Book R & R: Hazelet's Journal

This Book Review and Recommendation is on "Hazelet's Journal" by George Cheever Hazelet, edited by J.H. Clark.

I admit that I predominantly read (and write!) military history. But I also have a fascination for American History of the western frontier. The last true frontier, and the last rush to claim it, was the Alaska Gold Rush. So when I was contacted by editor and publisher J.H. Clark, asking if I would enjoy receiving a review copy of "Hazelet's Journal," I readily agreed.

George Cheever Hazelet was a former school principle and business owner living with his wife and two sons in Nebraska in 1897. His business collapsed that year due to the financial panic and economic downturn that swept the country in the mid-1890s. Hazelet felt his opportunity to get his family back to their previous economic status was to try his hand at prospecting as part of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush. He left his family behind and struck out with his partner, Andrew Jackson Meals, for Alaska. An educated man, Hazelet kept a detailed journal of his experiences.

Hazelet and Meals outfitted in Seattle. Most of the thousands of prospectors who were headed for the Klondike landed in Skagway or Dyea (in southeast Alaska) to take either the White Pass or Chilikoot trails to the Yukon River, then raft down to Dawson (in the Yukon Territory, Canada). The Hazelet party was one of the fewer numbers who landed in Valdez, Alaska to climb the Valdez Glacier and cross over the mountains to the headwaters of the Copper River. In Hazelet's Journal, you'll read about the struggle to overcome the terrain, the climate, and the loneliness of prospecting the Alaska wilderness. Mortal danger exists on a daily basis from river crossings, freezing temperatures, and claim jumpers. Hazelet is straightforward in his entries, his journals are engaging yet hyperbole is refreshingly absent. His descriptions ring true. This is a primary source document at its entertaining best.

George Hazelet did not "strike it rich" in Alaska in that he was not able to set up a commercial mining operation. He and his partner did, however, homestead 720 acres in what is today the city of Valdez, Alaska. Hazelet and Meals returned to Alaska with their families and left behind a legacy that is part of the collective history of the 49th state. Editor J.H. Clark is George Hazelet's great grandson. He is also president of the Port Valdez Company, which traces its history back to those original 720 acres of land and the various other business ventures started by George Hazelet. Clark has done a wonderful job of editing and publishing "Hazelet's Journal," keeping the original voice of the author. I must also comment that the book is beautifully formatted, with dozens of historic photos, and maps that can only be described as works of art. My only criticism of the work is that I would have liked to see a more in-depth introductory chapter on the various gold strikes in Alaska and the Yukon. For those that are not familiar with this segment of American History, I would recommend also reading "Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush" by Pierre Berton. But even still, this does not detract from "Hazelet's Journal," as few are familiar with the exploration of the Copper River Country.

Book R & R: Giap

This Book Review and Recommendation is on "Giap: The General Who Defeated America in Vietnam" by James A. Warren.

Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap recently passed away on October 4, 2013 at the age of 102. From the time he was born in 1911 until the communist victory over South Vietnam in 1975, his country was either occupied by a foreign power, or at war. Next to Ho Chi Minh, Giap is probably the most revered Vietnamese "founding father." Certainly the most well known in the United States. He is the mastermind behind the French defeat at Dien Bin Phu, the Tet Offensive, the Easter Offensive, and the 1975 Spring Offensive (which finally defeated South Vietnam and united the country under the communist government).

The publication of Warren's book is timely, but that's not the reason to read a biography of this man. Vo Nguyen Giap's life is a history of Vietnam in the Twentieth Century and the United States was one of the key players. His leadership and military decisions were instrumental in ending the American involvement in Southeast Asia. James Warren conveys this without pounding the reader over the head with it. The book is not lengthy (at just over 200 pages) but it is thorough enough so that the reader gets a clear picture of not only the life of a self-taught military genius (too much?) but also a summary history of the French and American involvement in Vietnam.

Giap was in fact a self-taught military strategist. While studying in Hue before WWII, he was a voracious reader of military history and politics (p. 7). He also spent time as a history teacher (p. 10). However, his greatest insight (with a little help from his political mentor Ho Chi Minh) and implementation of the concept, was that "the army and the people are one."(p. 25) This set the stage for building a guerrilla army whose key to victory was outlasting their opponent. Although it took thirty years, Giap served as commander-in-chief of an army that defeated both France and the United States.

Warren's writing style is straightforward and readable. His conclusions are also clear and in my view inarguable. When I was an army officer, I read quite a few biographies of military figures. It was part of how you learned your trade. I would have added this book to my reading list. If you would read a book about Rommel or Robert E. Lee, then you might want to read a book about Vo Nguyen Giap. James Warren's book is a great choice.

Palgrave Macmillan provided a review copy of "Giap: The General Who Defeated America in Vietnam."

Book R & R: The True German

This Book Review and Recommendation is on "The True German: The Diary of a World War II Military Judge" by Werner Otto Muller-Hill, introduction by Benjamin Carter Hett.

Werner Otto Muller-Hill was an upper-middle class German from Frieburg. He served as a military judge in the First World War before he went home to pursue a legal career. He was recalled to active duty in the German Wehrmacht, again to serve as a military judge in 1940. He was very pro-German, and very anti-Nazi. He started keeping a journal in March 1944 as a record for his young son, in the event he did not survive the war. Defeatism and criticizing the Fuhrer were crimes in Hitler's Germany, so if the things Muller-Hill wrote in his diary were ever found out, it could mean his death. But he survived the war, closing his journal two weeks after the German surrender to the Allies. He was sixty years old at the end of the war. Muller-Hill died in 1977.

German military justice was draconian during WWII. For example, the introduction provides the statistic that during WWI, German military courts sentenced 48 soldiers to death. However, under Nazi rule from 1933 to 1945 at least 20,000 and maybe as many as 33,000 or more soldiers, civilians, and POWs subject to military justice were put to death. (p. xvi) As Benjamin Carter Hett says, "Nazi military law...specified both harsh penalties and a speedy procedure, with few rights for defendants." (p. xix) Werner Otto Muller-Hill was one of the "good" judges though, who obviously thought a soldier would perform better back in his unit rather than hanging on the end of a rope.

What makes Muller-Hill's diary so interesting, and so valuable as a historical tool, is the amount of information he had, or moreover, what he knew. On April 5, 1944 Muller-Hill wrote that "We are rushing head-long into the worst kind of defeat...In a year we'll know more!!!" He almost predicted the outcome of the war and the date of Germany's defeat. Filtered through propaganda, briefings through his chain of command, newspaper and radio, this rear echelon officer knew quite a bit about things that previously we thought the average German did not. Along with his insight, he was often sarcastic and sometimes humorous. He talks of missiles being fired at London as "retribution" for the landings in Normandy (pp. 49-52) and also predicts the futility of the Battle of the Bulge (p. 131). He praises the attempt on Hitler's life (p. 59) and is upset about the use of 14-year old boys being put into defensive positions toward the end of the war (p. 92).

Most startling is Muller-Hill's rant about a speech given by Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, where he writes "What nerve this man has! How dare he talk about gruesome maltreatment of women and children, when we've summarily murdered hundreds of thousands of Jewish women and children in Poland and Russia!" (p. 155). For me this helps to dispel the myth that the general populace of Germany, particularly the Wehrmacht, had no knowledge of the Holocaust before the end of the war.

"The True German" is a quick read, and in the real voice of an astute observer of what was going on around him. Reading this book provides the opportunity to hear what a very knowledgeable German officer was thinking at the time the events unfolded around him. His words are not filtered by a historian or other writer. The book is, in fact, a primary source document, both enlightening and entertaining. A nice addition to your WWII library.

The publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, provided a review copy of "The True German."

Book R & R: Operation Barbarossa

This Book Review and Recommendation is on "Operation Barbarossa: Nazi Germany's War in the East, 1941-1945" by Christian Hartmann.

Regular readers know that recently I have advocated viewing WWII through different perspectives, for example reading about some myth-breaking facets of the war like sex crimes committed by Allied Forces, or how we treated deserters, or the experiences of soldiers from different nationalities. Operation Barbarossa was the German invasion of the Soviet Union, what we commonly refer to as "the Russian Front." Because there were no U.S. forces fighting in that Theater, the typical American knows as much about it as they do say, the British fight for Singapore. "Operation Barbarossa: Nazi Germany's War in the East, 1941-1945" can remedy that. It is a quick read (208 pages including back matter) and a palatable history of the major theater of World War II.

In June of 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union along an 1800 mile front with over four million Axis soldiers. By the fall of 1941, the German offensive pushed into Russia to within twenty miles of Moscow. The Russians held and later pushed the Germans back, with the help of war material sent from the United States under the Lend-Lease program. The fighting on the Eastern Front involved the largest battles of the war, some of which are know to use in the west, like the siege of Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kiev, and the Battle of Kursk. The latter being the largest tank battle in history. By the end of the war in 1945, Operation Barbarossa would account for an estimated 26.6 million Soviet casualties, 13 million of which were civilians. These numbers represent as much as sixty-five percent of all Allied casualties incurred during the war, including the war with Japan. The German Army lost 2,743,000 soldiers on the Eastern Front (pp. 157-158). That's about half of Germany's military casualties during the Second World War.

Christian Hartmann is a military historian at the Institut Fur Zeitgeschichte in Munich and is a senior lecturer at the Staff College of the German Armed Forces in Hamburg. In his book, Operation Barbarossa: Nazi Germany's War in the East, 1941-1945, Hartmann has given us a succinct, yet very readable history. I found his concluding chapter on the aftermath of the war particularly insightful. Hartmann points out that Operation Barbarossa was the clash between the two largest totalitarian systems existing prior to WWII. The war between the Nazis and Stalinist Russia laid waste to both countries. While this condition gave rise to the Cold War, it also allowed for a new Germany to be built from scratch. And because of the Cold War standoff with the Soviet Union, the western Allies were forced to take a chance on creating a new, industrialized and autonomous Germany from the beginning, rather than focusing on punishment and reparations. Hartmann also posits that a factor in the Cold War staying cold was the memory of the destruction wrought during the German-Soviet war. I agree.

Why do we study military history? When I was an army officer, I thought it was to learn how to better fight the next war. I'll allow that's probably still true. But as a much older and wiser civilian I'd have to say that one reason we study a past war is so we'll learn the lesson of how terrible war is. I recommend being familiar with the shocking scale of Operation Barbarossa, especially in relation to our operations on the Western Front. Christian Hartmann's book is an excellent resource for that.

Book R & R: The Deserters

This Book Review and Recommendation is for "The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II" by Charles Glass.

The United States put approximately sixteen million men and women in uniform during WWII. Only about ten percent of them actually saw combat as front line soldiers, marines, and sailors. If you have ever read even one book on the combat history of a unit, you will come to realize that most combat units during the Second World War, once initial training was complete and sent to a theater of operations, saw combat over and over, for weeks at a time. Units would participate in a campaign, then be sent to a rear area to receive and train replacements, before heading into combat again for the next campaign. It was not uncommon, like in the case of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion, to see at the end of the war only a handful of men still remaining who had been with the unit from the start.

Of course we all now know about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the affect it has on military personnel in every echelon. However, during WWII, "combat fatigue" was commonly believed to be something you could more or less cure in a few days with a little rest, recreation, and a hot meal. About 50,000 men deserted from the battlefields of Europe during the war. (There were negligible desertions in the Pacific, as the soldiers and marines really had no place to desert to.) According to author Charles Glass, many of these soldiers left the line as a result of "shell shock" or "battle fatigue," or what we now call PTSD. Others became disillusioned with the war, wondering what they were going to die for. Over seventy percent of deserters were from front line units, and they were judged harshly and treated quite unfairly by their rear echelon peers and commanders.

Charles Glass is the former Chief Middle East Correspondent for ABC News, and has authored other highly praised narrative histories with a World War II theme like "Americans in Paris." In "The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II" he examines the reality of what it cost in terms of human sacrifice to win the Second World War. To accomplish this Glass tells us the stories of three soldiers, one British and two American, who ran afoul of the system's treatment of those soldiers who deserted as a reaction to "battle fatigue" (PTSD). It is well researched and engagingly written. Along the way you will learn about the incompetence of the medical evaluation of these men and the cruelty of the military justice system. You will read how the military handled executions, (for crimes other than desertion, Private Eddie Slovak was the only soldier executed during WWII for that offense), and learn about criminal gangs of deserters in Paris and London who were actually slowing the war effort because of their theft of Allied military supplies for sale on the black market. If you are like me, "The Deserters" will expose a facet of the war in Europe that you have never considered.

Here's an anecdote for you: During my masters program, I took a class on the Civil War. On the first night of class the professor stated clearly that "in this class we will never read or discuss anything having to do with anyone pointing a gun at another person." He meant that the class was about the results and reactions to the war, not the tactics and strategy of it. We read and discussed books about the literature of the war, the medical and burial systems during the war, the home front during the war, and so on. We read, wrote a paper on, and passionately discussed (some might say argued) thirteen books in thirteen weeks and it was one of the best classes on military history I've ever had, a real eye-opener.

If you wish to have a well informed, thorough understanding of war, and particularly WWII, then I cannot urge you strongly enough to read this book. 

Why You Should Write A History

I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because friends don't let friends read blog posts that have not been properly proofed. 

Because History Needs You

I’m writing to those people who enjoy reading history, watching documentaries, visiting museums, and traveling to historic sites. In other words, people like me. Why should you write a history book? Because all history is local and our collective memory needs you to document it.

Let me give you an example. Perhaps during WWII there was a POW camp that housed German or Italian prisoners, or maybe a Japanese-American Internment camp near where you live. If you write a book about that site, perhaps a historian who is working on our treatment of prisoners of war or Japanese internees on a national scale will use your book and others about camps at other locations for references in writing his or her tome. Congratulations! You just added to the historical record and helped to maintain our collective national memory. This is the same scenario that benefits me when veterans write about their experiences or a history of their military unit.

Yes, you have to write it. Audio oral histories are great, so are documentary videos, but the written word is still our medium of expression in the field. If you want, you can make someone help you, but you still have to write it down. One of the “writer’s blocks” I've heard most often is the idea that one shouldn't bother writing a book if they think they will never get it published. Well, that’s where today’s technology makes that kind of stinkin’ thinkin’ completely obsolete.

There are plenty of books and articles about researching and writing a nonfiction book. I just want to add in my admonition to edit, fact check, and then proofread. Make sure you can document every factual statement in your text (that’s what footnotes are for). Once you’re done, give your manuscript to someone else to proofread, and then someone else and someone else. The more eyes on the manuscript the better. When I wrote my book, “The Boldest Plan is the Best,” I had three people review the manuscript and there were still errors found after publication. If you need help in this area, you might look at an automated editor like Grammarly, or hire a low cost human to proof your book. Luckily, it doesn't cost you anything to make corrections when you are self-publishing with print-on-demand.

With print-on-demand services like CreateSpace, you can be both writer and publisher. Check out some of these services. I like CreateSpace and highly recommend it. You can format your manuscript in Microsoft Word, upload it to your account, and have it automatically produced in both print and Kindle format, listed for sale on Amazon. The proceeds from any sales will be paid to your bank account every month. But making money is your business. I’m pleading with you to add to the historical record, so I want you to donate a few copies to some very specific places.

First I want you to register the copyright on your book with U.S. Copyright Office. To accomplish this, you will have to send two copies of your book. One copy will go into the vault and the other will be available for circulation in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Next donate copies to your local libraries, both public and university. Finally, if you would be so kind, make sure to donate a copy to every archive and research library, especially your local historical society, where you found information to include in your book. That way, the historians who follow will be able to locate your book, read what your thoughts were, and add to them with their own work.

What’s in it for you? There are definitely some great benefits to writing a book; unfortunately money isn't one of them. Face it, the vast majority of history books sell in the hundreds of copies, not the tens and hundreds of thousands. We are an extreme niche market, we consumers of history. So unless you are Rick Atkinson, Nathaniel Philbrick, Hampton Sides, or Eric Larson (some of my favorite narrative history authors) you will be lucky to earn enough to pay for picture rights or even just the postage to mail out some promotional copies. However, what is more valuable in my opinion is the feeling of accomplishment you gain from writing a book and “putting it out there.” You will have completed something that very few people ever start, much less complete. And you will have left a lasting legacy that will be appreciated for a long time. So I thank you in advance and wish you luck on your project!

Book R & R: The Last Battle

This Book Review and Recommendation is on "The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe" by Stephen Harding.

"The Last Battle" is the story of the Battle for Schloss Itter in Austria that took place on May 5, 1945. This was five days after Adolf Hitler committed suicide and just two days before the end of WWII in Europe. The castle outside the village of Itter, Austria was used by the Nazis as a VIP prison for (mostly French) political prisoners during the war. It was under the administration of the Dachau concentration camp, less than a hundred miles to the north in the suburbs of Munich. As the war was winding down and American forces were advancing, the castle's guards deserted and left the prisoners to their own devises. The French diplomats correctly assumed that retreating SS units would arrive at the castle and execute them. They sent runners to find American forces to come to their aid, while also contacting the local Wehrmacht (German Army) commander who had let the local resistance forces know that he was anti-Nazi and wished a peaceful surrender.

An American rescue mission comes in the form of a platoon-sized task force from the 12th Armored Division commanded by CPT Jack Lee. Unfortunately because of various problems on the road during this behind the lines mission, Lee arrives with only one Sherman tank and about fourteen American soldiers. The Wehrmacht contingent who voluntarily chose to join the Americans and help defend the castle against the approaching SS forces consisted of two officers and about ten soldiers. This small force of Americans and Germans, along with a few of the French prisoners, defend Schloss Itter against an attack by the Waffen-SS from the early morning hours of May 5th until a relief column from the American 142nd Infantry Regiment arrives late in day.

This story is a perfect example of the legitimacy behind the cliche that "sometimes truth is stranger than fiction." Stephen Harding tells a good story and is to be congratulated for bringing it to us. Unfortunately it is a short story, although that is not the fault of the author. The Battle for Schloss Itter is too long a tale to be abridged into a magazine article, but too short for a 300-page monograph. "The Last Battle" comes in at about 173 pages not counting the back matter. That includes a thorough history of the castle and the biography of each of the French prisoners, which slows the story down for those who are anxious to hear of this unique situation where "regular" German soldiers joined with their American and French enemies to fight the SS. Other than that, once the Americans come into the area of operations, the story becomes a "page turner." What I found most interesting (as I usually do) is the epilogue where the reader learns what the players in this story did with the rest of their lives.

"The Last Battle" is a good story well told of an improbable episode in WWII history.

Book R & R: The Sword of St. Michael

This Book Review and Recommendation is on "The Sword of St. Michael: The 82nd Airborne Division in World War II" by Guy LoFaro.

There are books that cover all airborne operations in WWII like "Paratrooper!" by Gerard Devlin. There are books that cover airborne operations in the European Theater of the Second World War like "Ridgway's Paratroopers" by Clay Blair. Additionally there are multiple unit histories of the parachute infantry regiments and battalions that were part of the 82nd Airborne. But until "The Sword of St. Michael" was released in 2011 (practically on the same day that we published "The Boldest Plan"), there was a real scarcity of books that were devoted strictly to the All American Division's WWII combat history. (Contrary to what the book description for "The Sword of St. Michael" claims, it is not the only history of the 82nd Airborne in WWII. Most notably, Phil Nordyke's "All American, All the Way" from 2005 comes to mind, also with very positive reviews.)

Author Guy LoFaro is a West Point graduate with a Ph.D. who served several tours with the 82nd Airborne Division. He has written a comprehensive (and I do mean comprehensive, coming in at 784 pages) history in an engaging style that will hold the reader's attention.  I found it interesting how LoFaro treats the points where the history the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion intersect with that of the 82nd Airborne Division. Since there is not much more that I can add to the twenty 5-star reviews (at the time of this writing) of the book on Amazon.com, I thought I might share those points with you here.

Of course LoFaro covers the history of airborne from da Vinci to the Test Platoon. That's pretty much obligatory for a book on the early days of the airborne. Though I was disappointed that the author did not mention the deployments of the 509th PIB (then as the 2/503rd PIR), or the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment as preceding that of the All-American Division. However, the book is about the 82nd Airborne Division, so I have to concede that in the long view that information was not germane to the unit's history.

The first mention of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion is when the units came together in Oudja (p.70). LoFaro talks about the attachment of the Geronimos and is very forthright in explaining General Matthew Ridgway's dislike of Edson Raff. He also explains the tiff between Ridgway and British General Browning. The author confesses that because of these situations, for the 509th PIB, "it meant banishment to Ridgway's doghouse."

"The Sword of St. Michael" discusses the Geronimos' Avellino jump in conjunction with the 82nd Airborne's jump on the Salerno beachhead (pp. 142-144). In my opinion, the author took the view that the 509th PIB's Avellino operation had no affect on the battle for Salerno. In fact, he says that the drop was "a disaster," which is not untrue. However, he further submits that the Geronimos' operations behind the lines were only "a minor nuisance" to the Germans. LoFaro quotes General James Gavin when he said that "it is doubtful that it had any decisive bearing on the outcome of the Battle of Salerno." But the author chose not to include any quotes of those who felt the Avellino jump was necessary and paid dividends. Like General Mark Clark, the Fifth Army commander, for example.

The only other point where the Gingerbread Men appear in "The Sword of St. Michael" is when the author mentions that the 82nd received replacements from the 509th and the 551st PIBs (p. 526). He states simply that those units were disbanded because of such heavy combat losses.

Overall "The Sword of St. Michael" is an outstanding history of the All American Division. It is, however, a very pro-82nd Airborne book and my only other criticism is that I would have liked to hear more from the veterans of the Division describing their experiences in their own voices. Nevertheless, if you are only going to read one book about the 82nd Airborne Division during WWII, "The Sword of St. Michael" would be a good choice.

Book R & R: The Last of the Doughboys

Today's Book Review and Recommendation is "The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War" by Richard Rubin.

The Doughboys are what we called the soldiers and marines who fought in WWI, like calling the soldiers of the WWII era "G.I.s." The 100th anniversary of the First World War is going to be upon us very soon. I don't know as much as I'd like to about that conflict, so I thought I'd pick up a couple of titles to rectify that situation. One that caught my eye was Richard Rubin's "The Last of the Doughboys" that was just recently released (May 2013). The book's back cover said that Rubin had interviewed some of the last surviving World War I veterans. Being into applied history and oral history interviews, I thought this book would be a great place to start. Well, every once in a while I make a brilliant decision without even knowing that I'm doing it. "Last of the Doughboys" was a great book on so many levels.

I really enjoy Richard Rubin's writing style. His voice is very conversational and his pacing in this book keeps the reader engaged. I suspect that comes from Rubin's experience in writing feature articles for magazines like the Atlantic, The New Yorker, Smithsonian, and others. He has one other book out, but it is not a work of military history. You see, what I like about Richard Rubin is that not only is he an outstanding writer, but he follows through on his natural curiosity. And as a result he accomplished something that I think the rest of us who are "doin' history," whether it's academic or popular, should be a little chagrined that we didn't think of it first and then act on it.

So one day around 2003, Richard Rubin the writer hears the declaration that many of us have heard in one form or another: "We're losing up to 1,000 WWII veterans every day! We have to hurry and collect their stories while we still can!" But Rubin took the thought process one step further and asked himself if there were any veterans of WWI still alive, and was anyone scrambling to get their stories. Rubin then went about finding out. Initially, no one knew the answer. The Department of Veterans Affairs didn't have a list, they only estimated (based apparently on actuarial tables) that there were as many as fifteen hundred still living. After repeated inquiries from Rubin, the VA then reduced that estimate to "fewer than two hundred."

Rubin did find dozens of WWI veterans to interview: men and women, American and Canadian, Army, Marine, and Navy, all between the ages of 101 to 113. His best and main source for locating these veterans was the French government, who maintained a list of recipients of the Legion d'Honneur. The French awarded this medal during the late 1990s to American veterans who had served on French soil during the "Great War." Others he found through media research. It turns out that this forgotten war from our distant past wasn't so distant after all. Rubin traveled the country, conducting his interviews from 2003 to 2010. Some of his subjects had vivid memories of the events that had occurred eighty-five years or more in their past and were interviewed on more than one occasion. Others, let's just say they proved to be less than successful. His last interview subject was the last surviving American veteran of WWI, Frank Buckles, who passed away in February 2011.

I'm amazed at what Rubin did as far as thinking up this project, and then unrelentingly following up until the last veteran of WWI had passed away. In addition, I am more than impressed with what he did with the information. If the veteran was a combat veteran of say, Belleau Wood, then Rubin explains the circumstances, events, and effects of that battle to the reader. You'll also hear about what conditions were like on the home front, how we treated the immigrant population, the military's handling of "shell-shocked" soldiers, how we suppressed free speech with the Sedition Act of 1918, and how we deployed cavalry (yes, still using horses) to guard the Mexican border. You'll even learn about media coverage of the war and popular culture as expressed in song lyrics of the day. Every aspect of the war is covered, and accompanied by the voice of the young person who lived through it and experienced it. This book is a "page turner." The history is accurate and provided in a voice that is entertaining and engaging.

If you are looking for a book that covers only the military actions, strategy, etc., of the First World War placed on a timeline, then "The Last of the Doughboys" is probably not the book for you. If instead you are looking gain an insight on the whole of the war and its effect on regular people whose lives were forever changed by it, then I cannot urge you strongly enough to read this book. It will have a prominent place on my bookshelf, ready for a re-read in the near future.

Book R & R: The Brigade

Today’s Book Review and Recommendation is "The Brigade: An Epic Story of Vengeance, Salvation, and WWII" by Howard Blum.

I had bought a copy of The Brigade a couple of years ago, and there it was on the shelf, sleeping away while others came into the house and jumped ahead of it in the queue. Between purchasing and reading the book, I had read one of Blum’s other works, The Floor of Heaven, a nonfiction story that occurred during the Yukon Gold Rush, (which was outstanding, btw) without realizing that it was written by the same author. As these things happen, the other day I was looking for a new book to start and I noticed The Brigade. Something that rates books very high for me is learning about events I was not already aware of. This book was a pleasant surprise. I wish I had read it sooner.

 The end of the nineteenth century brought the rise of the Zionist movement that inspired Jews from Europe to immigrate to Palestine. This did not sit well with the Ottoman Turks who controlled the area, but it was supported by Great Britain, who would push the Ottoman Empire out of Palestine during the First World War. After WWI, the League of Nations awarded Britain a formal mandate to administer the region. This “British Mandate” was in effect from 1922 until the state of Israel declared independence in 1948.

Due to a lot of political pressure and a measure of military necessity, Great Britain formed the Jewish Infantry Brigade Group during the last year of WWII, most of the members of which were from Palestine. The unit trained and was deployed to northern Italy where they were in combat from March to May of 1945. After the war, the Jewish Brigade was kept in Italy, and later in Belgium to serve as part of the Army of Occupation. One suspected reason for maintaining the Brigade in Europe was that the British government did not want to add fuel to the fire in the volatile Middle East by returning several thousand trained Jewish soldiers to Palestine. However, a number of the Brigade’s soldiers were members of the Haganah and had an agenda of their own. The Haganah was the main underground Jewish militia in Palestine who defended Jewish communities against violent Arab incursions, and fought a campaign for independence against the British Mandate. First, members of the Brigade formed assassination squads that scoured post war Europe terminating former low level war criminals. Later, with coordination and guidance from superiors in Jewish Palestine, the Brigade systematically helped thousands of displaced Jewish refugees, the majority concentration camp survivors, illegally immigrate to Palestine. They also worked at smuggling weapons to Palestine to prepare for their war of independence they all knew was coming. Finally, unable to control their activities, the British government disbanded the Jewish Brigade and sent the soldiers home. These Jewish soldiers became the foundation of the Israeli Defense Forces.

In The Brigade, author Howard Blum tells the story of the Jewish Brigade through the narrative of three soldiers who were involved with both the termination of Nazi war criminals and the smuggling of people and weapons to Palestine. This not only a story of fighting unit during World War II, but also a story of the Holocaust and its aftermath. While one of the soldiers searches for his sister left behind in Poland, Blum tells of the sisters struggles for survival. At times the narrative takes on the pace and excitement of a spy story, while the reader is on the edge of their seat hoping that the soldiers do not get caught on their clandestine missions.

I cannot imagine what it would be like to have been a member of this Brigade. With Arabs trying to kill you at home, going to war to fight Germans, and then dodging the British and Russian military forces to help your people reach freedom, knowing that if you are caught you will be treated like a criminal and a traitor. It must have seemed like they were fighting a war that would never end. Their sense of duty was incredible. We’ll never know what it was like to be them, but their story does provide insight to what they were fighting for and the impetus for the modern state of Israel. The Brigade is fast paced and an entertaining read. I highly recommend it, not just for military history buffs.

Soldiers Behaving Badly

I read a book review in the New York Times that ties in nicely with the theme of the last post, the fact that  people of different countries have varying perspectives of WWII. The book reviewed is "What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France" by Mary Louise Roberts. The book was just released, so I haven't had time to read it yet, but it is definitely going on my wishlist.

Roberts, a professor of French History at the University of Wisconsin, has mined French archives and U.S. military records to bring to light an apparent epidemic of sexual assaults committed by members of the American military upon French civilians during WWII. She makes the argument that these crimes were encouraged by American military propaganda dished out to soldiers prior to the D-day invasion, overlooked if not condoned by the military authority, and the knowledge of it concealed from the public back home.

As pointed out in the New York Times article, we have collectively mythologized WWII as "the good war" fought by "the greatest generation." I hasten to add a caveat: I believe (and I doubt many would argue with me) that the accomplishments of the American military, industry, and home front during the war were incredible. However, we have heard, and easily believe and retain, stories of wartime atrocities committed by the enemy (primarily the Germans and the Japanese) and even our allies (Soviets). But we're loath to read about any systemic criminal activity on the part of our own soldiers, much less war crimes committed against civilians, particularly rape and murder. But as Stanford's Professor David Kennedy is quoted in the New York Times, we should not be saying "aha," but instead be saying, "of course."

Several times in my life I have either read or heard someone utter some derivation of the statement "yes, bad things happen in war" when presented with a story of an American war crime. As if they are really saying, "sure, sure, now...can we move on to a story of American valor and courage where we are, of course, the good guys?" No doubt that WWII history is a genre that is consumed by the public. And most popular historians will write about subjects that sell. The story presented in "What Soldiers Do" is a wonderful example of the beneficial work that academic historians do. Someone needs to look at the tough subjects, even if they won't be popular in the marketplace. Terrible things do happen in war. But if we want to stop them from occurring, we have know about them. At the risk of being criticized for quoting Dr. Phil, "monsters live in the dark."

Book Review – Death in the Baltic

Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff by Cathryn J.Prince

If you ask any given person what the worst maritime disaster was in history, (of those who could bring one to mind) you would probably hear about the Titanic, or even the Lusitania. However, I’d say it’s a safe bet that the odds are astronomical that you’ll find someone who knows about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Now author Cathryn J. Prince has brought this story to our attention.

The province of East Prussia is located on the Baltic Sea, between Latvia and a small sliver of Polish territory that allows that country access to the Baltic. Historically, the area was a Polish duchy, but when Poland was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union in their Non-Aggression Treaty of 1939, the territory went to the Nazis. Where before East Prussia was an area of mixed ethnicity, now began a period of "Germanification." The Nazis and the Soviets relocated the civilian population by the hundreds of thousands. Ethnic Germans were expelled from Soviet states and relocated to East Prussia.

East Prussia, having been separated from the rest of Germany during the interwar years, had not been overly influenced by the Nazi rise to power. They were also relatively unaffected by the war until late 1944 when the Red Army started closing in. That all changed when the Soviets began to retake their former territory. Retribution for Germans was terrifying. The anticipated rape and murder by Russian soldiers created a panic to flee the area. However, Hitler would not allow any evacuation of civilians from East Prussia until Russian tanks were literally breaking through the German defensive line. Almost too late, the head of the German Navy, Admiral Karl Donitz, launched Operation Hannibal, the evacuation of both military and civilians across the Baltic to the German port of Kiel.

The goal of Operation Hannibal was to move one million military personnel and two million civilian refugees by ship and/or train from the eastern provinces to northern Germany beginning on January 23, 1945. Over 800 ships, both military and merchant marine, would participate. One of those ships was the Wilhelm Gustloff, a luxury cruise ship launched in 1938. The ship had been previously used as a troop transport, hospital ship, and floating barracks for the German navy. It was designed to carry only 2000 passengers and crew when it operated as an ocean liner.

On the night of January 30, 1945 the Wilhelm Gustloff departed Gotenhafen enroute to Kiel. It was estimated, since no records survived if any were available, that the ship carried over 9,000 souls. The majority were civilian refugees, women and children, and a number of wounded military personnel on board. A short time later, the Wilhelm Gustloff was struck by three torpedoes fired by a Soviet submarine S-13. The ocean liner sunk within an hour. Since there were lifeboats for only a fraction of those on board,  many drowned in the freezing Baltic. There were approximately 1200 survivors. Some estimate the death toll as high as 9,400. For perspective, the sinking of the Lusitania took under 1200 and the Titanic claimed just over 1500 lives.

The sinking was not deliberately kept secret over the years, but it wasn’t exactly publicized either. In post WWII America, not many people cared about what had happened to our former enemies. The ensuing Cold War with the Soviets further obscured the tragedy in the world’s collective memory. Author Cathryn Prince heard about it one day and was driven to find out more. She found a survivor who had since immigrated to Canada. Prince went there to interview him. That’s all it took to compel Prince to find more survivors to interview, and finally tell their story.

Prince articulates an observation that Americans have a tendency to not acknowledge the suffering of the German people during the war, not wanting to view them as having the right to be “victims” of the Nazis like other nationalities in Europe (p. 181). But if we are able to put those prejudices aside, there is a lot to learn in the details of the closing days of WWII in the European Theater. Moreover, as a reader and writer of military history, I think it’s a good thing that we periodically put strategy and tactics aside and examine the experiences of civilians during war.

The book is well written and reads at a good pace. There is no fluff, coming in at 236 pages including back matter, but it is a thorough history. The reader will learn about what happened on the Eastern Front in the closing days of WWII, and be caught up in several of the survivor stories. Photographs of the survivors as children help us see them as real people who went through extraordinary events. In the interest of full disclosure, Palgrave Macmillan provided a review copy of this book. I’m glad they did, as at first glance it was not a subject I would have chosen. However, I highly recommend Death in the Baltic. It is an interesting, well told story that brings a little known event from WWII to light.

The Fountain of Youth?

Down in St. Augustine, they are celebrating the 500th Anniversary of Ponce de Leon landing in Florida this week. According to the St. Augustine Record, events during the week-long celebration will include the unveiling of a new statue to the Spanish explorer where historians now believe he landed, a reenactment of said landing, and a wreath laying ceremony at the existing statue of Juan Ponce de Leon in town.

We all learned about Ponce de Leon when we were kids. He was a Conquistador. He "discovered" what is now Florida in 1513. He was looking for the Fountain of Youth, right? Wrong. The waters that reversed aging was a legend, both in Leon's time and in ours. Ponce de Leon was tied to it by his contemporaries and later by our own Washington Irving, probably one of the first of a long line of American writers of fanciful historical fiction. The real story is that most explorers knew where Florida was. Ponce de Leon was the first to claim it for Spain and attempt to explore its interior. He was, of course, looking for gold or certainly some other commodity to exploit. Juan was trying to keep up with his fellow conquistadors who were gaining fame overthrowing Central and South American native societies. On his second trip to Florida, with the intent of setting up a colony, he was wounded in a fight with the locals. He later died of his wounds.

I read the true story of Ponce de Leon in Tony Horwitz' book "A Voyage Long and Strange." I mentioned reading this book back in December 2008. (It was such a good book that I think it's about time to get a copy of it and read it again.) Horwitz describes how we celebrate different groups that "discovered" America, including Vikings in Canada, and explains that what we are celebrating or what we think we know about these groups and events is usually just mythology created by popular culture.

T.D. Allman reminds us of the mythology surrounding the Ponce de Leon story on this benchmark anniversary in an opinion piece in the New York Times (which is also really worth reading). Allman is the author of "Finding Florida: The True History of the Sunshine State." I haven't read his book yet, but I put it on my wishlist, simply based on this op-ed in the NYT. I enjoyed Allman's straightforward language and I assume we also share a frustration with the influence of popular culture.  Allman writes that "If we took the trouble to understand the past, we might stop building our lives on top of sinkholes." In other words, if we don't tell the truth, and we don't take away any lessons, we're going to keep making mistakes. If that is the case, and we're just going to listen to the people making up stories, why do we pay historians to try to find out the truth? And besides, in my opinion the true story is just as exciting, and often more so, than the myth.

Book R&R - We Were Soldiers Once

Earlier this month I talked about going back and reading some of what I considered had become "classics" of military history that had gotten by me when they first came out. Admittedly this idea was spawned in part by all of the great books I was finding at used bookstores and my local library sales. I decided to start calling these posts "Book R&R," for review and recommendation. I hope you will find these books as meaningful as I did (or perhaps in some cases, take my recommendation to pass them by). I believe readers should review books as often as possible and recommend the ones they like to others. There are just so many outstanding books, and a good number of stinkers too, that we could all use a tip once in a while.

Book Review and Recommendation: "We Were Soldiers Once...And Young: Ia Drang - The Battle That Changed The War in Vietnam" by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway.

"We Were Soldiers Once" came out the year I left the Army (1992) and for a few years I had gotten away from reading any subject after WWII so this incredible book got by me. I suppose like many people I can thank Mel Gibson's movie for bringing this book back onto my radar. There is a reason this book is on the Center For Military History's Recommended Professional Reading List for Junior NCOs and is also on the United States Army Chief of Staff's Professional Reading List for 2013. Actually, General Odierno is joined by two previous Chiefs of Staff in recommending this book to his officers. I humbly join them. This is an amazing book. Not just a war story, but I believe an honest morality tale. It is both fascinating and disturbing at the same time.

There is probably nothing I can add to the hundreds of reviews of this book (367 on Amazon alone). However, I'd just like to tell you what lessons I took from this book. First of all, at the risk of hyperbole, I must say that I wish every American would read this book. In it, the reader will learn about the bravery of the American soldier and the real cost of war in terms of the sacrifice of those who have to fight it. It is a story that transcends the conflict in Vietnam and is very applicable to our modern military adventures, where the burden of war is carried by only a small number of our citizens.

The first half of the book describes the formation of what would become the 1/7 Cavalry, part of the first air mobile division (1st Cavalry Division) and its deployment to Vietnam in 1965. The 1/7th Cavalry is commanded by the co-author, Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore. Moore's battalion is sent into LZ X-ray and survives a battle against what would have been overwhelming odds if it were not for massive American artillery and close air support, along with the expert leadership of the officers and NCOs in the battalion from Moore down and the undisputed bravery of each individual soldier. Witness to this battle is reporter Joe Galloway, the other author of "We Were Soldiers Once." The fight for LZ X-ray is significant for study and analysis (both then and now) as the first major engagement between American air mobile infantry and the North Vietnamese Army.

The second half of the book, however, was not portrayed in the Mel Gibson movie. It tells the story of Moore's sister battalion, the 2/7th Cavalry, that was marching toward LZ Albany to be extracted after reinforcing the 1/7th at X-ray. While approaching the LZ, unprepared for meeting the enemy, the battalion was attacked by three battalions of NVA soldiers. The chain of command was not able to bring artillery and air support to their rescue in this engagement for several hours. The results were devastating. Both fights constitute the Battle of the Ia Drang, not just the part stylized in the movie version.

The most moving part of the book is revealed in the closing chapters. The stories of two of the soldiers' widows and two fatherless daughters bring to light how the sacrifices on the battlefield not only take the lives of amazingly talented soldiers, but also dramatically affect the loved ones at home, who also pay the price and for the rest of their lives. Reading about the aftermath and the effect on the veterans and their family members is a very emotional experience. However, even more amazing and anger inducing is the way the battle was treated by the leadership of the country. The upper management of the Army and the government refused any lessons to be learned from this battle, and the country continued on a path that we now know was already decided upon before the 1st Cavalry Division even arrived in Vietnam.

If anything I took away an amazing respect and gratitude for the soldiers who fought at LZ X-ray and LZ Albany. I was disturbed at the failure of our leadership and our citizens to take away the lessons offered by the event at the time. Although they were not heeded back in 1965, they are still there for us today. If you enjoyed the movie, I hope you will read the book. Only by knowing about it can we understand the whole and true story of the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. History is rife with examples of the need for a citizenry that is engaged in our country's foreign policy. This is one of them.

The Indifferent Stars Above

Need I admit it on every post? Yes, I have a book problem. So many intriguing titles come up on my radar that I am constantly adding to my stacks of books in the house and my Amazon wishlists. Some sit in the queue for years while others jump into line ahead of them. I'm still trying to get around to reading all of the classics of American history, not to mention working through all of the great history books that come out every year. For example, can you believe I'm just now getting around to reading Dee Brown's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee?" And not that new version either. I'm reading the paperback version from 1971 that I found in a used bookstore years ago...but I digress...

In 2010 I saw a book about the Donner Party that looked interesting at the time, but I put it on the back burner while I was into a WWII phase with occasional injections of Civil War and French and Indian War books. Lately I have been getting into western history (Wild West?) subjects and California history so I went down to the library (my library's online catalog has wishlists too!) and checked out "The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of A Donner Party Bride" by Daniel James Brown. I liked it. I would urge you to give it a read.

If, for some reason, you've never heard the story of the Donner Party, here's the gist: In 1846, the first major year of travel on the Oregon Trail and the California Trail, several families including a few single workers, their oxen, horses, dogs, etc. take a recommended "shortcut" that in fact puts them more than a month late in crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains. They are trapped for the winter at the top of the mountains, running out of food, eating all of their animals, and eventually some of their own people who died from starvation and exposure. After the survivors were rescued the event became stuff of legend. Donner Pass along Interstate 80 and a California State Park were named for the pioneer group and every student in California public schools learns the tale.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that one of the hallmarks of a good book for me is when I either learn about something I didn't know, or some mythology was dispelled. That was certainly the case with Indifferent Stars. Having grown up in California I held on to the sanitized version of the Donner Party tale as taught to me in school. I thought that they were a cohesive group of family and friends who, under the leadership of (obviously) the patriarch of the Donner family and through no fault of their own, were caught by early snow storms in the mountains and suffered the consequences. A cautionary tale indeed, meant to make the junior high version of the Roving Historian understand the hardships of the pioneers.

Here's the truth as illuminated by Daniel Brown:
The group of three families and some single hired men that became known as the Donner Party did not really come together until they left Fort Bridger in modern day southwest Wyoming. The wagons caught up to each other attempting to make it through "Hastings Cutoff," a supposed shortcut blazed by historic ne'er-do-well Landsford Hastings. The cutoff turned out to be a trail uncut for wagons through the Wasatch mountains of Utah. Rather than saving time it cost the pioneers weeks, thus causing the emigrants to get caught in the Sierras by impassable amounts of snow.

The party was under the leadership of George Donner in name alone. Actually Franklin Graves, the father of the bride referred to in the subtitle of the book, turns out to be a more capable, while informal, leader of the group. Rather than operating as a cohesive team fighting against the elements, the situation more or less turned into "every family for themselves." There were actually three different camp sites in the pass and, with few exceptions, each family hoarded their own supplies. Yes, there were several, independent, incidences of cannibalism.

Daniel Brown writes well. But it is the story itself that makes "The Indifferent Stars Above" a page-turner. There is intrigue, there is murder, there is stupidity, selfishness, and cowardliness. Yet this story also has examples of self-sacrifice, bravery, and fortitude. You'll have the opportunity to transport yourself across time and try to understand what would make a man pack up his family and everything he owns to travel to a mythical land that the only things you know about it were read in a tourist guidebook and where there is a rather good chance that someone you know will die along the way. You will certainly appreciate the hardships of the emigrant trail in reading this "worst case scenario." Much more than the junior high version of you could ever comprehend.

Book Review: “Man of War” by Charlie Schroeder

Spoiler alert: I didn’t like it and the book made me mad.

In 1999 Pulitzer Prize winning author Tony Horwitz wrote a book titled "Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War." In major portions of the book Horwitz tagged along with Civil War reenactors that to the uninitiated came across as quirky at best, totally insane at the worst.  But the theme of the book was that even though the Civil War (at the time) was over 140 years old, that period of American history had an effect on the lives of people today. I like that book.  I've been a fan of Horwitz ever since I read it.

Charlie Schroeder took Horwitz’ idea of participating with reenactors (he pays homage to Horwitz on page 46) with the intent of including reenactors of all periods of history.  Like the rest of us, Charlie wanted to know why these people do what they do, why they choose a certain time period or event, why civilians willingly “choose to experience war,” and “why people liked to spend their weekends without any of modern life’s creature comforts” (pp.39-40). In my opinion, he failed to answer any of these questions.

Before researching "Man of War: My Adventures in the World of Historical Reenactment" (Hudson Street Press, May 2012), Schroeder says that he knew virtually nothing about American history but that he became interested in part by attending a living history event in southern California called Old Fort MacArthur Days, where seventy-five different reenactment groups were displaying periods from Roman to Vietnam (p. 11).  It reminded me of an event I had attended at the AHEC called "Army Heritage Days."  That experience at Old Fort MacArthur Days (and obviously reading Confederates in the Attic) gave Charlie the idea that he would travel around the country participating in reenactor events and get into these people’s heads. He spent the next year traveling the country, participating with Roman, Viking, Colonial, Civil War, WWII (Nazis), and even Vietnam era reenactors.

Schroeder blames his prior lack of knowledge – along with his apathy – on his high school history teacher, who would give out extra credit for attending the varsity basketball game.  He also says that he used to make fun of the kids who participated in the Renaissance Fair, calling them “Ren Rats” (p. 14). It doesn’t appear that he changed his attitude much over the years.  In fact, one gets the impression that Charlie Schroeder had already made up his mind that reenactors are a bunch of wackos.  Most, according to Charlie, are politically right-wing and he goes about trying to prove it by quoting a number of fringe political statements he heard while on his year-long adventure. Charlie doesn't "get it," therefore he decided to just mock it. He seems to have cherry picked the oddest and strangest among this group of history fanatics in his attempt to prove the myth that they are all a bunch of crackpots. 

I'm very disappointed that Mr. Schoeder never got down to some serious Q & A with his victims to tell me why they do what they do and what it means to them. The book served to document a succession of missed opportunities, after having devoted so much time and money traveling around the country. I believe that the book was supposed to be humorous and “whimsical.” I did chuckle a few times but Charlie thinks he’s funnier than he really is. Actually, he comes across as rather elitist. If you don’t think he “doesn’t get it” and isn't mocking those who love history in the first person, wait until you get to the end. Charlie’s circus stunt "history ambush" walk between the two California missions in the last chapter was just idiotic.

A living historian interpreting a Native American warrior
during the French and Indian War.  Photo taken by the
Roving Historian at a reenactor event at the AHEC in 2007.

Charlie Schroeder never uses the term “living historian” which is a more appropriate moniker for what these folks do. Sure, some are strange and “out there.” Others are just interested in running around in the woods and playing army. But Schroeder never emphasizes the dedication to historical accuracy, and the commitment of time and money that many of these people give to the public. What about the guy who demonstrates glass plate photography and the women who spend time carding wool? Take a look at the picture to the left. Is anyone going to doubt that guy’s dedication to history?  Charlie doesn't talk about the positives of reenacting. Without dedicated living historians, most documentaries and movies would suck. I have a high degree of respect for people who turn other people (of all ages) on to history in a real first person way. You know, like those living historians did for Charlie at Old Fort MacArthur Days as he describes in the beginning of his book. Mr. Schroeder has done a great disservice to those living historians whose main goal is to educate the public, rather than just play dress up. Don't judge the living historians you encounter at our state and national parks based on what you read in this book. 

A New Jeff Shaara Book Is Coming Soon!

Lot's of news about books lately.  I read a lot in the winter.  Mostly nonfiction, but not always.  I do love a good historical fiction, especially one that doesn't depart from historical facts.  I’m talking about authors like Kenneth Roberts, James Michener, or Alexander Thom.  However, the best example of this quality of historical fiction writer I've found is Jeff Shaara.  I was first turned on to his father Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels (a novel of the Civil War battle of Gettysburg) way back in the 80s.  The Killer Angels inspired me to travel to Gettysburg and visit the battlefield the first time.  After reading the book, I said to myself, “Man, I want to write like that some day.”  Naturally, when Jeff picked up the torch and wrote his first book, Gods and Generals (a prequel to Killer Angels), I was immediately hooked on his work as well.  He has since written about the Revolutionary War, the War with Mexico, World War I, and both theaters of World War II.  The thing about Shaara books is that they are historically accurate, and the characters are real people.  For the most part I can safely assert that only the dialog is fiction.  The most common reaction from someone who first reads a Shaara novel is “Why don’t we teach history this way?”  You might say that I am a fan.

I found out that the next Jeff Shaara book will be out on Amazon on May 29.  Titled A Blaze of Glory, it is a novel of the Civil War battle of Shiloh.  A Blaze of Glory is the first in a new trilogy about the western theater of the Civil War.  I will admit that the excitement of finding out this information was somewhat lessened by the fact that my book pusher, Jeff Bezos over at Amazon, notified my wife Sheila before telling me.  I was hurt until I remembered that Sheila bought me the last Shaara book I read, The Final Storm set in the Pacific Theater during WWII.

So let me recommend to all of you readers of strictly nonfiction, or those of you on the opposite end of the spectrum who have never found a “history book” that has excited you.  You can’t go wrong with a Jeff Shaara novel.  I’ve read them all, and I’ll put in my pre-order for A Blaze of Glory.  When it arrives, the Shaara book goes straight to the top of the reading pile.  Can you get a better book recommendation? 

What are you reading?

I have a book problem. I never met a bookstore, library, or book club I didn’t like. I have stacks of unread books and magazines around the house, most of which are nonfiction, most of that, history. I'll get around to them all one day. Once in a while I pick up a work of fiction. As you might imagine, it's almost always historical fiction. The more accurate the better; I hate catching an author with a historical inaccuracy. It turns me off for the rest of the book. From then on I can’t trust any historical “facts” presented in the story. After that, it’s just brain candy. Admittedly, fiction is my guilty pleasure just the same. But I don’t feel like I’m learning anything.

I’ll give you a couple of examples. I picked up the book Faded Coat of Blue by Owen Parry in a used book store. It is actually part of a detective series set within the backdrop of the Civil War. I enjoyed the character of the heroic sleuth, Able Jones, who was a Welsh immigrant making his home in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Since I was living in that area of the country at the time, I saw that the author was dead on historically accurate with the history of the coal mining region of Pennsylvania. I really enjoyed the book, but I was upset when the author had the main character secretly meet President Lincoln, who asks him to work for him as a secret agent. Thus the stage is set for a detective series within the Civil War. Okay, so I read a few more books in the Able Jones series. It's a fun read, but as I said: brain candy.


One of the books that really turned me on to military history was The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. I read the book the first time as an assignment for a military history class when I was in ROTC. Since then I’ve read the book three more times and I must have watched the movie version, Gettysburg, at least a dozen more. One of the reasons I like the book so much is the attention the author paid to historical accuracy. All of the characters in the novel are historical personalities. The only thing made up in the book is the conversations the characters have with each other. Michael Shaara’s son, Jeff, has taken up the family business. Jeff Shaara writes with the same standard of historical accuracy and now has a long list of titles on Amazon. He has done a prequel and a sequel to the Killer Angels, and done works on the Revolution, the Mexican War, World War I and World War II. I just yesterday finished The Steel Wave, Jeff Shaara’s second volume about WWII. I liked it so much, as I do all of his work, I mailed it to my dad to read. It’s not brain candy, or even brain fast food. Think of it as a healthy brain sandwich.

The bottom line is that I think we can learn a lot from historical fiction, whether by reading a novel, or watching a movie. It doesn’t just have to be about military history. Movies (that are almost always books first) like Seabiscuit and A Beautiful Mind were box office successes AND historically accurate. Or at least these works are historically accurate enough to teach the story while entertaining. These works should not be discounted as a way to learn history. I find history exciting. It's unfortunate that many others don't. History makes for a good story. Why can’t we get people interested in, and excited about, history by presenting it as the drama that it is?