100 Books Like Holding the Line

Greg Baughen had written over a million words on the evolving role and functions of the Royal Air Force from its foundation in 1918 to the post-second world war period, then decided to find a publisher!

The work is thus published in a number of volumes this being the fourth. Never frightened to challenge conventional wisdom the author deals with the RAF and British Government’s preoccupation with strategic bombing at the cost of developing effective tactical air power. As he notes German occupation of much of Europe was accomplished on the ground with effective air support.

Despite the United States doing its post-war best to accelerate the disintegration of British, French, and Dutch empires, the nation funded some 75% of the cost of the French fight against communist Viet Minh forces.

Martin Windrow, an accomplished editor, has here produced a masterpiece and certainly the definitive account of the battle for Dien Bien Phu and the political and military context. Such is the power of the book that I was compelled to visit the battle site in 2006 and marvel that any military commander would consider building a base in a bowl.

There are many lessons to be learned from the battle, political, strategic, and tactical. The book is referenced and includes clear maps and orders of battle. Just superb.

In respect of covert post-war aerial intelligence gathering there is a great deal of rumour, misinformation, and disinformation.

What I like about Listening In is that the authors have undertaken thorough research and rather than speculating have compiled what is otherwise spread around in the public domain: occasionally, for example, US sources give more detail of RAF operations than British sources. The book gives details of probing and overflight missions, including some American ones, and includes numerous diagrams, maps, and photographs.

The book is also a good example of the publishing values of Hikoki Publications.

Max Hastings is a journalist and author of several dozen books mainly on warfare. Being well-connected he is able to draw on a wide circle of friends and acquaintances to contribute their experiences, research, and ideas to his own analysis of one of the most potentially dangerous events in post-war history.

His books draw on a very wide range of sources and are invariably highly readable but also reliable. Much has been written about the Cuban Missile Crisis and Abyss pulls facts together in a digestible way with references throughout and a useful but far from complete bibliography.

What is remarkable is that the work was undertaken within the constraints of the Covid-19 pandemic that effectively closed off archives and libraries for up to two years.

The best novel ever written about the Korean War by one of America’s greatest-ever stylists. Salter himself was a USAF fighter pilot in the conflict, flying over a hundred combat missions. His beautiful, crystalline prose captures the taut atmosphere of those dangerous days, and the central dilemma of the main character, Captain Cleve Connell – how to combine the daring required to shoot down Soviet MIGs with the sacred duty of the ‘wingman’ in ensuring the safety of his comrades.

The descriptions of interpreting aerial reconnaissance photos during the Second World War were interesting. But the real hook for me was the compelling portrayal of small-town Saskatchewan life in the 1940s. The heroine—and the book does have a streak of chick lit about it—sounded like the real people I met while working as a reporter in Saskatchewan during the mid-1970s. Her hometown was recognizable, too. I keep hoping some of the spirit of these places and their people will survive well into the 2000s.

British Radio Direction Finding stations (RDF), later to be dubbed Radar, with their iconic arrays of masts along England’s south coast, contributed greatly to the RAF’s success in the Battle of Britain by detecting approaching raids and giving early warning. Both sides in the European war possessed similar technologies operated from ground stations. The race to miniaturise RDF sets for airborne interception, once realised, would have devastating consequences for intruding bomber crews facing A.I. equipped night fighters over Britain and Germany. Price takes an even-handed approach in relating the development of these technologies in Britain, Germany, the US, and Japan, making this an absorbing and enjoyable read that demystifies an aspect of the war that is usually only mentioned in passing.

The odds of completing a full combat tour as a bomber crewman with the Eighth Air Force over Europe during 1943 were about twenty percent. John Comer, a B-17 flight engineer and top turret gunner, arrived in England during that time and his descriptions of air combat are well worth the read.  Perhaps just as valuable are his descriptions of the relationships between his comrades, the non-combat aspects of his life as a combat crewman, and the sheer, mental and physical exhaustion that such duty exacted on the men.

The best thing about reading this book was that it shone a light–if you can forgive the pun–on the otherwise unseen world of the nighttime air battles over Germany.

Before I read it, I admit I thought of the night war as some sort of game of chess, somehow fought at a comfortable distance. Boiten’s book shredded that distance and brought me face-to-face with the reality of it all in a gratifyingly unsentimental way.

Perhaps the most powerful image it left me with was of young British (and allied) airmen suddenly being blown out of the sky by an enemy they all so often never saw until their aircraft was turned into a horrifying fireball.      

This large (718 pages) book covers the entire history of U.S. military parachute and glider operations—from the early evolution of the concept through landings in North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Normandy, Southern France, Holland, Battle of the Bulge, Leyte, Manila, and Corregidor. Anyone wanting to appreciate the myriad American parachute and glider operations will find a wealth of information in Devlin’s book.