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:
- Rude Mechanicals: Account of Tank Maturity During the Second World War (about British tanks), by A. J. Smithers
- Monty’s Marauders: Black Rat and Red Fox – 4th and 8th Independent Armoured Brigades in WW2, Patrick Delaforce
- 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.
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.