by RNS | Jun 14, 2025 | Beating Tsundoku
Eddie Idrees, Special Forces Interpreter (Pen & Sword, 2021)
Separating friend from foe is a necessary component of modern warfare. Overcoming cultural differences in an alien environment is also crucial for operational efficiency. Even the best armies need local knowledge. In Afghanistan, the British and Americans employed interpreters such as Eddie Idrees. He risked his life in the face of extreme hostility from, not just the Taliban, but from many who he thought might be more supportive. That carried on into his civilian life in the UK, much to his surprise. This book is Idrees’s memoir of his service in and out of combat.
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Idrees begins his story by recounting his time as a child in a Pakistan refugee camp, where he learned English in a UN sponsored school. Even then he knew he wanted to be a soldier like his father. That was reinforced by a visit to Afghanistan where he witnessed Taliban atrocities and cultivated a lifelong hatred of them. He was recruited as an interpreter for the US army that arrived in the wake of the 9/11 attack, but he was suspended for alleged misconduct. Fortunately for Idrees, a chance encounter led him to serving with Britain’s elite SAS force. He took part in many missions, some of which he describes in detail, particularly his hair-raising close escape from an operation that went wrong in Kandahar. Idrees discusses the risks for interpreters, many of whom were killed in combat or executed when captured by the Taliban. Idrees also notes the endemic corruption in the Afghan army. His personal risks, Idrees could handle, but when the threat extended to his family, it was time for him to get out. He sought asylum in the UK, which was not as simple a process as he expected. Also surprising was the hostility he received from the Afghan community in the UK. Idrees has also had to live with his PTSD, but he has no regrets over his service.
This is a riveting but sometimes deeply unsettling account of a man whose service should be honoured by his adopted country. It was his risk to take to become an interpreter, but he undoubtedly saved many coalition, and Afghan, lives through his sacrifice and sense of duty. It is important that those of us on the outside, in a time of anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions, understand what men such as Idrees did for us. This memoir should go some way to helping us and our politicians make better decisions when it comes to those who did so much for us, and it deserves a wide audience.
by RNS | Jun 10, 2025 | Beating Tsundoku
Brendan O’Carroll, The Long Range Desert Group in the Aegean (Pen & Sword, 2020)
What do you do with an elite unit when the war they trained for is over? You retrain them and send them to another war. That is approximately what happened to the British & Commonwealth Long Range Desert Group after the desert war finished in May 1943. Brendan O’Carroll examines the LRDG’s new role in the ill-fated Dodecanese campaign that ended bitterly for so many.
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O’Carroll surveys the activities of the LRDG in the desert before they retrained in the Lebanon as commandos and were ordered to the Aegean. The hub of the plan was to take Kos and Leros as part of a network of Allied controlled islands. It might have worked, but the Germans had other ideas. O’Carroll describes how the LRDG used makeshift motorized sailing vessels, called caiques, to move around the islands, dropping off troops to perform their missions and picking-up them up on completion. That was fine if the LRDG were used in the way they had been trained for covert missions, reconnaissance, establishing observation posts etc, things that elite special forces do, but when used as regular troops, they did not do so well. All too often, the LRDG found themselves outnumbered and outgunned, losing men killed in action and taken prisoner. When Kos fell, the Allies lost their only airfield, and German air superiority rapidly told against the ground forces. This included a swan song for the infamous JU-87 Stuka dive bomber, which O’Carroll devotes a chapter to for its significance. The LRDG also lost men in the disastrous attempt to invade Levitha, prompting New Zealand to withdraw its contingent of soldiers. For the climactic battle for Leros, the LRDG supplied 150 men out of 3,000 defenders, but they made little difference to what O’Carroll calls an ‘avoidable’ outcome.
The individual stories told by the men of the LRDG are the highlight of O’Carroll’s book. Their resilience and courage are undeniable, in combat, on the run from the Germans, and escaping their clutches even as POWs. O’Carroll leans into the vital roles played by Greek civilians in assisting the LRDG at the risk of execution, and the curious role of the Italians, now allies, is well-covered too. The inclusion of the chapters on the JU-87 and a regular soldier’s account of the fighting on Leros, while fascinating, make the book seem a wee bit disjointed, but they add to the overall picture of an ill-conceived campaign that Churchill should probably never have authorized. On the whole, this is a gripping book that WWII readers will enjoy.
by RNS | Jun 3, 2025 | Beating Tsundoku
Nic Fields, The Jugurthine War 112-106 BC (Osprey, 2025)
Most students of ancient warfare will associate the Numidians with their role in the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. Indeed, this is the first we hear of Numidia, a north African state, consisting of a few agricultural communities and a vast interior populated by nomadic herdsmen. They had fought with the Carthaginians and then with Rome, becoming something of a vassal state. However, that casual relationship blew up in Rome’s face in 112 BCE when Numidian internal political divisions exploded into a civil war, forcing Rome to intercede against a usurper king, Jugurtha. Nic Fields takes us into the ensuing war that escalated into a level of brutality that even shocked many Romans.
The uncertainties of studying ancient history are immediately apparent in the Jugurthine War for which we have no certain chronology; our main historian, Sallust, having no interest in such matters. Nevertheless, Fields is able to answer most of the how and why questions. The Numidian Jugurtha was in illegitimate prince who had fought alongside Rome in Hispania, where he learned the Roman art of war, which he would use to his advantage against them when the time came for him to usurp the Numidian throne and take on the legions. He fought, or bribed (allegedly), a few Roman generals, but his nemesis would be the infamous Gaius Marius, a provincial aristocrat but also a seasoned general.
Fields examines the opposing forces. The core of the Numidian army was a body of lightly armed foot-soldiers supplemented by some heavier infantry, archers, and elephants. But it was their light cavalry that presented the greatest threat to the legions when operating in a combat environment more conducive to mobile warfare. The Roman manipular legion presented too much of a challenge to the Numidian army in pitched battles, as demonstrated by the Roman general Quintus Metellus at the Muthul river in 109 BCE. Jugurtha withdrew, however, into the mountains and plains where he could wage guerilla warfare, while the Romans ravaged towns and settlements. Metellus could not beat Jugurtha that way. Enter Gaius Marius with a larger Roman army and more brutal tactics, leading to the shocking destruction of the Capsa in 107 BCE. Still Jugurtha fought back, forcing Marius onto the defensive. It would be treachery rather than battlefield victory that brought Jugurtha down when Bocchus, the king of Mauretania, betrayed Jugurtha to the Romans. The war was over. Fields concludes by examining the historical consequences of the Jugurthine War, which was far-reaching militarily and politically.
The Jugurthine War is not one that automatically comes to mind when thinking of Rome’s great campaigns, yet as Fields demonstrates in this slim volume in Osprey’s excellent Campaign series, it highlights many of the problems facing the Romans as their Republic faltered in the late second century BCE. This was not a war that favoured the Roman style, and it required innovations that prompted military reforms and definitively altered Roman politics. Fields works his way through the causes and consequences while narrating the main events in his usual authoritative manner, supported by Osprey’s customary high quality graphics and illustrations. Fields’s The Jugurthine War fills an important gap in Osprey’s coverage of Rome’s wars, and it is an enjoyable and informative read.
by RNS | May 31, 2025 | Beating Tsundoku
Jeffrey R. Cox, Dark Waters, Starry Skies (Osprey, 2025)
The Pacific theatre in World War II was a sprawling mess, one which is difficult to describe accurately except in broad brushstrokes. We see the big picture, the main strategic thrusts and the major battles featuring carriers and battleships, but the nitty-gritty of the war fades into the background. To bring out a more detailed view of the theatre, we need to examine it under a magnifying glass. In Dark Waters, Starry Skies, Jeffrey Cox shines a light onto a slice of the Pacific war, the Guadalcanal-Solomons campaign from March to October 1943, revealing an intense tactical conflict on land, air, and sea.
Cox opens with European missionaries held captive then executed on the Japanese destroyer Akikaze, which he then follows into battle on escort duty around Guadalcanal. That widens out into the broader effort by Japan to resupply and seize control of Guadalcanal at the end of 1942. Cox almost gleefully describes the failure of this mission. The Japanese turned to retrenching in the Solomons and New Guinea, building intermediate airfields, which Cox argues should have already been done. The loss of Buna early in 1943 hampered this operation too as the Allies built airbases, which accompanied by rampant US submarines, would wreak havoc on the Japanese. Nowhere was this more true than in the Bismarck Sea that the US had turned into a shooting gallery. Such was the mayhem that the Japanese came to believe that missionaries on the islands were passing information to the Americans. That led to the war crime on the Akikaze, told in horrific detail by Cox.
Cox turns his attention to the US, beginning with their strategic considerations and allocation of commands. From there, Cox narrows in on the island of Guadalcanal and the stranding of the 1st Marine Division for them to protect a vital airfield. Cox notes that the naval and air action around Guadalcanal fluctuated between day and night, with the Japanese controlling the dark; meanwhile on land, the Marines mowed down reckless Japanese infantry assaults. The appointment of Admiral Halsey to command forces in the South Pacific galvanised Americans in all the services, and the war changed. The US navy took on the Japanese, sometimes at point-blank range: the tide was turning.
Having established a platform for both sides in this increasingly chaotic conflict, Cox embarks on a rollercoaster narrative of almost non-stop action, with two themes familiar to students of the Pacific War: Japanese deterioration and the inexorable rise of the US, though not without its complications. In February 1943, the Guadalcanal campaign ended, which was followed by a lull and reorganisation, then the two sides came to grips again in the Solomons. Cox notes that the US relied on airpower while building its naval forces. The Japanese suffered from navy-army infighting, which did not help them in either arena, and their air force suffered from irreplaceable losses. Under the waves, the submarine war did not all go the US’s way either, but again, they could replace losses while Japan increasingly could not. Cox argues that the US did win the intelligence war hands down, calling that the difference between victory and defeat. This dominance showed in the remarkable assassination of Admiral Yamamoto, which had little strategic effect but boosted US morale. Cox continues with blow-by-blow accounts of the fighting on and around New Georgia and New Guinea. Ultimately, the ‘domino’ theory the Japanese employed for its island hopping conquest worked against them, beginning with the loss of Guadalcanal. Cox closes by returning to the Akikaze war crime, who ordered it and why it was never investigated properly.
Jeffrey Cox has written a stirring and authoritative account of the Solomons campaign. His narrative is all-encompassing, from the highest levels of decision making to the bridges of the competing ships to the pilot’s cockpit and the infantryman’s foxhole. Cox is free with his opinions on it all, sometimes, maybe too often, sliding into sarcasm when hindsight reveals what he thinks should have been obvious to those dishing out the orders. That is a good thing because this is never a dry and dusty historical account but an action-packed narrative that puts Cox’s readers into the heart of the combat. For those readers interested in the experience of war, rather than the rivet-counters and tech obsessives, this is a stirring and illuminating book.
by RNS | Apr 27, 2025 | Beating Tsundoku
Lawrence Paterson, Kriegsmarine Atlantic Command 1939-42 (Osprey, 2025)
Pity the merchant navy ships crossing the Atlantic in the early years of World War II. They feared the U-boats, but arguably worse was spotting a ship on the horizon and identifying it as one of Germany’s battleships on a raiding mission. There was little chance of escaping those big guns. The battleships belonged to the Kriegsmarine Atlantic Command, and in this new Fleet series book from Osprey, Lawrence Paterson surveys Germany’s surface menace.
Paterson begins with the surprise of World War II’s opening shots for a navy that was not ready. Then he works back to the Treaty of Versailles and subsequent efforts to skirt its restrictions, most notably by building ‘pocket’ battleships. However, Grossadmiral Raeder was wedded to surface fleet power, which limited submarine and air power development, though U-boats would soon be on the rapid building list just before the war. Lack of building capacity curtailed fleet development, leading to the concept of merchant raiders to strike and run on convoys before the Royal Navy could react. Paterson surveys the fleet available to Raeder as the war commenced, beginning with the battleships Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz, and Bismarck then the pocket battleships Deutschland, Admiral Scheer, and Admiral Graf Spee. Then came the heavy cruisers Admiral Hipper, Prinz Eugen, and Blücher, followed by the lighter vessels, including the destroyer and torpedo boat flotillas and minesweepers. Gunnery was, of course, important to surface vessels, and Paterson considers those next before moving on to the kriegsmarine’s constantly evolving command structure and all the internal friction that entailed. Paterson follows the fleet’s move to the French coast after the fall of France in June 1940, placing them on the Atlantic coast. That is a convenient transition to discuss operational doctrine.
The kriegsmarine adopted the Kampfgruppe concept, assembling battle groups to pursue singular objectives. This helped target Allied convoys but proved somewhat impractical with the adopted risk-averse approach to combat and potentially losing ships. Paterson also reviews naval intelligence and the roles of logistics and facilities, particularly those on the French coast. Paterson’s analysis of combat operations is conducted chronologically, including the demise of the Graf Spee, destroyer actions launched from Brest, the 1940 anti-convoy operations of Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper, and a series of successful anti-convoy actions in 1941 by Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, though these would be the last conducted by capital ships. Then RAF raids took their toll, putting Gneisenau out of action, followed by the Bismarck sinking and myriad mechanical problems with the other capital ships that limited operational effectiveness. In the wake of Bismarck’s loss, Hitler shut down operations other than the defence of Norway while he prepared for the invasion of Russia. Finally, the capital ships dashed through the English Channel from beleaguered Brest, in February 1942, and escaped to Germany. They never re-emerged, effectively ending German surface naval operations in the Atlantic. In his analysis, Paterson notes Hitler’s interference as the main reason for the failure of the Atlantic fleet, though the capital ships had demonstrated what they could do when unleashed.
Lawrence Paterson has written a succinct but engrossing account of the Kriegsmarine Atlantic Command. Many casual readers of the German navy’s exploits will be familiar with singular events, such as the sinking of the Bismarck or the hunting of the Graf Spee, but Paterson ties those events into the broader picture of naval operations. That brings out the destructive potential of the raiding strategy but also illustrates its shortcomings and outright failures. In the end, Paterson’s survey highlights the recklessness of Germany’s premature decision for war in 1939, when the Navy was clearly unprepared, but also what might have been if they had waited; that is a counterfactual worth thinking about.
