapters and forming the bulk of the book. The cases are described from the event through the trial and sometimes beyond. It isn’t clear, however, why Kirby chose to add the shorter cases, particularly Haigh’s, which has been well-covered before by other crime historians. The McKay case was surely strong enough to carry an entire book?
It is how these cases are narrated that catches the reader’s notice – his style is marmite; you’ll enjoy it, or you won’t. Kirby clearly has significant insight into investigations, being a former police officer himself, and his no-nonsense style will appeal to some readers. When he finds the police wanting, for example, he lets you know it in no uncertain terms. But too often, Kirby tips his criticism over into unnecessary vitriol. His comment on an unknown public official as a ‘pasty-faced little twerp’ is uncalled for, and the characterisation of a man he calls ‘gay as a fruit bat’ is just offensive and should never have made it past the copy editor. If you can put those things aside, then true-crime readers will probably enjoy this book.
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by RNS | Aug 3, 2022 | Beating Tsundoku
Martin Stansfeld, Japanese Carriers and Victory in the Pacific (Pen & Sword, 2021)
Could Japan have won the war in the Pacific? Perhaps not, but Martin Stansfeld argues that they had a better chance of doing so if they had followed a carrier strategy over building more battleships. That leads him to manufacture a tantalising ‘what-if’ based on Japanese carrier potential in this enjoyable book.
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Who reads the acknowledgements? You might like to read this one, however, because this is where Stansfeld outlines the prominent historical works on which so much of his conjecture is based. He begins constructing his historical platform with the ‘Mutsu Incident’; the loss of a Japanese battleship in 1943. In the first of his ‘what ifs’, Stansfeld posits that if it had happened in 1936 then the subsequent battleship building programme might never have happened, and the Emperor might have listened to the carrier based thinking of Isoroku Yamamato. That prologue establishes Stansfeld’s method of describing historical realities to construct alternative narratives. Along the way, Standfeld visits the Washington Treaty and how that worked, or didn’t, the development of naval aircraft, Japan’s construction of the ‘shadow fleet’- a fleet of ‘legal’ ships designed for quick carrier conversion – and then Stansfeld gets into his Yamamato thesis, the idea that Japan could have built a ‘Phantom Fleet’ of carriers, and finally, he analyses what might have been the massive, decisive fleet battle off the Marianas between a properly tooled Imperial Japanese Navy and the US Navy.
Written in a sometimes loose fashion without footnotes, this often has the feel of a stretched essay, building the speculative argument steadily on firm historical foundations. Stansfeld demonstrates that Japan had the tools available to switch to a carrier led force; what if they had built them and trained the pilots needed to conduct operations and create a reserve? Stansfeld’s discussion of carrier building and merchant ship conversion is illuminating in that regard. He is also scathing on Japan’s decision to build two super-battleships instead of carriers, and he considers the capacity of Japanese dockyards to produce those, leading to a 1,000 plane fleet by the close of 1941. Stansfeld argues that the Japanese would have been able to conduct this programme in relative secrecy, mostly through the hubris of Allied intelligence. Stansfeld’s exploration of this through contemporary editions of Jane’s Fighting Ships is fascinating.
When Stansfeld takes us out to sea, and into battle, he stops off at Pearl Harbor to again denounce the reliance on battleships then deal with the question of why the Japanese did not take Hawaii – he argues that with the correct carrier support, they could have taken Oahu then the rest of the islands. They could also have taken Ceylon in the Indian Ocean with a potential link-up with the Germans in Arabia, though he acknowledges the latter is highly speculative given Nazi racial ideology. After moving his pieces around the Pacific War board, Stansfeld comes to a postulated battle (and much of this reads like the after-action report of a complex and one-sided boardgame) at the Seychelles. This would set the Allies back by years, Stansfeld argues, then would come the decisive carrier battle in the Marianas Islands in August 1945. He accounts for ‘rogue factors’ a bit too readily, then posits two scenarios where one side or the other wins (I felt like Lucy had pulled the ball away), but either way, the world would have changed forever.
I am not a fan of ‘what-if’ speculations; they tend to be one-sided, not accounting for the reactions of the enemy to developing situations; they also often fail to account for enough variables or take them for granted; and they often marginalise the human factor, which modern military history has done so much to highlight. But Stansfeld’s effort is better than most I’ve read. That is partly because it is well-written, though with some irritating detours such as the Nanking massacre, the Vietnam War comparison that wasn’t, the Star Wars movie, Rosie the Riveter, Bikini Atoll atom bomb tests, and Hitler at Berchtesgaden. Stansfeld also builds his argument on a platform of solid evidence and doesn’t erupt into wholesale fantasies. My biggest disappointment on completion was that Stansfeld could have dumped the counterfactual element of this book and written an engaging history that would have stood with some of the best that he mentions in his text – he clearly knows his stuff. Nevertheless, this was an engaging and provocative read and recommended for students of the Pacific War.
