by RNS | May 22, 2020 | Beating Tsundoku
Carl Rudolph Small, Memories Unleashed (Casemate, 2019)
How do we ‘see’ the Vietnam War? Not as a Hollywood movie with beginning, middle, and end set to orchestral waves of emotion. No, this was the first media war, told in snippets on the nightly news, digested in discordant bite-size chunks over TV dinners and ultimately found unpalatable. We do not know many names from Vietnam, a war with apparently few heroes, just shared suffering and sacrifice among everyone involved. Carl Rudolph Small’s, Memories Unleashed reflects that cultural fragmentation with forty-three memories strung together into a patchwork of experience, with no names but all pack-drill.
Small joined the Marines in 1969 as a private, served 13 months in Vietnam, received three promotions, and came back changed forever. The marine, as Small calls himself, came under fire on his first night in Vietnam, saw his first casualties, lost his first friends. And for the next year he fought the elusive enemy and their booby-traps, and the environment; the heat, monsoon rains, rats, bugs, leeches, snakes, and a trapped tiger that stopped the war just for a moment. The firefights that run through the book were short, intense affairs of flashing light and noise; men died, others were wounded, then came the next mission and the next firefight. Along the way he found a puppy and wrote letters home to the girl he knew he would marry. That along with childhood memories and his religion motivated the marine to survive and do the best he could for his men. The marine describes the food, going for a swim, the dirty duty of latrine cleaning, giving lectures to new arrivals on how the enemy might kill them, and Christmas; he attended a Bob Hope show, sort of, then it was back into combat to become the hunter and the hunted. More fighting, more killing, then he went home, but Vietnam came with him and stayed in his nightmares.
Small’s memoir is not an enjoyable read, but it is a necessary one for those interested in how the Vietnam War was fought on the ground. Small achieves total emotional immersion for the reader, not an easy effect to pull off in a slim volume. He brings the sights, smells, and sounds of the war to the page, assisted by his snapshot kodak photographs of young men sent into a situation for which few were prepared. Small rarely considers the wider war and what it meant, concerned more for his squad and their small and often violent world. That might be a failing in other works on Vietnam, but here it adds to the intensity. Reading Small’s unleashed memories is an experience in itself.
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by RNS | May 21, 2020 | Beating Tsundoku
Paul Westermeyer, The United States Marine Corps (Casemate, 2019)
Paul Westermeyer’s slim volume on the US Marine Corps (USMC) is part of Casemate’s Short History collection. It is split into six chapters, each defining an era of USMC history. It is a longer history than some might suspect, having been weaned on John Wayne WWII movies, grainy Vietnam War footage, and shocking HD television news stories from the blurred frontlines of Iraq.
The USMC dates to 1775 when Congress authorized its formation. They performed like other marines, fighting ship-to-ship or carrying out amphibious landings. With independence secured, it would not be long before the USMC became the spearhead of US foreign policy, performing the role of an Expeditionary Force against the Barbary Pirates among other actions. Ever since, the USMC has been involved in every major combat from capturing John Brown at Harper’s Ferry in 1859 to patrolling the chaotic streets of Fallujah in the 21st Century. Westermeyer argues that the USMC came of age from 1899 to 1919, covering the Spanish-American War and World War I. The latter also saw the USMC deploy two aviation units. The inter-war period was a time of learning and putting doctrine into place, which was timely given the work they had to do in the island-hopping campaign against the Japanese in WWII, though they made their WWII reputation defending Guadalcanal. The USMC has rarely seen peace, and during the Cold War they fought in Korea, saving themselves and Korea with their legendary withdrawal from the Chosin Reservoir, and Vietnam where they fought the Tet Offensive to a standstill in key locations such as Hue. By the 21st Century, the USMC had developed into a powerful combined-arms force, incorporating the latest technology on land and in the air, but each Marine is never allowed to forget that no matter his specialty he is a rifleman first. As such, the USMC has fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, developing their tactical abilities while maintaining their strategic role as America’s expeditionary force.
Westermeyer’s tidy narrative of USMC history is interspersed with vignettes, describing the USMC’s various roles and adding colour to the story. His accounts of pivotal battles highlight the multiple roles the Marines have adopted, though he allows some of the lengthy quotes to escape his authorial control. The United States Marine Corps also contains useful illustrations and photographs that assist the narrative. Though more detailed histories exist, this is certainly an excellent introduction to the USMC and a great companion to take along if you visit the superb USMC museum in Virginia. 8/10.
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by RNS | May 20, 2020 | Beating Tsundoku
Jim Thayer, Tango 1-1 9th Infantry Division LRPS in the Vietnam Delta (Pen & Sword, 2020)
Jim Thayer volunteered to fight in the Vietnam War as Long Range Patrol Ranger. The personnel specialist in charge of assigning Thayer thought he was either mentally impaired or possessed of an insatiable death wish. He may have had a point. Tango 1-1 is Thayer’s memoir of his immersion into combat at the very tip of the American spear and it is a hair-raising ride.
Thayer was already a soldier when he re-enlisted to fight in Vietnam, but he had never seen combat. He was familiar with the routines of army life, though service in the LRP was anything but routine. He joined Team 1-1, a small unit of warriors inserted by helicopter, truck, or boat into potentially lethal situations in the Mekong Delta. Most missions were interesting but uneventful, Thayer writes, but his team also captured Viet Cong guerrillas; conducted reconnaissance missions that ended in firefights; set ambushes as hunter/killer teams; and fought pitched battles against NVA regulars. The Rangers used a variety of weapons to suit their missions. Some of those were conducted in a jungle environment but most were out in the open among paddy fields and along riverbank villages. Vietnamese PRUs sometimes went with the LRPs and proved themselves able soldiers.
Thayer became team leader through attrition, and was awarded numerous medals, including the Silver Star, which he paid for with a serious wound that earned him some time in Japan. When he returned, Thayer took to going on patrol in bare feet and wore a headband rather than a hat; he “looked more like a Mandalay pirate”. Thayer’s memoir also discusses his down time at USO shows, barracks life, eating a captured pig, and drinking beer, but he focuses more on the drama of Vietnam where he endured falling off a truck at high speed, fire ants, snakes, searing heat, monsoon rains, booby traps, enemy ambushes, watching comrades die, being wounded slightly but eventually severely, and a failed marriage. During the end phase of his tour of duty, Thayer began experiencing PTSD and recognized that combat had worn down his mental acuity and self-confidence and that luck played a large part in his survival. While on compassionate leave, Thayer was assigned to a training unit. After more surgery, Thayer left the army for a career in law enforcement.
Tango 1-1 is more than a personal memoir, but a homage to Thayer’s unit and the men he fought alongside. While the usual Vietnam tropes of heat and smell and culture-shock are in the book, Thayer avoids the sometimes wearisome ‘literature’ of the Vietnam War to tell straightforward stories of men in combat, although why he opted for simple chapter headings rather than give his stories titles eludes this reviewer. In addition, the blurb taken directly from a Stars & Stripes propaganda piece on Rangers does him no favours by casting some doubt on the veracity of his experiences. Nevertheless, Thayer’s memoir is testimony to the real courage these men displayed in alien conditions against a tenacious enemy. Those interested in Vietnam, and in particular LRPs and their tactics will enjoy Thayer’s memoir and learn a lot from it. Highly Recommended. 8/10.
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by RNS | May 19, 2020 | Beating Tsundoku
Mike Ingram and Graham Evans, The Battles and Battlefields of Northamptonshire (Northamptonshire Battlefields Society, 2020)
When thinking of English battlefields, does Northamptonshire spring to mind? Me neither. Yet Boudicca fought here, as did Saxons, Vikings, Lancastrians and Yorkists, Cavaliers and Roundheads, and there is a curious historical footnote to do with the Battle of Waterloo. It turns out that this somewhat nondescript English county lays claim to being something of a crossroads in English military history. Mike Ingram and Graham Evans bring us all the action in The Battles and Battlefields of Northamptonshire, complete with lots of maps and photographs.
The authors begin with a potted history of the county, which was a strategic, political, religious, and economic centre; in short, an area worth fighting over. The location of Boudicca’s climactic fight with the Romans is uncertain, but why not Northamptonshire? Ingram and Evans posit two possible sites. A trip through Saxon Northampton follows, but if they fought the Vikings, as they surely did, then we do not know where. We are on familiar ground in the mediaeval period surrounding the Baron’s Wars, but no battles just sieges. Then comes the Battle of Northampton in 1460, during the Wars of the Roses. This battle put Northampton firmly on the military history map and the battlefield is mostly still intact. It is also the subject of a separate, and accurate, book by Mike Ingram. The other Wars of the Roses battle, Edgcote in 1469 was not really a WoR battle at all, argue the authors, but an internal struggle among the ruling factions in England. You can visit this one too. We leap forward to the 17th Century and the Midland Rebellion of 1607, which was more of a massacre of protestors rather than a battle. Northamptonshire was a proper battleground during the English Civil War. Some minor fighting is narrated as well as the vitally important Battle of Naseby in June 1645. The authors describe this campaign and battle in some detail. Even the Jacobite Rebellions of the 18th Century saw some action in Northamptonshire, sort of, with the Black Watch Mutineers being run to ground in 1743 as they marched back home from London. The last ‘combat’ seen in the county was actually a movie reconstruction of the Battle of Waterloo that took place in 1913; there were two casualties, though nothing serious. A generous and welcome plug for the Northamptonshire Battlefields Society concludes Northampton’s military story.
The Battles and Battlefields of Northamptonshire is a tidy little volume that does a little more than what you might expect on first viewing, especially with a very boring cover – never judge a book by it, they say. The text is clean, nimbly skipping across an often complex historical background to some of the battles being described; the sprinkling of photographs and maps help illustrate those. Ingram and Evans have therefore succeeded in putting Northamptonshire on the military history map with this collection of informative and entertaining stories. They have written a very useful guide for battlefield visitors, and hopefully those interested in protecting Northamptonshire’s important historical record. 8/10
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by RNS | May 18, 2020 | Beating Tsundoku
Mike Ingram, Richard III and the Battle of Bosworth (Helion, 2019) 
The momentous Battle of Bosworth fought on 22 August 1485 was a significant turning point in English history. In the first of a new series by Helion Publishing, From Retinue to Regiment, historian Mike Ingram takes on the task of narrating a new version of the battle based on historical sources and recent archaeology.
Ingram lays out his groundwork with a detailed survey of his sources, the family trees of the Houses of York and Lancaster, and an annotated timeline of the Wars of the Roses. He then provides a detailed background to the Wars as a series of connected events rather than a continuous conflict. Ingram goes back into the 14th Century to untangle the roots of this complex dynastic struggle that also involved France and Burgundy. Events accelerated with the accession of the utterly inept Henry VI. Then with the English defeat at Castillon in 1453 the storm broke and open warfare erupted between competing nobles while Henry VI lay catatonic. Many battles were fought, and the Throne changed hands several times, but by 1485 the crisis was coming to a head with Richard III as King and Henry Tudor landing in Wales with a small force.
Here Ingram breaks off with an illuminating chapter on 15th Century warfare, and biographies of Richard and Henry, an overview of the connections between Henry, France, and Burgundy, and an account of the events leading up to the Battle of Bosworth. Henry landed on 1 August 1485 near Milford Haven and marched into England, gathering troops as he went. Richard III mustered his army and advanced to meet him. That encounter took place at Bosworth where Richard died in battle and Henry emerged triumphant. By then events were already disappearing into misty legend and historians ever since have attempted to reconstruct the battle.
The general story of Bosworth is well known – a kingdom for my horse, and all that – but we are short on details. Or we were until battlefield archaeology conducted in the 2000s changed the game completely. Ingram has jumped on the new evidence to describe a very different Bosworth but one that makes sense of the physical and source evidence. His interpretation is convincing and likely to stand the test of time. Ingram concludes with three appendices on finding the battlefield, Richard III’s grave, and the likely order of battle.
Ingram’s book is well written and nicely illustrated throughout, with some plates in colour. His expertise in the area of battlefield reconstruction shows through clearly, and his analysis of the evidence is skilful. This is not only an enjoyable book therefore, it is authoritative. Highly recommended. 9/10
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