Did anyone get any books or model kits for Christmas?   I didn’t!  I hope you were luckier than I.

I’ve consoled myself with a splurge of spending…

  • I purchased a local copy of the Tank Museum volume Cromwell Tank: Vehicle History and Specifications.  I don’t think I’ll ever need to know the startup sequence for a Cromwell tank, but I’m sure some of this will be interesting.
  • I used abebooks – how I love it – to order:
    1. Rude Mechanicals: Account of Tank Maturity During the Second World War   (about British tanks), by A. J. Smithers
    2. Monty’s Marauders: Black Rat and Red Fox – 4th and 8th Independent Armoured Brigades in WW2, Patrick Delaforce
    3. Battles with Panzers (1 RTR and 2 RTR at war), Patrick Delaforce

I read Taming the Panzers, Patrick Delaforce’s book on 3 RTR, earlier this year, and really liked it.  So I’ve been meaning to get some more of his books.  Other books I read this year and really enjoyed included Ken Ford’s Battleaxe Division and Peter White’s With the Jocks.

THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH-WEST EUROPE 1944-45
Carriers and infantry of 6th King’s Own Scottish Borderers move
forward after crossing the Rhine, 25 March 1945© IWM (BU 2437)

Peter White’s book was actually far and away the best of them, being based on his personal diaries rather than a unit history.  It really brought home the mud, slit trenches, shelling, and life as an infantryman in WW2.  It was no picnic whatsoever.

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