This review covers volumes 1 and 2 of the Solomons Air War series by Michael Claringbould and Peter Ingman. Combined, both volumes offer a superbly detailed and richly illustrated look at the pivotal campaign in the air that defined the turning of the tide in the epic 1941-1945 war in the Pacific. This review will take each volume in turn.
Volume 1 of Solomons Air War focuses upon the aerial warfare in the August-September 1942 period of the war in the Solomons Islands theater as well as what...
Book and Film Reviews
Volume 1: Guadalcanal August-September 1942, Michael Claringbould and Peter Ingman, Avonmore Books, 2023, $48.95, 248 pages, and Volume 2: Guadalcanal & Santa Cruz October 1942, Michael Claringbould and Peter Ingman, Avonmore Books, 2024, $48.95, 192 pages
Steve Mercatante
on Dec 17 2024 - 9:52pm
Review Type: Book
Operation 'Perch': The Complete Account, Daniel Taylor, After the Battle (Pen & Sword Books Ltd.), 2023, $62.95, 160 pages
Steve Mercatante
on Aug 9 2024 - 4:12pm
Few clashes of armor occuring in history have built up a mythology such as that surrounding what happened at Villers-Bocage following the June 1944 Allied invasion of France (Operation Overlord). If one were looking to understand this battle, what really happened, and how it all unfolded in the most accurate detail the general reader has access to today - then this is the book for you. Packed with illustrations, maps, pictures, orders of battle, and more - this is today's essential look at how...
Review Type: Book
The City That Defeated The Third Reich, Jochen Hellbeck, Public Affairs, 2016, $25.99 (softcover), 512 pages
Steve Mercatante
on Jul 22 2024 - 5:00pm
The July 1942 to February 1943 events in and around Stalingrad may have decided the outcome of the Second World War. Accounts from the perspective of German combatants are many and varied (as shown by my April book review). Not so much so from the Soviet side. If this book were merely after-the-battle memoirs it would be valuable. However, the nature of the accounts discovered by author Jochen Hellbeck are extroardinary, and this book is more than worth your time if you have any interest in at...
Review Type: Book
Eyewitness Accounts From The Sixth Army, 1942-43, Reinhold Busch, Frontline Books, 2018, $22.95, 288 pages
Steve Mercatante
on Apr 30 2024 - 5:22pm
Survivors of Stalingrad by Reinhold Busch is really a must-read, and not just for those interested in the epic 1942-1943 Battle for Stalingrad. This book provides an engrossing look at the horrors of combat in an impossible situation.
The author's focus is on breaking down what it was like to be trapped with the German Sixth Army following the Red Army's brilliant encirclement of its previous tormentor. The author has studied hundreds of previously unpublished reports, interviews, diaries and...
Review Type: Book
Ed. Karel Margry, Pen and Sword Books, 2023, $42.95, 168 pages
Steve Mercatante
on Feb 25 2024 - 7:34pm
You may or may not be familiar with After The Battle Magazine. A quarterly publication that began in 1973, it ended its production history with issue 195 in May of 2022. Since acquired by Pen and Sword Books Ltd., many of its long-standing editors continue to run the company - with a new focus on updating past content and presenting it in book format.
The Battle of Stalingrad: Then and Now is one of several such publications that have since been released. Of those long-serving editors, Karel...
Review Type: Book
How Hitler's Wehrmacht Crushed Operation Jubilee, James Shelley, Pen and Sword Military, 2023, $42.95, 248 pages
Steve Mercatante
on Dec 5 2023 - 1:18am
The Germans And The Dieppe Raid is a true gem, providing Second World War history enthusiasts with a unique look at how in August of 1942 a hardly imposing German defensive grouping defeated a far better trained and equipped Allied raiding force. What's more, the book offers excellent insight into how the course and outcome of this battle shaped the German approach to defending occupied France against the far more famous Allied invasion set to come in June of 1944.
The August 19, 1942 Dieppe...
Review Type: Book
Volume 1: Build-Up and Operational History of the Soviet Air Defence Force 1945-1960, Krzysztof Dabrowski, Helion and Company, 2022, $29.95, 80 pages, and Volume 2 - Development and Operational History of the Soviet Air Defence Force, 1961-1991, Krzysztof Dabrowski, Helion and Company, 2023, $29.95, 78 pages
Steve Mercatante
on Jun 8 2023 - 9:38pm
Today's Ukrainian-Russian war is dramatically reminding us all of the defensive power wielded by modern Surface to Air (SAM) missile systems and interceptors. Perhaps no military establishment in the world has more experience operating interceptors, ground-based radars, and surface to air missile systems than Russia.
However, creating world class combat aircraft such as the SU-57, and missile defense systems such as the S-400 (one of the best of its class fielded by any military today) didn't...
Review Type: Book
The I. SS-PanzerKorps' Defense Of The Verriers-Bourguebus Ridges Volume I: Operations Goodwood And Atlantic, 18-22 July 1944, Arthur W. Gullachsen, Casemate, 2022, $37.95, 312 pages AND Volume II: The Defeat of Operation Spring And The Battles Of Tilly-La Campagne, 23 July - 5 August 1944, Arthur W. Gullachsen, Casemate, 2023, $37.95, 288 pages
Steve Mercatante
on May 22 2023 - 5:03pm
The Normandy Campaign was one of the most important of the Second World War. The German inability to fend off the Allied invasion of France was most likely the final nail in the inevitable defeat of the Third Reich. The campaign also featured a dizzying array of combat operations, not least of which being some of the biggest tank battles fought between the Allies and Germany.
The largest armored battles took place on the eastern side of the Allied bridgehead. These battles, fought by the...
Review Type: Book
History & Legacy, Karl-Gunnar Noren & Lars Gyllenhaal, Helion and Company, 2022, $42.37, 164 pages
Steve Mercatante
on Feb 25 2023 - 11:07pm
The Long Range Desert Group is packed with tremendous detail for such a modestly sized book, and is one I very much recommend.
The book is organized into two parts (each broken down into easily digestible sections of six to twelve pages). Part One covers the formation of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), and the period of 1940-1943 when it operated in North Africa as part of the Allied forces then fighting the Axis armies in mostly Libya and Egypt. Part Two is a much briefer look at the...
Review Type: Book
Heroic Ordeal Of The Korean War, Eric Hammel, Casemate, 2019, $24.95, 432 pages
Steve Mercatante
on Jan 4 2023 - 5:22pm
Eric Hammel's book Chosin was originally published during the Cold War. But it remains a must read, as shown by the recently released paper-back edition of the book reviewed here.
One of Hammel's goals in Chosin was to show what it was like to be there on the ground in a typically harsh Korean winter during one of the greatest military crisis in which the U.S. Marine Corps and Army was ever involved. To that point he absolutely knocks it out of the proverbial park in structuring his narrative...
Review Type: Book
