komet2020's reviews
1711 reviews

This book tells the story of a series of bold naval and air strikes by Britain against the French fleet in its anchorage of Mers el-Kébir in French North Africa early in July 1940. These strikes were carried out on the insistence of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who, in the immediate aftermath of the French defeat in June 1940 and France's subsequent signing of an armistice with Nazi Germany, was fearful that that French Navy's warships would be ceded over to Germany, thus augmenting the Kriegmarine's surface fleet.

Mers el-Kébir 1940 fleshes out in considerable detail the intrigue and actions of both the British and French high ranking political and naval officers as both nations, once allies, yet not quite official enemies, warily dealt with each other amid Churchill's fear of some of France's most powerful warships falling into German hands. The book, like all Osprey publications of its kind, has lots of photos and 3d illustrations showing the offensive actions staged by the Royal Navy against the French fleet near Oran (French North Africa) 

Bf 109E: Battle of Britain highlights the record of the Messerschmitt Bf 109E, Germany's premiere fighter plane, during the Battle of Britain. This was the first great air battle in warfare that, from July 10th to October 31st, 1940, proved a decisive Allied victory, frustrating Hitler's bid to win air supremacy over the Royal Air Force (RAF) and invade and occupy Great Britain.

Like other books of its type published by Osprey, this one is replete with photos of the Bf 109E, accounts of the pilots who flew it during the Battle of Britain, and 3D diagrams detailing a number of combat operations during the Battle of Britain in which the Bf 109E that played a prominent role. Any aviation enthusiast will love this book. 

It was sometime last summer that I became fully aware of Susan Seidelman, award winning movie and TV director. I was listening to the Jessica Shaw Show on Sirius XM radio in which Seidelman was being interviewed about her life and career. I was enthralled and made a check with my local library to see if Seidelman's new memoir was available (it was). And so I borrowed the book. But with other books I then had on a higher rung of my TBR List, it was only within the last 2 weeks that I took up the book and read it.

I became absorbed in Seidelman's life, from her formative years in the suburbs of Philadelphia during the 1960s and early 1970s as the oldest of 3 children; her life in New York after her college graduation and subsequent admission into and graduation from NYU Film School; her early attempts to be taken seriously by a movie industry during the late 1970s and early 1980s in which women directors were rarer than hens' teeth; her first successes with the movies "Smithereens" (1982) and "Suddenly Seeking Susan" (1985) which helped solidify the flourishing of 'Madonna-mania" which went on to sweep the world (I was then in college and remember that very well - then I thought Madonna would peak after the success of her song Material Girl and disappear - how wrong I was! Kudos to Madonna); and the sheer richness and diversity of Susan Seidelman's life and career from the 1980s to today. She certainly knows how to tell an engrossing and captivating story.

For anyone who enjoys reading well-told, engaging memoirs, look no further. DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING is the ticket. 

This book is a collection by Steven Biedenbach of a diary, postcards, photos, and a ledger that was kept by Private Jesse Stollar (1899-1949) during his service with the U.S. Army Air Service with the 25th Aero Squadron. (Biedenbach is a grandson of Stollar who was born several years after Stollar's death.)

The 25th Aero Squadron was the only fighter squadron in the Air Service to fly the British S.E.5A fighter plane over the Western Front. It had arrived in England in January 1918 and spent the next 6 months receiving training courtesy of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and its successor, the Royal Air Force (RAF). The 25th Aero Squadron was then placed directly under U.S. Army command and shipped over to France in August 1918. It arrived at the Front shortly before the Armistice that ended World War I, seeing only limited action over the lines without encountering the enemy in the air.

The value of this book comes in giving the reader a tangible sense of what an enlisted man experienced during his stint with the U.S. Army Air Service during World War I. There are also some details about Stollar's postwar life back in Ohio. 

Up From Orchard Street is Eleanor Widmer's paean to the life she knew as a child in a Jewish family who lived in a tenement house in a close-knit neighborhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the 1930s and 1940s.

This is a novel that vividly describes the lives of 3 generations of a Jewish family (the Roths) in New York. Its head is Manya, a Russian immigrant from Odessa who immigrated with her husband Misha (who later died of tuberculosis and through overwork) to the U.S. during the early 1900s. She's a remarkably strong, loving and resilient woman who is a superb cook who, goes from working for a baker to having her own cooking and catering business within the tenement house she bought on Orchard Street. There is also her son, Jack, his wife Lillian (both of whom share a deep love for the theater and the clothing business in which both work), Jack and Lillian's two children (Elka - who is precocious with a deep love for reading - and her younger brother Willy, a sensitive lad with a knack for whistling flawlessly many of the Broadway standard songs from popular musicals), and the family's adoptive son Clayton, an African American Manya had taken on as a young orphan who stayed with the family through early adulthood.

As a reader, one becomes absorbed in the lives of these people - their ups and downs. Indeed, I formed deep attachments for the Roths, their friends in the neighborhood, the 2 doctors (Dr. Koronovsky and Dr. Scott Wolfson, his younger protégé) who became integral parts in their lives, and the various people with whom the Roths struck up friendships during a summer outing to a holiday resort in Connecticut. Manya was "the glue" who kept the family together, a beloved mother and grandmother.

Up From Orchard Street is a heartwarming story that beautifully illustrates the immigrant experience in early 20th century America. I highly recommend it.
 

 

Fw 190 Sturmjäger: Defence of the Reich 1943–45 provides the reader with a concise, comprehensive history of the development and deployment of the Fw 190 Sturmjäger "bomber killer", which was a heavily armored version of the redoubtable Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter, whose role was to tackle the growing formations of USAAF heavy bombers over Germany.

The book goes into some detail in describing the tactics used by the units flying the Fw 190 Sturmjäger and has 3d illustrations depicting some of the combat operations undertaken by these units. (There are also plenty of photos.)

Tackling a heavy bomber was a highly dangerous undertaking, given how heavily armed each USAAF bomber was, along with the collective firepower a bomber formation could hurl against attacking Luftwaffe fighters. Plus, there was also the growing threat, from 1943 onwards, posed by Allied escort fighters, which could blunt any Sturmjäger attacks on the bombers. Flying skill, marksmanship, and sheer guts were essential for any Fw 190 Sturmjäger pilot to be successful and survive. Eyewitness accounts in the book by the veteran Fw 190 Sturmjäger pilots further convey the perils and challenges they faced every time they went aloft to take on USAAF bombers over Germany.

For any aviation enthusiast or anyone with an interest in World War II aviation, I highly recommend Fw 190 Sturmjäger: Defence of the Reich 1943–45.

 

YUGOSLAVIA AND GREECE 1940-41: The Axis' Aerial Assault in the Balkans offers a concise account of the air war that was waged in the Balkans between the Axis and Allies between October 28, 1940 and April 30, 1941. It was an air war that took place in 3 phases.

The first phase was the Italo-Greek War, which began on October 28, 1940 when Italy invaded Greece from its bases in Albania. Mussolini, feeling outdone by the sweeping German victories in Western Europe and Scandinavia during the previous spring, was anxious to conquer Greece and secure Italian dominance in the Aegean and Mediterranean. But he failed to take into account the factor of the weather and some of the shortages and deficiencies his Regia Aeronautica (air force) faced in fulfilling its assigned tasks. The Italian offensive lost impetus after a short time and the Greek Army staged a counter-offensive, which pushed some of the Italian forces back into Albania, leading to the Greeks gaining a toehold in that country. The book details the struggles waged by the Regia Aeronautica, the Roval Hellenic Air Force (Greece), and the Royal Air Force (RAF), which sent in some of its bomber and fighter units from Egypt to assist the Greeks.

The second phase of the air war took place over Yugoslavia between April 6, 1941 (the day of the German invasion) and April 15, 1941 (when Yugoslavia surrendered to Axis forces after putting up a spirited resistance). The Yugoslav Air Force, Regia Aeronautica, and Luftwaffe figured prominently in this aspect of the air war. The book goes into some detail describing the role air power played in helping the Axis conquer Yugoslavia.

The third phase of the air war took place in Greece through most of April 1941 in which the Luftwaffe - with a supplementary role played by the Regia Aeronautica - supported the Wehrmacht in defeating Greek and British Commonwealth forces in Greece who, by month's end, despite VIII Fliegerkorps' best efforts to prevent them from escaping from Greece, managed to evacuate the bulk of its forces to Crete. The air campaign as waged by the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica against the remnants of the Royal Hellenic Air Force and RAF are vividly described.

The book also has lots of photos, illustrations, maps, and three-dimensional diagrams which provide the reader with a fleshed out account of this air war which extended from the Balkans into the Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean.

 

Knights of the Air: an American Pilot's View of the Aerial War of the French Squadrons During the First World War was originally published in 1918 while the war was still being fought. Its author, Bennett A. Molter, was a chasse de pilote (fighter pilot) who saw action with a French squadron at the Front during 1917. He speaks about himself only in relation to the type of training he received.

Mainly Molter provides the reader with a rough sketch of French military aviation as it had developed from the beginning of the war, and its various categories - that of pursuit, photo reconnaissance/artillery spotting, and bombing -- and the roles played by planes in these categories at the Front. I have a feeling that Molter himself may have been commissioned by the U.S. government to shed light on his wartime experiences as a way to encourage Americans to "do their bit" and help defeat the Germans. Some famous American pilots who had flown with France before the U.S. entry into the war, had returned home on leave, and were enjoined to write at some length about their frontline experiences.

The value of this book comes in giving the reader some tangible understanding of French military aviation as it had become by 1918, and of the contributions made by some of its famous pilots. My curiosity was whetted about Molter himself. I've done online searches about him, but sadly haven't been able to find much information about him. What he has left us through this book is invaluable for anyone who wants to gain some understanding of what the First World War was like for someone who was a participant in it at a time when its end was as yet uncertain.

 

KAWANISHI H6K 'MAVIS' AND H8K 'EMILY' UNITS is a richly informative, fascinating book not only about 2 of Japan's greatest long-ranging flying boats which were extensively used by its naval maritime air units throughout the Pacific War. It is also a book about the development of flying boats in Japan itself between the world wars. What's more: there are lots of photos of the various 'Mavis' and 'Emily' flying boats and crews, as well as illustrations of flying boats used by Japan between the 1920s and the end of World War II.

This book comes highly recommended. 

A History of the 17th Aero Squadron: An American Squadron on the Western Front during the First World War is, in essence, a rather cut and dried account by the author - who, himself a pilot, had acted as an adjutant with the 17th Aero Squadron - of the history and wartime achievements of a fighter squadron that from July 12 to October 28, 1918, flew combat missions under command of the Royal Air Force (RAF) over the British area of the Front.

Among its distinguished pilots was George A. Vaughn, Jr., who had initially flown S.E.5A fighters with No. 84 Squadron, RAF, where he made ace and upon transfer to the 17th Aero Squadron (which flew Sopwith Camels) achieved an additional 6 victories. He survived the war with 13 enemy aircraft to his credit.   Vaughn would go on to become of the longest lived U.S. World War I aces, dying in July 1989, age 92.

The book contains some roughly sketched drawings depicting squadron life on base and in combat. There is also a chapter containing the combat reports of a number of pilots who shot down enemy aircraft between July and October 1918. While this was an interesting book to read, I wish photographs of the squadron and its personnel had been included.

All in all, A History of the 17th Aero Squadron is best suited for serious aviation enthusiasts anxious to know more about First World War aviation.