What Are You Currently Reading? 2016

[davidbfpo]

Picked up a small hardback at a conference: 'Gunfire in Barbary: Admiral Lord Exmouth's battle with the Corsairs of Algiers in 1816' by Roger Perkins & K.J. Douglas-Morris, published 1982.

The battle was the culmination of British attempts to "reform" the piracy and slavery practiced by the city. For years the Corsairs had raided way beyond the Mediterranean; had been paid in gold for their good behaviour and sometimes 'gunboat diplomacy' was used.

Not to overlook the participation of a Dutch flotilla.

Fascinating account of the diplomacy, the covert recce of the harbour & city; the small fleet's preparations, the human angles and leadership.

I did like this quote, which seems to have applied in other battles:

...the Algerine gunners seemed to have 'learned the Navy List by heart, they took care to avoid every body who would have made a vacancy for promotion'.

[Backwards Observer]

Paris Under The Occupation by Jean Paul Sartre


The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad

[davidbfpo]

Four books read on a beach recently.

1) The newly published 'The First Victory: the Second World War and The East Africa Campaign' by Andrew Stewart. A good, well written book on a forgotten campaign to end Italian occupation of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), Eritrea and Somaliland (a British colony held for a short time). The victory, with Italian surrender was over-shadowed by the defeats in Greece and Crete. 'Bill' Slim was an Indian Infantry Brigadier, who was to learn about being forgotten again in Burma.

The immense logistical aspects are included and the strategic to operational issues. The lack of theatre maps is annoying, unless you are familiar with the regional geography. For example 18k trucks came overland from Broken Hill, now Kabwe in Zambia; the half-way point from the factory in South Africa, in the 2,900 mile journey to Nairobi.

It was not an easy victory, notably with the bitter fighting @ Keren, a mountainous fortified position. Enigma helped, but the Italians consistently located Allied formations using SIGINT.

No reviews yet on Amazon:https://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Victo...frica+campaign

[davidbfpo]

2) 'Target: Italy The Secret War Against Mussolini 1940-1943' by Roderick Bailey. This is an Official History of Special Operations Executive in Fascist Italy and was published in 2014.

A brilliant account of the attempt to 'set (Italy) ablaze', which was Churchill's ToR for SOE. For clearly explained reasons it was largely a failure until the end, in one particularly odd episode - a captured SOE radio operator acting as a link between the post-Mussolini Italian government and the Allies.

Given contemporary campaigns in many places there is much to learn about operating in a harsh environment, culture and security feature. The Italian security services repeatedly "turned" operations round.

Two episodes fascinated me and only briefly mentioned. A RN submarine in the summer of 1943 landed two Italian NKVD (later KGB) agents on the north-west coast; following an inter-allied agreement to do so and no-one knows what happened to them.

In mid-1943 two Italian saboteurs from the elite San Marco Regiment (Marines) were landed in Libya to attack airfields and were captured - offered in a possible PoW exchange. Following the success of the SAS earlier in attacking the same airfields, although arriving overland. Not the first time they had done this:http://www.feldgrau.com/sanmarco.html

Well reviewed on:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Target-Secr...lini+1940-1943

There is an earlier volume on SOE in Italy after Mussolini's fall.

[davidbfpo]

3) 'SAS: Rogue Heroes The Authorized Wartime History' by Ben Macintyre, is a newly published book by a multi-million best selling author, who had incredible support from the SAS Regimental Association and the Regiment releasing its War Diary.

It is an enthralling book of the SAS's formation, under it's inspired founder and leader David Stirling (who was captured by Luftwaffe Paratroopers in Tunisia). He was literally "in the right place at the right time" to pitch his idea to three British Generals in Cairo.

Due note is made of all those who joined, notably the French, Belgians, Greeks and British irregulars. Even some Jews and Arabs from Palestine. Plus the importance of NCOs and new kit, notably the versatile Willys Jeep.

Within the account of training and combat is the real story - the human factor. Why volunteer for such a wartime role; how was death faced and the suddenness of action to name three? Alcohol helped, as did once in an Italian mission a Scottish bagpiper.

With success came truly black moments: eighteen dying in an Italian street when a truck was hit by German artillery and the liberation of the unexpected concentration camp @ Bergen-Belsen, Germany.

I had never read about a British soldier, with Nazi views, working for the Italians as a spy and "stool pigeon" in POW camps. It appears even David Stirling talked to him, stating later he was suspicious and said little. The traitor was tried and executed for treason later.

There were odd passages, such as that Malta was bombed from airfields in Libya (around Benghazi) rather than the far closer Sicily, with far easier logistics.

After VE Day the SAS were disbanded as the conventional army and it's elephantine memory regained power. They were reformed in 1952, as a regular unit, in Malaya and some of their activity has been public since then.

Link to 101 reviews (90% 5*) on:https://www.amazon.co.uk/SAS-Heroes-...s+rogue+heroes

On the US website fewer reviews and not so many 5*:https://www.amazon.com/Rogue-Heroes-...s+rogue+heroes

[davidbfpo]

The fourth book was 'Defending the Realm: The Politics of Britain's small wars since 1945' by Aaron Edwards, pub. 2014. Somehow I missed this at the time until found a few months ago.

The author set himself a high goal, according to the publisher's summary on Amazon:

This is the first book to detail the tactical and operational dynamics of Britain's small wars, arguing that the military's use of force was more heavily constrained by wider strategic and political considerations than previously admitted.....Defending the realm? is the definitive account of the politics of Britain's small wars.

Link:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Defending-r...ding+the+realm

The book looks at the 'defending' in Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, Aden, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is a very moot point that the British Army has developed a culture and structure to capture it's experience - repeatedly shown in the Afghan campaign. When the deployment to Helmand started a copious open source resource by a US civil engineer was not consulted online or with the author. Whatever it learnt was not consistent.

Far worse at learning were the civil servants, in the various colonial administrations, and the police too. A persistent feature was the neglect of police intelligence-gathering via the local Special Branch; their focus was on political intelligence and suspected subversion - not the prospect of violence, let alone insurgency. Setting up for COIN was hard and took time, all too often defeat loomed

Understandably there is a long chapter on Northern Ireland, known as Operation Banner August 1969-July 2007. There is no a mention of the "dirty war" aspects, e.g. the collusion between Loyalist paramilitaries and parts of the state nor their part in the violence. No mention of the eventually successful intelligence system that reduced violence so much.

A good book, but with faults and several strange claims e.g. the CIA & SIS smuggled most weapons into Afghanistan during the Soviet period! That was done by ISI who they both cooperated with.

Perhaps he has written about this subject since Chilcot was published?