by RNS | Aug 26, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
Angus Konstam, British Lend-Lease Warships 1940-45 (Osprey, 2024)
It is a commonly held belief that Britain was unprepared for the war that descended on it in September 1939. This was apparent in almost all facets of Britain’s defence, from an undermanned and outgunned army to a barely adequate air force. Strategically speaking, however, it was at sea where the situation soon became desperate as vital Atlantic convoys fell prey to the U-boat wolfpacks. Britain needed convoy escort warships and turned to the United States to get them. Naval historian Angus Konstam narrates that story in this brief survey and describes the ships that arrived in the nick of time.
Konstam begins by highlighting Churchill’s need to protect the Atlantic convoys that had become easy pickings for German U-boats. Britain had launched a shipbuilding programme, but that would take time the country might not have; therefore, Churchill begged the Americans to lend him some destroyers. The origins of those destroyers are Konstam’s next port of call, and he provides a potted history of the US destroyer programme from WWI through to the outbreak of the Second World War. To get the destroyers from an isolationist United States, Churchill had to trade some military bases for fifty obsolete warships split between the Royal Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy. The transfer began in September 1940.
The transferred destroyers arrived in England for upgrades to make them serviceable for the fight ahead. Konstam describes the destroyers, noting their class and name changes into their new service. He adds that the US transferred other ships, mostly frigates, as the war dragged on. Once in RN hands, the ships were modified for purpose, some more than others, then they were deployed to one of three operational commands: Rosyth Escort, Western Approaches, and the 1st Minelaying Squadron. Konstam examines the capabilities of the Lend-Lease destroyers. Their main purpose was detecting and combating submarines, which meant adding Asdic to find the U-boats and depth charges to sink them. They also maintained guns for hitting surface targets when required. As an old destroyer sailor, I was amused at Konstam’s depiction of the crews of the destroyers hating life on board; the crews of the Captain-class frigates, on the other hand, lived in relative luxury by comparison. Konstam closes with on overview of the Lend-Lease ships in action, including the St Nazaire raid and HMS Campbeltown, formerly the USS Buchanan. However, that was an atypical use of a Lend-Lease ship and Konstam narrates the more typical adventures of the ill-fated HMS Stanley and HMS Bentinck as they tackled the U-boats. A list of ships in their groups completes Konstam’s survey.
Lend-Lease ships are probably not the sexiest naval topic to write about, but Konstam does a good job of describing them and their history. The introduction is a wee bit long when more room could have been used to extend the narrative of how these ships performed and what it was like to serve on them, though the latter aspect is at least included, which many books of this nature omit. Nevertheless, Konstam has written a neat and tidy overview, and he was assisted admirably by Osprey’s usual high quality artwork and many photographs of the ships. Naval history students of World War II will enjoy this work as will those interested in the submarine campaign in the unforgiving Atlantic.
by RNS | Aug 20, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
Shlomo Aloni, Yom Kippur War 1973 (Osprey, 2024)
We tend to assume that the Israeli Air Force (ILAF) rules the Middle-Eastern skies, and that they always have. After all, it acts with impunity in current conflicts and famously destroyed the Arab air forces in the 1967 Six Day War. But that has not always been the case. In Yom Kippur War 1973, Shlomo Aloni describes and analyses an Israeli Air Force set up for the wrong war and one that struggled to adapt to changing wartime conditions.
Aloni lays the groundwork with a brief narrative of how the conflict between Egypt and Israel had simmered and flared after the 1967 Six Day War to the Egyptian-Syrian invasion of Israel in October 1973. He then compares the aerial capabilities of the respective combatants. The Egyptians and Syrians had re-equipped their air forces and reorganised their defences to avoid another 1967-style humiliation, but that also limited their offensive options. Opting for ground to air defences along the front supported by the air force in the rear appeared to be their best strategy. Forewarned of Egypt’s plans for war, the Israelis planned accordingly and increased the number and quality of their warplanes. But their planes lacked electronic warfare protection and suitable weapon systems. Aloni considers the strategic objectives for the three combatants and the orders of battle through which they intended to achieve them. He notes that Egyptian and Syrian air forces were predicated on defending initial gains on the ground, while the Israeli air force was offensive rather than defensive.
On 6 October 1973, the Egyptian and Syrians attacked the alerted but still not quite deployed Israelis. Aloni switches to narrating operations as the war unfolded. He tells how the Israelis were caught on the hop, losing valuable time and ground. Aloni argues that the ILAF’s impact was minimal on the first day. On Day 2, the Israelis launched Operation Challenge then Operation Model against the Syrians in a still controversial change of plan. Some argue that Model was a disaster for the ILAF, but Aloni disagrees, contending that it was neither a success nor a failure but was a wasted effort. The ILAF actions against the Egyptians also proved inconclusive. And so, Aloni’s narrative proceeds on a day by day track, with Aloni describing the action in detail and his analysis of events. By Day 7, he notes, the ILAF claimed it had suffered considerable attrition, but in reality, it had not. Nevertheless, the claim sparked a new and final phase of the war that lasted eleven days and swung decisively towards an Israeli victory. In his final analysis, Aloni argues that the ILAF failed to realise its pre-war planning and had to adapt to realities on the ground. Despite that, Aloni contends, the ILAF did not achieve most of its strategic goals even as they changed to suit the situation. But Aloni concludes that the ILAF succeeded in reforming the Syrian and Egyptian air forces and those countries’ strategic aims in the war.
Shlomo Aloni has written an illuminating and sometimes surprising survey of the air war in 1973. His overview of the combatants, including their strengths and weaknesses, lays out an efficient prelude to the action that he narrates in the second half of the book. And, while the narrative is pitched mostly at the operational level, and is therefore sometimes quite dry, Aloni intersperses that with some fascinating accounts from the men who flew the aircraft. He is ably supported by Osprey’s usual high quality maps, artwork, and photographs. However, Aloni’s story is almost exclusively concerned with the ILAF, with all the problems that entails, and it would be interesting to read a companion volume told from the other side. Nevertheless, Aloni’s book will find a ready audience in students of the Arab-Israeli wars and enthusiasts of air warfare in general.
by RNS | Aug 13, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
David Greentree, Crusader vs M13/40 (Osprey, 2024)
When you picture tank duels in the Western Desert during World War II, my bet is that you do not conjure up British Crusaders fighting Italian M13/40s. You may also believe the myth that the Italian tanks were weak and as likely to run as stand and fight. Some British tank commanders thought that too, but as David Greentree highlights in this new volume in Osprey’s Duel series, the truth was quite different.
Greentree notes that the M13/40 was more than capable of holding its own against the early model Crusader, which had an inferior engine, a defective water pump, a weak gun, and was prone to throwing a track. It would not be until the Grant and Sherman arrived before the Italian tank became overmatched. Greentree explains that the British were late to the show when it came to realising the potential of tanks, and they opted for many designs over a few good ones. From that emerged the Crusader as a cruiser tank, though one with numerous problems and difficult to operate. The Italians initially focused on tankettes over tanks. Their first medium tank was the M11/39 but was soon superseded by the M13/40 then the M14/41 and other models. Greentree then compares technical specifications: ammunition, armour (with the M13/40 sadly lacking in that department), mobility, vision, and communications (the latter reads like an afterthought on both tanks).
Moving on to doctrine, Greentree laments the British lack of a clear plan on how to use tanks. The concept of combined arms was a notion that escaped them in practice, and the old cavalry mentality hindered development – the Axis forces would teach them the hard way. By 1938, writes Greentree, the Italians had adopted a mobile warfare doctrine that fostered combined arms divisions incorporating M13/40 tanks. Greentree also compares training and organisation before describing the action in the desert. He begins that with the Italian army under pressure then destroyed in February 1941. In the German supported fightback, the M13/40s suffered from mechanical issues under desert conditions. Combat wore down the tanks mechanically, and they suffered under British counterattacks, including a substantial contingent of Crusader tanks. It should be noted here that Greentree discusses the overall tank forces rather than duels between Crusaders and M13/40s. However, he emphasises actions between those tanks in his accounts of Operation Crusader, the Battle of Gazala, and the Second Battle of El Alamein – his descriptions of close combat are particularly illuminating. In his final analysis, Greentree argues that the Italian medium tanks were a match for the high maintenance Crusaders, but as the tide turned in the desert, the Italians found themselves outgunned and susceptible to miscommunications with their German allies, resulting in almost inevitable defeat.
Crusader vs M13/40 is an interesting addition to Osprey’s Duel series. Greentree’s survey opens the vista of the desert war for those who are only familiar with the Afrika Korps and its headline grabbing heavy tanks. The fighting between these medium tanks was a much closer affair, though Greentree makes it clear that tanks alone were rarely successful on the desert battlefield. He also highlights how a tank was not a self-contained war machine but one that relied on a support network on and off the battlefield. Greentree’s well-written combat descriptions are neatly woven into the technical aspects of these medium tanks, and enthusiasts of tank warfare and the desert war will enjoy this book.
by RNS | Jul 29, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
David Allison, Fight Your Way Out (Pen & Sword, 2023)
Those familiar with the Burma theatre in World War II will undoubtedly be aware of the astonishing defence of Kohima, in spring 1944, where the Japanese invasion of northern India faltered and eventually broke. Less well known is the siege of Sangshak on the road to Kohima that saw a multinational force of British, Indian, and Gurkha troops fight an equally desperate battle against the Japanese but one that ended very differently. David Allison narrates that awful but inspiring story.
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Allison begins with the Japanese making themselves ready to cross the Chindwin river in a surprise offensive designed to knock the British out of India. He notes, however, that it was also a very finely balanced plan that relied on clockwork timing for success. While the Japanese crossed the river, a well trained but inexperienced brigade of Indian and Nepalese paratroopers and British troops under the command of Brigadier Hope-Thomson were practicing for war in the region of Sangshak. They hoped for some action but not the tsunami of Japanese infantry that smashed into them. The Brigade, minus one company that was almost annihilated, withdrew from beleaguered forward positions to concentrate on a hilltop at Sangshak village. The Japanese surrounded them, and an intense six-day siege ensued, with relentless frontal assaults supported by mortars and artillery wearing down the dogged defenders. Allison describes the terrible conditions on both sides, though his attention is mainly on the defenders. The Japanese finally grabbed a vital toehold, forcing Hope-Thomson, suffering from a nervous breakdown, relaying an order from Division for his men to break out and flee to Imphal. Allison makes it clear that this was the right decision. He describes the flight of several of the groups and the fate of those left behind – they were treated with an unexpected civility. The scandalous aspect of this engagement lay in the immediate aftermath, with accusations of cowardice levelled at the paratrooper brigade and Hope-Thomson unjustly demoted and returned to England. Allison sympathises with the Brigadier and clears up some of the other questions generated by the battle.
By rehabilitating the reputations of Hope-Thomson and the men who fought under him, Allison is pushing at something of an open door. The importance of Sangshak and the efforts of the defenders are well established, and the whiff of incompetence has been lifted from Hope-Thomson. Allison has, however, added an exclamation mark to the historical record while writing a gripping narrative of the siege; he assails the reader’s senses with the sights, sounds, and smells of a savage battle. Students of the Burma theatre will no doubt add Allison’s book to the growing bank of knowledge and understanding about this once forgotten campaign.
by RNS | Jul 13, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
Tony Morgan, Margaret Clitherow an Elizabethan Saint (Pen & Sword, 2022)
It might seem a bit odd that a Sixteenth century butcher’s wife could become one of the forty Catholic martyrs of England and Wales. But Margaret Clitherow was no ordinary woman; she was a person of resolute faith in a time of religious paranoia and persecution, and she paid the ultimate price for her devotion. In this book, Tony Morgan takes you into Elizabethan England and inside the provincial city of York to tell Clitherow’s extraordinary tale.
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Morgan structures most of his book in three layers. The first is at the national level, beginning in Henry VIII’s reign and the cleaving of the English church from Roman Catholicism. The political turbulence that produced ran through the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I then into the long reign of Elizabeth I. Morgan narrows his focus to a Tudor history of York, where the religious turmoil at the national level rippled through local politics. The third level of the story is that of Margaret Clitherow and her family, which was intertwined with city politics – her stepfather at the time of her death was the Mayor. Morgan slices those corresponding stories chronologically with the theme of religious oppression and persecution binding them. He draws them together into a single narrative with the culminating story of Margaret’s arrest, trial, and dreadful execution – she was pressed to death, in March 1586, for refusing to enter a plea to the court.
Margaret Clitherow deserves to have her story told by someone as steeped in local knowledge as Tony Morgan. He is particularly good at explaining the machinations of York politics and the dynamics of religious practice in the city. No matter how the reader views fanaticism and martyrdom, no one deserves Clitherow’s fate, and Morgan brings out the all too human emotional struggle she must have endured. On the wider level, Morgan explores many of the political, economic, and social themes of the Elizabethan period that still resonate. This is a dry read, though, with Morgan offering some commentary but rarely wandering too far from his sources, leaving unanswered some of the big questions that Clitherow’s story elicits. The tiered structure doesn’t help in that regard, with the chapters becoming somewhat repetitive until Morgan unifies the narratives upon Clitherow’s arrest. Nevertheless, students of Elizabethan and religious history, in particular, will enjoy Morgan’s book.
