Just Finished Reading: By Tank into Normandy by Stuart Hills (FP: 2002) [244pp] 

War, especially combat, is a young person's game and the author of this fascinating account is no exception. Just 20 years old when he graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he was given command of not only a Sherman tank but a troupe of 3! Even more astounding (from my perspective) was his first ever mission – to land on Gold beach on 6th June 1944: D-Day! It was, in many ways, quite the baptism... 

Second Lieutenant Stuart Hills of the Nottinghamshire Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry had been assigned a DD (Dual Drive) tank – one of Hobart's ‘funnies’ that was expected to ‘swim’ ashore to assist the first men on the beach. So, as dawn was starting on 6th June the landing ramp of the LTC his crew was on lowered and, about 600-700 yards from the beach he ordered is tank forward into the channel. Almost immediately water started pouring in. The pumps helped but it was soon apparent that the tank wasn’t going to make it. Just minutes into his first deployment he ordered the tank abandoned and watched as it slipped under the waves and sank. Everyone got out – the Sherman had a crew of 5 – but they had lost everything. Picked up by another landing craft they spent D-Day watching other people storm the beach from a distance. Only on the 7th (with the beach still under fire) did they land and make their way to their unit in order to pick up a brand-new tank. Welcome to France! 

[Side note: 32 DD tanks were deployed to support Omaha beach but started over 6 THOUSAND yards out. Because of a strong tide and still very choppy seas from a passing storm only 5 made it to shore.]  

The author goes on to relate his varied experiences from that day until the German surrender in May 1945. Fighting through the highly dangerous French ‘bocage’ country, through the Low Countries and finally into Germany itself finishing, just after his 21st birthday(!), in Hanover. Several instances along his journey in particular jumped out at me – apart from his tank sinking! Although thankfully rare, there were several early encounters with early model Tiger tanks. On one occasion the Tiger was hit multiple times by several Sherman’s without a single penetration. Only a lucky shot that caused white-hot splinters to enter through a vision port and start a small fire inside the tank caused the crew to bail out. In another encounter the author was in the lead tank stuck at the edge of a minefield awaiting engineer support. The Tiger opened fire and destroyed the last tank out of 12. Stuck, the other tanks fired smoke shells to obscure the Tigers vision and the author called up Close Air Support (CAS). Moments later 4 Typhoon ground attack planes arrived. When the smoke and dust had settled the Tiger was on its side – minus a turret. Finally, and most tense I felt, was when the authors tank was hit and disabled while fighting in a small town. The driver and front machine gunner were killed instantly but the other 3 crew were trapped because they were constantly being ‘pinged’ by a German machine-gun. The problem was that the building the tank was next to was on fire. If they stayed in the tank, they’d be slowly roasted alive but if they tried to leave, they’d be shot by the machine-gun. Luckily another tank had seen their tracer fire and dropped a High-explosive shell on the machine-gun nest allowing the crew to evacuate! 

Except in the closing weeks of the European war (when the author was in charge of a Recon Unit), most of his tenure was supporting infantry units – both British and American – in their advances across enemy territory. As the tanks supported the ‘poor bloody infantry’ the infantry themselves helped protect the tanks against the new and deadly threat of hand-held anti-tank weapons, especially the highly dangerous Panzerfaust. ‘Buttoned down’ inside a tank the crew's vision was greatly restricted so, without anyone outside the tank looking out for them, it was comparatively ‘easy’ (if incredibly brave) to pop-up 20 feet away and fire your weapon often hitting and disabling the tank it was aimed at. The author's tank was hit twice in this way. Once (luckily) causing no damage and once causing the crew to bail out.  

As you can probably tell this was a totally immersive and gripping read. I’m not surprised at all that it was the winner of the ‘Distinguished Book Award’ from the Society for Military History for Best Military Memoir in 2003. It also comes as no surprise that the author was awarded the Military Cross. Definitely recommended for anyone interested in WW2 and most especially for anyone interested in tank warfare.

Just Finished Reading: The Killing Ground by Elleston Trevor (FP: 1956) [266pp] 

5th June 1944. Even as the landing craft waited for the bombardment to start some aboard still thought that the invasion was about to be called off. The sea was still rough from the recent passing storm and the sound of vomiting from the tank crews (to say nothing of the smell) was everywhere. Then, at the appointed time, all hell was let loose on the Atlantic Wall. The order was given as the landing crafts engines fired up – Man your tanks!  

Arriving on the beach not long after the ‘funnies’ had done their work of mine clearing and much else besides, the tank troop was immediately called to assist the infantry in suppression of accurate fire coming from the surviving machine-gun emplacements. Battle had begun and the Mk IV and Mk V Cromwell’s would be in the thick of things until the beach was secure and they could begin to move inland to their day's objectives.  

Yet again, this book has been on my shelves for DECADES unread. After reading another of his novels recently – based around and RAF station during the Battle of Britain (the author was a Flight Engineer during the war) – I thought it was high time to see how he managed armoured warfare. The answer: very well indeed. One of the things that I noticed immediately (as with his RAF novel) was the realism of the dialogue. Having spoken to a number of serving military over the years the conversations, both in combat and in the more peaceful pauses just sounded REAL which added to the immersion I felt reading this often-gripping book. As I’ve said on multiple occasions I do like good characterisation and people who you can relate to and root for in a novel. There’s nothing worse, I feel, than a book, even a well-written book, where you either don’t care about the characters or even actively dislike them. That was not the case here. There is, naturally, a downside to this. Especially in a war novel there’s going to be cases of death and injury to characters you like. Random death is definitely a thing! So, my advice is not to get TOO attached to anyone in this book. There's certainly quite the range of characters here: some are barely holding it together after years of fighting, some are just doing a job and doing it well, others are determined to disappear on the next home leave and never look back and some will find that combat will be the making of them once they move beyond the influence of their father... 

Taking place between the D-Day landings themselves and the Battle of the Falaise pocket, this is an excellent insight, albeit fictionalised, into armoured combat of the period. In many senses being behind a few inches of armour whilst being shot at is the place to be – except that as a valuable and dangerous asset on the field that tank is going to be a significant target to take out and the Axis have the fabled Flak-88 that can one-shot you! It's difficult to imagine the tension (and the smell to be honest!) inside that armoured hide. Definitely recommended for anyone interested in WW2 military fiction if you can source a copy. 

Just Finished Reading: D-Day Through German Eyes – How the Wehrmacht Lost France by Jonathan Trigg (FP: 2019) [294pp] 

They knew it was coming. The long awaited ‘Second Front’ - although technically the ‘third’ front with the ongoing campaign in Italy – was soon to open, but the questions remained: When, How and most importantly where? The hammer could fall just about anywhere, from the French south coast all the way up to northern Norway. But even the mighty Third Reich couldn’t defend everywhere equally. The most logical thing to consider was that the Allies would need a functioning port as soon as possible after landing. The most logical place for the attack on France was, therefore, Calais and logically this was the most heavily defended. But what about elsewhere? Normandy was considered a comparatively low risk with few usable ports nearby and, despite a flat beach along most of the area, radio intercepts and other information indicated an attack elsewhere. Despite that the defenders did what they could to improve their defences with thousands of mines being laid and thousands of tons on concrete being poured to create gun emplacements and bunkers. But what of the troops to man them? With a war of extermination raging in the East needing ever greater resources in men and material the Atlantic Wall and Fortress Europa wasn’t exactly in line to get the best of anything. The men came from units generally considered to be combat ineffective, either through a lack of experience or, in many cases, often too much experience on the Eastern Front complete with physical and mental injuries that would’ve, in normal times, removed them from fighting units entirely. The equipment wasn’t much better – with obsolete guns from occupied territories making up the majority of the weapons available to ‘throw the Allies back into the sea’. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The elite Panzer units held in reserve were under confusing and conflicted control. The very strategy on which the defence of France was being based was still under review with different commanders having very different ideas of how exactly to proceed. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Allies had created naval and air forces the like of which the world had never seen before. When the hammer did fall it would fall like the Hammer of God itself and heaven help anyone who was on the receiving end – as various units of a much-weakened Wehrmacht were about to find out. 

This was an excellent account of D-Day and the subsequent weeks and months following the landings from a very different perspective than I was used to. We don’t often hear about the German/Axis side of any encounter with the Allies, so it was very interesting indeed to ‘hear’ from German/Axis (actually not always German nationals as I discovered here) soldiers as they were bombed, bombarded and finally overwhelmed by British, Canadian and American forces. With lots of first-hand accounts this was at times a very visceral, frightening and bloody account of modern warfare up close and personal. If you’re in any way put off by the horrors of war you might just want to skip this one – or at least be aware that you might need to skip some of the more detailed accounts throughout this book. If you know D-Day from the Allied point of view only (as I did pretty much) this is a real eye-opener and will definitely round out your knowledge of the events surrounding that most important day. Highly recommended to anyone interested in how WW2 ended.    

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The D-Day Landings... 79 Years ago, TODAY.

 

Just Finished Reading: Turbulence by Giles Foden (FP: 2009)

England, Early 1944. As the long expected invasion of the European continent gets ever closer and the number of troops steadily increases all over the South of the country the only question on everyone’s lips is: When will it happen? The men and machines are almost ready, ships are full to bursting with the tools of death and across hundreds of airfields the bombers, fighters, transport planes and gliders are eager to be off. Everything is planned down to the minute except for one vital thing outside the control of even the most powerful men in the combined forces poised to leap across the narrow confines of the English Channel – the weather. For the landings to be successful the Allies need 5 days of relatively calm weather, a full Moon and a low tide at dawn. There are a few days scattered throughout June 1944 but which one offers the most favourable conditions? The best forecasters in the world have only been able to predict up to a maximum of 3 days ahead with increasing levels of uncertainty. This is simply not good enough to hinge the biggest amphibious assault in history on. A failed invasion now could delay the final outcome of the war by a year or more and who knows what effects that could have. The weather men simply need to do better – but they don’t have the tools to do so. One man however does – Wallace Ryman, developer of the Ryman Number denoting the amount of turbulence in a system. But Ryman has turned his back on the science of Meteorology in favour of Peace Studies and, as a Quaker, has refused to divulge details of how to use his insights into weather system for military purposes. Young maths prodigy Henry Meadows is sent to Scotland to try and persuade Ryman to teach him how to use the Ryman Number to ensure a successful invasion of Europe which will shorten the war and save thousands of lives. After months of trying everything he can to gain the education he needs tragedy ensues and Meadows is left to piece together what he can before D-Day goes ahead with or without an accurate weather report.

I honestly never really gave weather forecasting a second thought where military matters are concerned. I know (generally) that the weather in the Channel early in June was an important factor in determining D-Day but didn’t realise just how much effort was being put into such a leap into the comparative unknown and how much the invasion was pushing the science. Obviously based on real events (with several of the characters being real historical people) this was often a fascinating read and I picked up quite a bit of knowledge regarding turbulence and how maths could be used to make sense of it (used in both weather and financial market forecasting). Many things piqued my interest and, rather inevitably, I shall be investigating this later in non-fiction. While the main story was interesting enough I did find some of the side stories rather irritating. The main character grew up in Africa so we were regaled by multiple reminiscences which, whilst moderately interesting in themselves, didn’t do much for the story and too often felt like padding. Even worse was the romantic confusion between Meadows and Ryman’s young wife which seemed completely pointless. Despite all that the core story was very interesting indeed and made me look at the preparation for the D-Day landings in a subtlety new way which I always enjoy. Definitely recommended for science Geeks and those interested in off-the-wall aspects of WW2.