Desert Uniforms, Patches, and Insignia (four stars)

This is an interesting book, studying as it does what used to be a novelty: U.S. desert uniforms. All that changed during Desert Storm, although a specialized desert uniform design has been around since the early 1970s. Mr. Born discusses the development of desert uniforms for U.S. military use and has lavishly illustrated his book with many examples, based on the camo pattern and the service in which it was used. He even has photos of the variety of name tapes and patches which were used with the uniforms.








I found it of particular interest because of my own experiences. When Desert Shield began my unit was sent to a nearby warehouse where it turned out there were tons of DCUs in storage (we were part of the Rapid Deployment Force). Most of us didn't even know the Army HAD desert uniforms (I had only seen an illustration of paratroopers wearing them on peacekeeping duties in the Sinai). Now that we had the uniforms, we realized that we didn't have desert-style patches to sew on to them, nor could anyone tell us where to get any. So, we wound up sewing the green BDU patches onto the DCUs, since they were all we had.

In the Company of Wacs (Four Stars)

This book discusses Miss Elna Grahn's experiences as a WAC officer during WWII, when she helped organize a "mixed battery" of antiaircraft artillery, one in which women manned the instruments (range finder, predictor, etc.) and men loaded and fired the 90mm guns. At the time WACs were recruited for administrative and service duties that would allow men to be freed up for combat duty... the possible use of women in a "combat" role (even if that combat was protecting the United States against Axis air attack) would have been controversial in the extreme, which is why the experiment was kept secret... until the late 1960s. It turned out that the WACs were actually better at the targeting duties they were assigned. The book goes through some of the teething problems of the experiment, partially due to the new nature of the Women's Army Corps and the secrecy surrounding the project, as well as some interesting personal observations Grahn had during the experiment. An excellent book on this topic... women would not man antiaircraft weapons for the Army again until the late 1970s. Well illustrated with photos and artwork.

Women For Victory: Volume 2, The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) (Five Stars)

You will not find a better reference on WAAC uniforms than this. Lavishly illustrated with color photographs of Ms. Goebel modeling the uniforms, black and white contemporary photos of WAACs in uniform and a variety of WAAC-related items, it also includes excerpts from Army regulations governing the wear of the uniform and detailed information on various issues. Great for the historian or the reenactor!

Watching Men Burn: A Soldier's Story (Five Stars)

This book is Tony McNally's story... a British Army gunner in a Rapier battery, he witnessed war first-hand when his unit was sent to fight in the Falklands following the Argentine invasion of that British outpost in the South Atlantic. The Rapier surface-to-air missile system proved to be prone to failure, at least partially due to the rough handling it got on the way to the Falklands. Despite some spectacular failures of the system in "Bomb Alley" against a variety of Argentine aircraft it was later sent to support a landing further around the island... and McNally was forced to watch helplessly as the weapon refused to engage an Argentine attack aircraft which managed to bomb the transport Sir Galahad, killing dozens of British soldiers. McNally's painful journey after that event, which took him in and out of the Army and from job to job, shows the pain and anguish of victims of PTSD; his writing is colorful, ugly, even vulgar at times but honest about his experiences. Well-illustrated with photographs.

I review almost exclusively history books (with rare exceptions). I will eagerly review any book having to do with antiaircraft or air defense. I am also interested in books on Africa, but again, mostly the history of the continent, especially in the 20th Century. Get in touch with me for more information. Most of my book reviews are also on Goodreads and Amazon.

John Wilkes Booth and the Women Who Loved Him (Five Stars)

Much has been written about John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln. However, this is only one I know of that looks, not just at the man, but at how he related to women. Booth, an actor, was the closest thing they had in the Civil War era to a movie star and like movie stars he had a number of relationships... some based on sex, some based on real sentiment, and one perhaps based on cold-blooded political need. Abel looks at Booth's women and their role in his life up to the assassination... then looks at their lives AFTER Booth. It is interesting too to look at how Booth's sex life might have had an effect on his acting skills and maybe even his plan to kill Vice-President Andrew Johnson. Well-illustrated with photos.

Shakespeare by Michael Wood (Five Stars)

As an illustrated biography of William Shakespeare this is an immensely enjoyable book. Michael Wood looks at Shakespeare's life as a playwright, a businessman, a poet, a family man and a courtier. One aspect I had never come across was a look at Shakespeare's religious beliefs and the context in which they took place.




During the 1500s England saw much in the way of religious strife due to the conflicting, and at time exclusionary, beliefs of Protestant and Catholic rulers. From childhood Shakepeare would have seen how this affected the life of his own parents, who were almost certainly practicing Catholics. This certainly had an effect on his work, determining which subjects he would pursue for his plays.




The book has some great contemporary illustrations as well as maps of some of the London neighborhoods Shakespeare lived and worked in. Definitely a good place to start if you really want to get to know the Bard.

GDR-Guide (Five Stars)

This is an excellent introduction to daily life in the German Democratic Republic. Meant as a guidebook to the DDR Museum in Berlin, it is an excellent book that provides information illustrated with photos, statistics, etc. about the Communist East. For a small volume it provides insight into how people lived, cut off from the rest of Germany.

Not Out of Africa (Four Stars)

In this book we look at Afrocentrism and how the left promoted a radical view of ancient history... radical in that it proposes that Egypt, and not the Greeks were the forebearers of Western Civilization.




Although written in the 1990s Ms. Lefkowitz's book examines some of the ills of modern academia, mainly historical revisionism and cultural appropriation. She does an excellent job of skewering the arguments that the Egyptians originated many of the philosophical and religious ideas attributed to the Greeks, pointing out problems of timelines and the weak arguments that so-and-so COULD have been Egyptian, etc. She also sinks the idea of "cultural appropriation" by asking a simple question: how can a culture be "stolen?" A culture can no more be stolen than an idea can.




The scariest part of this book was how no professors of ancient history publicly challenged afrocentric speakers on their so-called facts. We are seeing much the same kind of "pass" being given to Islamofascists who are being invited to speak at college campuses about civil rights.




The Egyptians have a great number of accomplishments they can claim as their own... there is no reason why the heritage of Plato et al has to be given to them as well.

Fighter Over Finland (Five Stars)

Excellent story of Luukanen, a pilot in the tiny Finnish Air Force who found himself outnumbered and supposedly outmatched, flying against the Soviets and the staggering numbers of aircraft they had at their disposal. During the Winter War the Finns fought on their own, with vague promises and moral support from the free world. Their aircraft were largely British and Dutch models, some of which were slower even than the Red bombers they tried to intercept!. However, Finland made the best use of the small number of planes they had at their disposal and when Round 2 (the Continuation War) came around the pilots of Finland managed to hold their own, flying aircraft provided by their "ally" Germany as well as Brewster Buffalos provided by the U.S.!








An amazing story, well-illustrated with maps, photographs and even descriptions of the aircraft involved, many of which saw very little combat outside of Finland.