Derek Nudd's Blog, page 4

Dönitz, U-boats, Convoys

Dönitz, U-Boats, Convoys: The British Version of His Memoirs from the Admiralty's Secret Anti-Submarine Reports by Jak P. Mallmann Showell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Selecting extracts from Dönitz' memoir, matching them with the Admiralty's anti-submarine reports and adding a historian's perspective should be a recipe for serious insights into the U-boat war of 1939-45. The rub comes with the selection and the commentary.
As the son of one of the thousands of U-boat crewmen who disappeared without trace in the conflict it is understandable that Mallman Showell emphasises the German perspective. An alternative view of events is welcome. The extent to which he seems to have been 'captured' by his subject, even with the benefit of hindsight, is less easy to come to terms with. For example his assertion that the United States 'was hankering to join in the war from the very beginning' is at least an over simplification, and that Operation Barbarossa was a pre-emptive response 'to intensive Russian preparations being made for an invasion of the west' goes against every other account I have read.
His argument that Dönitz is 'misunderstood' is unconvincing. The admiral's tactical skill is undeniable but we are still speaking of a dedicated Nazi, Hitler's personally appointed successor, who failed to provide his crews with adequately upgraded equipment as the tide of war turned against them. In the author's introduction he refers to a secret ballot supposedly held among U-boat crews in 1943 on whether to continue the struggle or not. He later admits there is no evidence for this.
Which is not to say the book is valueless. The juxtaposition of German and British viewpoints, the detailed view of certain engagements, and the tantalising glimpses behind the curtain of commanders' thinking mean my copy is well scattered with reminder tags. There is a good index and 'Further Reading' list. Detailed references, though, are conspicuous by their absence.



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Operation Pedestal

Operation Pedestal: The Fleet That Battled to Malta, 1942 by Max Hastings

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A thorough treatment of the vital, brutal convoy of fourteen merchantmen which set out to relieve Malta with the strongest escort Britain could scrape together. Just five arrived, the most important one in sinking condition. It was enough - just.
The book combines Hastings' usual thorough research and propulsive writing. Surprisingly, for someone who frequently claims the RN was Britain's outstanding contribution to the conflict, this is is first naval work on WW2.
A popular historian needs an element of revisionism - it attracts reviews and comment, and sells books. With this thought in mind I wonder if, for example, his claims about the inferiority of the escorts' Hurricane and Martlet fighters to their opposition are really justified (not so sure about the Fulmar). There certainly weren't enough of them and they didn't have the control resources to put them in the right place at the right time - but a year or two earlier the pilots would have been in Gladiators and Skuas!
The cost of this enterprise, in blood and steel, should be an urgent reminder to those of us who live on an island whose survival (never mind prosperity) depends on unrestricted maritime trade.



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Paretsky: Overboard

Overboard by Sara Paretsky

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


It's tricky writing a book - any book - in lockdown with no access to research resources, no way to scout locations and little chance to bounce ideas around friends and colleagues. Paretsky deserves credit for producing a compulsive page turner in the face of such headwinds. And yet, and yet.... I thought she had moved past signalling the villain in flashing lights early in the story, but here we are again. And one of her strengths has always been allowing her characters to develop, to age with the passing of time yet here the process seems to have gone into reverse. The writing is as good as ever but - for me - the structural issues made a curiously unsatisfying whole.



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Churchill's German Special Forces

Churchill's German Special Forces: The Elite Refugee Troops who Took the War to Hitler by Paul Moorcraft

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This is a brave attempt to track the contribution of Jewish servicemen to Allied victory in WW2. Unfortunately the author does himself, and the topic, less than justice.
Let's start with the good news. Having come across a brief mention of the Special Interrogation Group in George Jellicoe: SAS and SBS Commander I was anxious to learn more about this unit, and its history is reasonably well covered - as is the subsequent X Troop. The background material on the Great War and inter-war period is a useful introduction.
We then come to a chapter on 'The Ritchie Boys': graduates of a training programme at Camp Ritchie in the USA who were used as interrogators, interpreters and translators. This is an awkward fit thematically as the Jewish component was probably a minority, and Moorcraft accepts claims for the Ritchie programme's intelligence contribution with only a slightly raised eyebrow.
The Chapter '... And they also served is a whistle-stop tour of Jewish contributions to (inter alia) the RAF, Bletchley Park and the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centres (CSDIC). Sadly it doesn't pause long enough at most of these and in places is plain wrong. For example, it asserts that the fifty or so stool pigeons working at CSDIC were Jewish volunteers when in fact the vast majority were genuine German servicemen 'turned' during interrogation. Curious about this mistake I dug a little further; while the bibliography refers to Helen Fry's The Walls Have Ears: The Greatest Intelligence Operation of World War II the citation is to a review of the book, which may explain the slip.
Thankfully I think, and hope, this error is an exception. Nonetheless the text is in places a tad disjointed and repetitive. The apparent reliance on secondary sources no doubt reflects the fact that it was largely written in lockdown.
There are useful appendices on the Russian and German appendices and a well presented, interesting plate section. With mistakes in my own area of interest I can't go beyond two stars but despite the flaws there is useful and interesting material here. The subject matter cries out for fuller treatment - and another edit.



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Nazis on the Potomac

Nazis on the Potomac: The Top-Secret Intelligence Operation that Helped Win World War II by Robert K. Sutton

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


As chief historian of the National Park Service Robert Sutton has drawn together the work of a team who had been gathering the testimony of Fort Hunt veterans between the declassification of their work in World War II and the inevitable loss of their evidence to time and mortality.
Some - the largest group - interrogated prisoners of war. Some translated captured documents. Some prepared escape and evasion kits and training for US servicemen in case of capture, and set up covert communication with those unfortunate enough to be caught.
There is a fair amount of public domain material covering this area but Sutton does a good job of integrating it and clarifying the relationship between Fort Hunt, Pine Grove Furnace and Camp Ritchie. A special strength, derived from the oral history work behind the book, is the biographical insights into many of the former staff.
There are some unforced errors which are however tangential to the narrative. For example he seems to think that Britain formed its interrogation service (MI19a) only in 1940, whereas the first batch of 'guests' (the crew of U39) arrived at the Tower of London on 17th September 1939. He also has a tendency to refer to U-boats as 'captured' when they were either sunk in combat or surrendered after the end of European hostilities. He claims that a report on Peenemünde 'did not reach the right people in time', when an MI19 intercept led to a heavy RAF raid that considerably set back the V-weapon programme.
He cites the excellent Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying by Neitzen and Welzer. If he had also consulted Helen Fry's The Walls Have Ears: The Greatest Intelligence Operation of World War II or even my own Castaways in Question: A story of British naval interrogators from WW1 to denazification he might have avoided these minor trips.
Coverage of the post-war recruitment of German scientists and technicians is useful and might have been developed a bit more.
There is an interesting plate section, well reproduced, with several images that I for one had not seen before.
It would have been useful to have a little more technical detail on the eavesdropping equipment in use. From the photos it looks like the RCA kit originally bought by the British and later replaced by an in-house developed system.
So, a worthwhile but not pivotal addition to the literature on an important intelligence strand.



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The 'Japanese' War

The Japanese War: London University's WWII Secret Teaching Programme and the Experts Sent to Help Beat Japan by Sadao Oba

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It was early morning on 8th December 1941 in (then) Malaya but still only 7th in Hawaii when Japanese landings began, a couple of hours before Pearl Harbour. The outbreak of a new front in the global conflict was no surprise; the speed and completeness of the Allied collapse was. One of the problems this created was an unexpected deafness to enemy intentions. The army had expected to use its own linguists and co-opt businessmen, missionaries and diplomats familiar with Japanese language and culture. Most of these people were now stuck in occupied territory.
The author was a junior Japanese officer in Java, disarmed in 1945 and repatriated eighteen months later. In that time he met no Japanese-speaking Britons and was surprised to discover several fluent speakers when posted to the UK later in life. This prompted him to research the frantic catch-up courses run by London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), which are the subject of the book.
It is absorbing and well-written. There is a useful selection of images, though in view of the price (see below) they should have been in a proper plate section rather than printed in text. It is unusual, perhaps unique, in dealing with the topic from a British rather than Australian or US perspective. There is a useful table giving the number of candidates put through each type of course, broken down by service but I would also have liked a rundown of course dates. The author is strong on the identity and subsequent path of the army candidates, less so on those from the RAF, and almost completely ignores the naval contingent. This is a pity.
One final word on price, which is eye-watering. I couldn't find a source of a new copy under £100 for quite a slim volume (I eventually traced a used copy which was stiff enough). It's quite difficult to see how this is justifiable.



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Yes Prime Minister

Yes Prime Minister: The Diaries Of The Right Hon. James Hacker: Volume II by Jonathan Lynn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book was published in 1987. Much of it is terrifyingly apposite today.



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Betasom: Italian Submarines in the Battle of the Atlantic

Betasom: Italian Submarines in the Atlantic 1940-1945 by Marek Sobski

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book covers a little-known aspect of the Atlantic war with impressive research and attention to detail. 62 German U-boats entered the Mediterranean, 9 were sunk attempting to run the Straits of Gibraltar and another 10 forced to turn back. None of those which entered the Med ever got out again.
By contrast large Italian submarines routinely (if not easily) made the passage to and from their Atlantic base at Bordeaux. Only one was lost at the Straits.
Every patrol by every boat in the Atlantic force is covered in detail, with a great deal of information given about their victims. The title is a slight misnomer, as there are also useful (if short) chapters on Italian submarines in the Far East and blockade breakers. There are well-reproduced and selected maps and photographs.
My niggle is that, having done such exhaustive research, the author clearly feels the need to build it all into the text. Much of the detail (e.g. the specifics of each victim's tonnage, age, ownership, captain etc) would be better relegated to the appendix than left as a catalogue of events. This would leave space to explore underlying themes such as the reliability of Italian vessels and weapons compared to their German peers, their extended maintenance periods between patrols, and the apparently rapid turnover of commanders.
There are appendices giving Italian naval ranks vs their British equivalents, a summary of the fate of the Bordeaux group submarines, ships sunk and damaged by them, and key dates. As noted above, I feel the three middle appendices could be expanded to take some of the load off the main text. There is a bibliography but no index - this is a serious omission.
It's worth mentioning here that this is a self-published book. In this context it is understandable that the English translation is clearly produced by someone for whom it is not their native language. Many sentences are clunky, and a few not actually sentences. That's tolerable, but it's a pity the translator didn't know that in the Anglophone world submarines are always 'boats', not 'ships'. Mind you, that applies to a few journalists I have come across!
To conclude, Marek Sobski has done a remarkable piece of work in tracking down and assembling information about a neglected aspect of the WW2 naval conflict. Viewed as source material, a platform for further development, the book has a great deal to recommend it (it is here that the lack of an index will be most keenly felt). Seen as history, it needs a more coherent narrative, stepping back from the detail to look at the wider issues.



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U-Boat War 1914-1918

U-Boat War 1914-1918: Volume 2 - Three Accounts of German Submarines During the Great War by Georg-Günther von Forstner

My rating: 3 of 5 stars






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War Through Italian Eyes

Other authors (Helen Fry, Sönke Neitzel, Falko Bell and myself among others) have drawn on the treasure trove of declassified transcripts which allow us to 'listen' to the bugged conversations of prisoners at the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centres (CSDICs) in WW2. Alexander Henry is the first, as far as I know, to focus on the Italian 'guests' of that extraordinarily successful system. In a departure from Fry's, Neitzel's, and my approach he avoids extensive quotations from the transcripts, allowing him to concentrate on his narrative and argument. Chapter endnotes point to the transcripts themselves.

The main argument of the book is to dispel the myth of the Italiani brava gente: the hedonistic, operatic Italian soldier of film and story who pursues war without malice. In this he largely succeeds. Starting with two introductory chapters on CSDIC and the 'protocols' (his term for the transcripts) he goes on in the next two chapters to describe Italian attitudes to other combatant nations (allies and enemies) and their behaviour in respect of war crimes, occupation and antisemitism. On this last I am not convinced the examples he has mined are widespread and severe enough to support a case for Fascist indoctrination - certainly not compared to some of the horrific statements made by their German contemporaries. Indeed, the diaries of Bernard Trench (head of the British naval interrogation section) are not too different in places.

I feel Dr Henry makes too little allowance for the difference in priority and approach between the services. He illustrates (Diagram I Appendix A) the six stages of interrogation that army prisoners went through, each filtering out those with less to tell, before the really interesting ones reached CSDIC. Naval Intelligence, on the other hand, issued firm instructions that survivors were to be brought into the system as quickly as possible and with minimum interference - to the extent of later flying key crew members from the Mediterranean to the UK. This is reflected in the fact that the tiny naval team dealt with over 80% of Italian prisoners passing through CSDIC (UK).

The author mentions the Mediterranean interrogation centres near Cairo and ALgiers, and the use of the Newmarket 'cage' as a stop-gap until Wilton Park was ready, but doesn't explore these topics further.

Having discussed Italian behaviour as occupiers he goes on to address the popular conception of their ineffectiveness in combat. Veterans of the Malta convoys and witnesses to the attacks on Gibraltar and Alexandria would certainly endorse Henry's assertion that Italian naval, air and special forces lacked nothing in the way of skill, courage and determination. Moreover sixty-two German U-boats entered (or tried to enter) the Mediterranean. None, or at best one, ever left. Yet Italian submarines ran the Straits in both directions - if not easily then often enough. What did they know that the Kriegsmarine didn't?

On land he argues that well-documented Italian failures are sometimes exaggerated, and that their efforts were undermined by inadequate leadership, equipment and logistics.

The final two chapters concern servicemen's attitude to their political leadership, their own and Allied propaganda, and their growing disillusion as the fortunes of war turned against them. Here in particular he draws on a variety of sources other than the CSDIC transcripts.

Many of the statements presented are from a limited number of witnesses, and in a few cases Dr Henry has been able to trace their post-war fortunes. On the positive side we begin to feel we know these people, but on the other hand are left wondering how representative a sample they are.

As an assessment of the people caught up in Mussolini's 'New Roman Empire' dream this book works in its own terms, and is (so far) alone in its field. It makes no attempt to look at the personalities involved on the Allied side, the intelligence the prisoners yielded or the use to which it was put. One other thing deserves mention: the price, for a slimmish volume, is eye-watering. I fear this will ensure it reaches a smaller audience than it deserves.