Author: Robert Kershaw
Publisher: Osprey
Price: £20
The author of this intriguing book Robert Kershaw has 'form', having written It Never Snows in September and War Without Garlands, both accounts of major Second World War battles from a German perspective, the former on Operation Market Garden and the latter the invasion of the Soviet Union. This time round Kershaw has chosen to explore Dunkirk, a battle totally embedded in Britain's Second World War psyche and immortalised in countless films and books - but always from the British standpoint which makes Dünkirchen 1940 a daring choice of topic and one Kershaw pulls off handsomely.
As usual Kershaw - an ex-British Army paratrooper - has researched his subject thoroughly and focused on first-hand accounts by ordinary German soldiers - the landsers - although he admits the difficulty of the task given so few of them involved in the battle survived the war, most being killed over the next four years in Russia. Add to this the fact that German forces involved never numbered more than ten divisions, and a relative paucity of accounts is only to be expected. Despite this, Kershaw has been able to unearth enough material to give the reader an excellent feel for the reality of the fighting; this is especially true of the last quarter or so of the book which tells the story of the battle during its final days.
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Denne historien er fra Issue 111-utgaven av History of War.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES
In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food
GASSING HITLER
Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?
SALAMANCA
After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE
Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN
One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength
MAD DAWN
How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day
BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON
Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses
THE DEADLY RACE
How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Einstein, Oppenheimer and the race to beat Hitler to the bomb. How a science project in the desert helped win a war
