Africa's Commandos - new book on the RLI

[jmm99]

It's resurrected !! Presumably, it's still "rather serious" regardless of locale.

I'll confine myself to a brief review of the literary genre.

But, first off, my initial remarks apply to the hardcover version, which is a high quality production in both binding and paper quality. As such, it reminds one of the Sarpedon-Spellmount republications (1996 & 1997) of Rudyard Kipling's monumental histories of the two WWI Irish Guard battalions, "The Irish Guards in the Great War" (1st Bn and 2nd Bn). The color plates are very well done, for example; and text (as opposed to the illustrative photos) abounds. In short, this is not a coffeetable photo gallery book; it is very content oriented.

Kipling's histories exemplify one way to approach unit histories - start at the beginning and write what, in essence, is an after action report. I find nothing wrong with that (the history of my dad's WWII battalion and its companies follows that method). It does, however, tend to an impersonal presentation.

The other approach is to present a series of oral histories - e.g., Al Santoli's Vietnam books and Lyn Macdonald's WWI books. Many others of this genre could be listed. It seems the "modern" approach.

It's use in unit histories, however, runs back at least to the 1930s. The earliest I have in unit histories (as opposed to autobios, bios and fiction) is Dunn's "The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919", which supplements his own diary with numerous recollections written by members of the 2nd Batt., Royal Welch Fusiliers (including Sassoon and Graves). Africa's Commandos is a more polished product than Dunn's - e.g., compare Dunn's "plates" (quite primitive).

So, all in all, an outstanding effort.

Regards

Mike