Ack-Ack (Two Stars)

This book looks at D-Day, Operation Cobra and the Third Army's advance toward the Rhine and into Germany. The author's grandfather, Carl Murray, served in Battery D, 411th Antiaircraft Artillery, which was landed at the American beaches after D-Day and later moved forward with Third Army. This unit was equipped with 90mm guns, but Carl Murray was in the motor section and would not have had much to do with the artillery until it was time to move.

Point in fact, there isn't much in this book about Murray. The book is written as a short history of Third Army which revolves around a handful of photographs taken by the grandfather during the war and another handful of anecdotes of the man. It more often mentions Patton and takes anecdotes of other authors to build up the content. After reading this book I don't know any more than I did before I picked it up regarding how a 90mm battery operated (did they answer to corps? did they have advance scouts for positions?) or what challenges a motor sergeant endured during the fight. Because Murray didn't write a journal or have letters that survived the author guesses quite a bit or relies on other books to tell the reader what it was like in France in the last half of 1944. The things I read about regarding Normandy, Paris, Metz and Dachau I already knew about from reading Time-Life's WWII series. What I learned about Murray could have been condensed into a few pages.

Good writing style, though.

Guilford Courthouse 1781 (Five Stars)

Following a successful campaign in South Carolina Cornwallis entered North Carolina in an effort to bring the Revolution to an end in the South. However, poor supply and communications weakened his army as he sought to bring the rebels under General Greene to battle. Eventually Cornwallis would get his wish at Guilford Courthouse.


Guilford Courthouse saw Virginian and Carolinian militia, stiffened by Continental Line regiments, fight British regulars, German mercenaries and loyalists. They may not have won but General Greene made the best use of the men he had and managed to inflict such heavy casualties that Cornwallis had to retreat to Wilmington to reestablish and refit his men, ceding the fight for the Carolinas to Greene.

This is an excellent book detailing the fight at Guilford Courthouse. I recently walked along the battlefield park there and I am glad that I got this book to put this battle in context. It is well-illustrated and well-written.

Katyusha (Four Stars)

This book presents an excellent overview of the Katyusha rocket artillery system, one which has evolved since the early days of the Great Patriotic War. Mr. Prenatt's treatment of the topic is excellent and it is clear he has done quite a bit of research. The illustrations by Adam Hook are very good as well, and serve to really bring these machines and their gunners to life.

If there is a weakness with Katyusha then it is that the scope of the book is just too wide. The evolution of the Katyusha is so extreme on one end (air-to-ground rockets fired from truck-mounted rails) to the other (missiles contained in individual canisters, correction for weather, remote fuzing) that it would have been better to do a book about Katyusha's in WWII and perhaps a second on postwar MRLs. Just trying to keep the variants straight was a bit difficult as I went through the book.

Very well illustrated and has great photos.

LeMay: Lessons in Leadership (Four Stars)

Curtis Lemay's career as an airman spanned several decades and many roles. his book looks at highlights of his life, as commander of a bomber wing in China, as the leader on the ground for the incendiary raids against Japan, and as the commander of Strategic Air Command. In every instance he brought a unit that was barely functioning and made it into a potent weapon of war. His story is an important one for anyone who really wants to understand the Cold War and what was at stake.

The book does have one small issue. On page 22, in the chapter which discusses his assignment to 8th Air Force in England, there is a map of Europe which oddly enough shows the geopolitical situation between German Reunification in 1990 and Slovenia's independence in 1991. WHY this map would be picked to illustrate this book I have no idea. The map on page 54 seems to accurately portray WWII Asia during the period Lemay was there.

A good book, although nothing more than an introduction.

 I review almost exclusively history books (with rare exceptions). I will gladly review any book having to do with antiaircraft or air defense. Get in touch with me for more information.

Patriot Flugabwehrrakatensystem (Five Stars)

If you're interested in the Patriot Air Defense System then this is the book for you. While thin, the book is packed with information about how the Patriot system functions and how U.S. Army Patriot battalions are organized. There is even a little bit about the weapon system's developmental history and its role in Operation Desert Storm. But for someone who wants to build a model of the system or just likes to see details of military equipment then the black-and-white and color photos are great. The book is a little repetitious in places and could have used a few photos of Patriots in operation during ODS and Iraqi Freedom, but other than that a great product.


The book even uses examples of equipment from 1-7 ADA, my first unit assignment!

Land, Sea, and Foreign Shore: A Missileer's Story (Four Stars)

Clair W. Clark joined the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, entering a program which allowed him to finish his college degree without being drafted by going through a commissioning course in Quantico, Virginia. He then specialized in surface-to-air missiles and was trained in Yuma, Arizona and Fort Bliss, Texas on the Hawk surface-to-air missile and then went on to Vietnam.




Clark's writing is very good and it really makes the reader feel as if they can picture the action. I can honestly say I learned quite a bit about the Marine Corps as it operated back in those days. With that being said, I believe this book could have been tightened up a little bit (from 400 pages to maybe 250-300). After all, I don't think I really need to know the exact route Clark took from MCAS El Toro to Yuma in 1968 nor the Ballad of John Jones and his short career as a pilot. Spelling errors are a bit annoying too, such as the word "flack" for "flak", the discussion of HU1E "Huey" gunships, and acronym EOD being translated as "Emergency Ordnance Disposal" instead of "Explosive Ordnance Disposal."




I served in Army Hawk myself in the 1980s, part of that in a "square" battery like the author. I believe he has done an excellent job of conveying what it was like to operate Hawk. In describing the destruction of the local ASP and the effects of the explosion on exposed Hawk missiles I guess it never occurred to me what effect such a thing could have on the "open-ended" hydraulic system. Nor had I any idea that a Hawk fire unit had ever been subjected to ground attack, as one of the batteries of the 1st LAAM had been. While this information was not circulated in the 1970s and 1980s I don't doubt that the raid on Charlie Battery might have had something to do with our battalion receiving reinforcements from 10th Mountain Division during Desert Storm in order to protect our perimeter.
A very good in its own right and a must-read for anyone interested in the topic of antiaircraft. Includes black and white photographs.

The Case of General Edwin A. Walker (Two Stars)

This book is about General Walker and the end of his "Pro-Blue" Program in West Germany while Walker was in command of the 24th Infantry Division. The liberal media of the time smeared General Walker and tried to make him out to be a right-wing nut. Eventually, Walker resigned his commission from the U.S. Army, the only general officer to do so in the 20th Century.



Unfortunately, the book is poorly organized and manages to go off on tangents in places. A better edited and more focused book would have served the purpose much better of explaining the need for the Pro-Blue program and would have provided a stronger argument that the general was railroaded. As it is, this book serves best as a primary source for anyone researching this highly-decorated officer, a soldier who was the only other person we know of that Lee Harvey Oswald took a shot at in a failed assassination attempt that preceded Kennedy's.

The Lost White Tribe (Five Stars)

A very interesting book. Robinson discusses 18th and 19th century theories on race, which evolved from Biblical theories regarding Moses, his sons and the repopulation of the world following the Deluge. This was superseded by more "scientific" theories regarding biometrics, archeology, linguistics and the results of European exploration of previously isolated areas.

The intellectual gymnastics that 19th century authorities had to go through in order to justify European domination of Asian and African peoples (whether in the form of colonization or slavery) is explored in the book, but the most interesting part for me were the theories where Caucasian races MUST have had their own civilization in Africa (in the case of Zimbabwe) or explained the mound builders in America. These theories all had the same basis in that they believed Asia was the wellspring of the Human race and NOT Africa, which we now know is the case.

These theories are significant in that the Nazis later bought into the idea of an "Aryan race" (which in fact was a common Aryan language, NOT a race) and in popular culture the idea of a lost white civilization somewhere in Africa found its way into literature and movies. A fascinating topic!

Tredegar (Five Stars)

Madison's book is well-written and looks at the iron works as a whole, from its early establishment to its final shut down in the 20th century. It is very readable and entertaining. If there is a fault in the book I would say that it lies in the fact that the book really does not look much at the role the iron works played during the Civil War, during which it provided the only steady supply of armaments and other military material that the Confederacy could really count on. That is not to say that Mr. Madison ignores the role of Tredegar during the war... not at all. Madison spends much time on the management of the works, the labor issues involved, and the tragic explosion which killed so many young girls trying to work on percussion caps and raw materials. However, I just felt like there was more to the topic than what is in this book.

Illustrated with photos and drawings.