At the end of the Second World War, German Field-Marshal Albert Kesselring whose troops fought both British and American troops in Italy and Western Europe, was asked “What was the best American division faced by troops under your command on either the Italian or Western Fronts?”. Without hesitation he said, “The Marne men.”

Who were the “Marne men?”  They were the men of the U.S. Army’s 3^rd Division. They won more medals than any other infantry division in Europe and within its ranks were at least one of every U.S. medal, including the Medal of Honor; some medals were won by those two men as many as three times. Their names were Audie Murphy Maurice Britt. Both men received major wounds, and Murphy would have the more public but also more troubled private lives. Here is a list of medals won by Murphy: * Medal of Honor *2- Silver Stars * 3-Bronze Stars * Distinguished Service Cross *3-Purple Hearts. In total, the “Marne” division won more than one-fourth of all Medals of Honor won by the ground forces, an amazing accomplishment. The winning of medals helped determine when the serviceman was able to go home and at the end of the war, who could be discharged and in what order.

The book follows a number of individuals from the divisions landing in French North Africa, through the battles in Sicily and Italy, including Anzio plus the landing in the south of France through the final battles in the Colmar pocket. While Army psychologists thought that the “breaking point” of an infantryman was two-hundred days of continual combat, many of the men of the division were in continuous battles for over four-hundred days, and the survival rates was about seven percent.

Kershaw continues his excellent writing in that while he describes the overall strategic scope of the battles, focuses on the lives of the men at the most basic level. He has obviously taken great care in doing his research, in his interviews and writing to bring the men, both high and low to life. Their stories and exploits put modern day movies and stories to shame, for these were real individuals taking huge risks in order to lead their men and insure that as many of them would return home at wars end. It is a shame that young boys of today watch silly comic book heroes in movies instead of learning about real bravery as exhibited by men of their great grandfathers and grandfathers’ generations. It is hard to say anything positive about war, but to see the bravery and selflessness of the men in this book makes one realize the amazing ability of ordinary men to do extraordinary deeds.

Classic Conflicts Series, Christophere Chant Consultant Editor

I first read this book in 1997 and during this re-read, I found that it has easily stood the test of time. By this I mean that reading this one book will give the reader a solid basis in most of the key areas key to an understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the German military under Hitler, as well as a basic understanding of the various military fronts, key German military personalities and problems faced by that military.  Or to put it another way, reading this book will save the reader the time and expense of going through other books published this 1997 which deal with the same areas but add nothing new.

The book itself is divided into several parts which focus on specific areas. For example, Part I entitled, “Hitler’s War Machine” deals with Germany in the thirties, the general economy, science, and technology, etc. Part II deals with Hitler’s generals and their battles in each of the key fronts. Various generals are highlighted with a good analysis of their strengths and weaknesses. The last part deals with the Luftwaffe and its challenges from fighting on numerous fronts and the impact of the strategic bombing campaign. Surprisingly, the Kriegsmarine receives short shift and is only covered in a section of fourteen pages.

The key of course to the defeat of Hitler’s war machine was the overwhelming strength of the allied coalition. Added to this is the fact that although the Germans were operating for most of the war along interior lines (unlike the United States which fought simultaneously in theaters thousands of miles apart), their shortages of key materials and short war outlook doomed them from the start. Without a quick victory, the chances of a German victory lessened each day.

Realizing the logistical problem of the German may encourage the reader to research information on the topic. I suggest Brute Force by John Ellis (reviewed 12/28/2023), Freedoms Forge by Arthur Herman (reviewed 4/28/2025) and Why the Allies Won by Richard Overy. These excellent books will give the reader an amazing view of the power available to the modern nation’s state.

Overall, this is an excellent book which covers most of the key areas. It is more of a technical look at war, devoid of human-interest stories but written in a manner that easily holds one’s attention.

In June 1942, for the first time since the war of 1812, the United States was invaded.  Invaded in an area where few Americans had ever been, on an island that even fewer Americans had ever heard of, but it was an invasion which had to be faced. 

To mislead American forces from the main Japanese thrust in the Central Pacific, Japanese forces landed on the island of Attu, an island at the extreme end of the Aleutian Island chain.  The island that held no tactical or strategic value, was racked by one hundred mile and hour winds that thundered down from the mountains and had an average of ten days of sun a year.  Wet, cold and remote, tens of thousands of men would meet each other in mortal combat for not valid reason.

Beyond the battle however, this is a story about two men, one Japanese, one American.  The men met in a split second, one killed the other, but their lives were forever bound by their love of America and duty to their native land. 

Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi was the son of Japanese Seventh Day Adventists who studied medicine in the United States and who came to love the country.  The size, freedom, opportunity all promised all that he could wish and when he met a beautiful Japanese student, he married and began a family.  Life was not to allow him to enjoy his opportunity however, as he and his little family travelled back to Japan in a successful attempt to free one of his sisters from prostitution to which she had been sold by the family’s elder brother during the worse days of the Depression.  Then, Tatsuguchi was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army (though he was mistrusted so much that he was the only doctor in the Army who was not an officer).  Shipped to Attu with the invasion forces, Tatsuguchi was cut off from the world he loved and was subjected, as were all Japanese troops, to constant propaganda regarding the glories of Japan and his duty to the Emperor.

Dick Laird escaped the poverty of Appalachia by joining the U.S. Army where for the first time he had three meals a day, regular pay and a clean place to sleep.  He met, impregnated and left a girl but during the war, he matured, went back and married her but he still had to pay his debt and fight his battles in the Pacific.  One early morning, with a thick fog all around and in the middle of a Japanese suicide attack, Dick accidently killed a comrade and then killed Tatsuguchi.

Dick never really recovered from the battles he fought (he won the Bronze and Silver Star medals) and Tatsuguchi had left behind a diary which was circulated widely by U.S. troops even though it went against the image built up during the war which showed the Japanese are a deadly, sneaky crazy enemy who had no human feelings. 

Many years later, Dick managed to find the family of Tatsuguchi and told them how he had killed their father/husband. How both sides faced the truth and what they learned is a great story.  And, this book also brings out the sacrifices of the men of both sides who fought in one of the most hellish places on earth, in a campaign that produced the highest percentage of American to Japanese causalities until the battle of Okinawa. 

This is a fine read, both for the military historian and for more personal aspects.  Highly recommended.

This is the story of how American business, which is the American people came together to produce the best equipped military in the history of the world.  The book has two key players; not FDR, not Eisenhower, not even Marshall, but two Americans, one a first generation American, the second, an immigrant who helped to focus and force American industry at a time of national peril. 

The first was Henry Kaiser, first generation American who through his drive and skills was the driving force behind such pre-war projects as Boulder and Grand Coulee dams, as well as thousands of miles of paved roads as the country was getting behind the wheel of their new cars.  His vision of what he could do enabled him to move into ship building, but his skill was not just in being able to successfully move from industry to industry (during the war he would build ships, airplanes, etc.) but in finding ways to mass produce them in record time.  An example is his work building the Liberty Ships which helped to defeat Germany in the Battle of the Atlantic.  When given a contract to build ships, he also had to build his own shipyards, as well as recruit workers and provide housing for them.  The workers came from every facet of American life; they were teachers, hairdressers, farmers, students, housewives, etc. and they all had to be taught how to handle tools, cut sheet metal, maintain equipment, order parts, inventory those parts, supervise production lines, etc.  All from scratch.  And he did it so successfully that a ship which use to take 200+ days to produce were coming down the waterways at one every 15-20 days.

The other main character in this excellent book is William Knudsen, a Danish immigrant (he landed in the U.S. before his teens) who not only revolutionized the production facilities of Henry Ford, but also was the driving force behind General Motors which he managed to be built to a point where it surpassed the production of his old boss, Henry Ford.  Knudsen was the type of production man who could look at a production problem and, in his mind, reconfigure the entire process to speed up production and better quality.  In recognition of his skills, he was the only civilian in the history of the U.S. to be made a Lieutenant General in the military.

But this is also the story of the average Americans who not only worked at the huge war plants but created tens of thousands of businesses to support the war effort.  An excellent example is Ma and Pa Harrington in Rockford Illinois.  Their specialty was making machine tools for turning artillery shells and tank turrets.  When they realized that a new lathe would cost four thousand dollars, they made their own out of a junked lather, an old washing machine motor, and oil pump from a 1926 Chevrolet and an old washtub that caught the oil that leaked from the bottom of the home-made tool, all in their living room!  This is an example of American ingenuity which was not found anywhere else in the world and which contributed so much to the war effort.

In the days before the internet, social media, faxes, computers, even a reliable nationwide telephone system, we would able to design, order, produce, ship, inventory and assemble the 55,000 parts for a bomber, all in record numbers.  That ability won the war as surely as the men on the front line, and despite the best efforts of the New Dealers in Washington who wanted to direct all production centrally, as occurred in Nazi Germany. 

This is an inspiration book, of interest to anyone interested in production, or wishing to read a book about what the country was capable of during those dark hours.  Is the country, are our people still able to pull together in such a desperate time?  That is for you to determine.

One of the advantages of building a library is the luxury of being able to go back and re-read the books which are worthy of being in your library. There are certain books in my library that I have read several times over the years; why? Some are wonderful novels (such as the trilogy by Sienkiewicz) or the dissent novels by Rybakov. Others are histories filled with a myriad of facts or insights (think of Richard Evans, Richard Overy or William Manchester). I love that they can clutter my brain with obscure facts that I can pull out during a conversation or discussion on a related topic. Those books are special and fall into a special category of those which can be re-read every five years or so and be as fresh and entertaining as the first time they are opened.
Retribution by Max Hastings is one of those rare military books that falls into that special category. It has all the prerequisites of a great history book. It provides a broad overview of events, then focuses down to the strategies and tactics involved in those events. Another key element is that it is loaded with obscure facts which I find so interesting and even useful (in the right company at the right time), an example of the obscure is when he writes about the development an problems with the largest single expenditure of the war (even more costly than the Manhattan Project). Did you know that “The construction of a B-29 required 27,000 pounds of aluminum, over a thousand pounds of copper, 600,000 rivets, nine and a half miles of wiring, two miles of tubing.”. Do you care? But it is that type of detail that when you realize the U.S. produced thousands of those planes that you begin to realize the enormity of the war. Or that with the defeat of Nazi Germany, Canada announced that only those citizens who did not wish to stay in the war to defeat Germany could cease war activities.
His narrative is especially excellent when he goes down to the basic level; that of those doing the actual fighters. Some are British troops fighting in Burma, one of the worse areas of combat in the war and the least reported and celebrated. The humidity, rains, foot paths which turned into thick, boot sucking mud, poor food and an enemy who fought with determination even though many died of hunger. What about the survivors of the kamikazes? How could they survive, how many volunteered, how many were drafted into the ranks and how did it feel for those who taught the new pilots to see their poorly trained students take off knowing that they were doomed. Every nation which fought in the Pacific is highlighted as brave and pathetic stories are woven through the book.
This was my third reading of this history, and it will occupy a special place in the library; a place where timeless quality of writing and research is noted and I confess, I shall read it again in a few years and enjoy it just as much.

When we think of war, we tend to think of great campaigns, great Generals, and the struggle between nations. The countless small battle actions done by the millions of people who make up the battles are often overlooked. We know no individual combat action by any of those millions will be decisive in the war, but taken together, they create the victory or defeat in war.

The battle of the River Plate, off the coast of Montevideo in mid-December 1939 was a single action that was not a major factor in the loss by Nazi Germany. It was a battle that was more symbolic for the British and a lesson learned by the German Navy. On the surface it was a battle between a German “pocket battleship” and the British navy; one ship against a professional navy that could call on aircraft carriers, battleships, heavy cruisers, and other ships by the dozen. Logically, there was no doubt of the outcome of the battle, yet it had to be fought for war is not a gentleman’s game.

The German ship was the Graf Spee, a lone ship whose main purpose was to seek out and destroy Allied merchant ships in both the Atlantic and even the Indian oceans. The presence of such a ship, armed with six-eleven-inch guns put every merchant ship, destroyer, and light cruiser in harm’s way. If the Graf Spee could not sink any ships, her existence and presence would disrupt the passage of merchant ships and with every ship valuable to the survival of England, she had to be hunted and destroyed.

The author does and excellent job of outlining and following how the British reacted to the realization that the Graf Spee was lose in the Atlantic. They immediately reached out to their major ports to gather ships capable of destroying the German raider and created several hunting groups. From the North Atlantic to the Med to the southern tip of Africa, heavy units of the British navy all joined the hunt for the Graf Spee.

For anyone not familiar with navy ships, the book does leave something to be desired regarding the match up between the Graf Spee and the British; speed, armor, firepower are briefly covered by the assumption seems to be that the reader at least has a glancing knowledge of these topics. Also missing are the stories of the individual sailors for both sides. Anyone who has read the excellent Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors by James D. Hornfischer will be disappointed at the lack of personal depth in this book.

In the end, the British sank the German raider, the war moved on to the Battle of the Atlantic and one episode in a great war ended. Yet today, it is a tradition when sailing off Montevideo to sail over the graveyard of the Graf Spee and think even if only briefly, of those men who fought and died some eighty-five years ago.

Bloodlands, his 2010 history of Eastern Europe, Timothy Snyder presented a graphic picture of the continual wars, revolutions and famines which has plagued Ukraine and surrounding lands. We have seen for over two years with the Russian invasion of Ukraine more heartless killing and terror. In Prit Buttar’s Retribution we witness a merciless war of attrition between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as the Soviets drive to recapture an area which was overrun in 1941 and which suffered under the Nazi regime.

This is a detailed military book of that campaign which totally ignores the suffering of the local population. Caught between two gigantic military forces, we can only image the terrible cost that the locals faced when thousands of tanks, airplanes and hundreds of thousands of men on both sides fought in a no mercy military campaign driven and directed by military and political commanders who gave little if any thought to their own troops, let alone the civilians.

In a book of nearly five hundred pages, there are numerous eyewitness accounts by soldiers and field grade officers (most of them from the German side) which can very well lead the reader to exhaustion after only a few pages. The fighting was so brutal and unrelenting that it makes the battles of attrition of World War One almost seem to be less horrific than they were. Why? Because which World War One introduced the war between machines which replaced the wars between men, the leap in technology and lethality of the means of killing had exploded exponentially. Although the German army still had a slight professional edge, the Soviets had learned well from the Germans and had increased their ability to adapt and foresee the German defensive moves. Yes, the Soviets still used on many occasions the blunt force of superior numbers in both men and material, but the constant drain of experienced German officers, NCOs and material, though endless battles deprived the average German soldier of any hope of relief let alone victory.

The individual German tank crews were still, tank for tank and man for man, superior to the average Soviet tank crew, but as would be the case in Western Europe in the next year, the Soviets like the Americans were willing to lost three or four tanks in order to kill one German tank.  The Soviets outproduced German production by a ratio of two, three and even four to one, and while the Soviets could concentrate their efforts in one continuous theater, the Germans had to spread their production and manpower over several theaters.

Was the reconquest of Central Ukraine a forgone conclusion? Nothing is ever guaranteed in war, but nothing short of a miracle could stop the Soviets. The mistakes of the Germans earlier in the war such as not knocking out England, or their defeat in North Africa, even the German declaration of war on the United States all came home to be paid in this campaign. The Germans decided to fight the world knowing that time was not on their side. When they committed serious errors which upset their timetable, they faced the reality they created.

The shame of it all is that we see another war of attrition in the same area today. Once again, the average person will pay the price for a tyrant’s illusions.

Who were the financiers who provided the manufacturing and technical expertise which allowing Hitler and the Nazis to overrun so much of Europe and commit the Holocaust?  And, after the war, what actions if any were taken against them not only for their material support of Hitler, but also for the use of slave labor on a scale not seen since the Roman Empire?

Mr. De Jong spent four years researching this book focusing on four major German families; the Quandts, the Flicks, the von Fincks and the Porsche-Piechs.  How is it that the Krupps are so well known and yet these families contributed in so many ways to the Nazi war machine, producing tanks, guns of every caliber, ammunition, drugs, medicines and almost every other item that a nation needs for war.

Some of the named above were successful industrialists before Hitler’s rise to power, such as the Quandts while other took advantage of the “Aryanization” of Jewish businesses.  “Aryanization” was the concept that with the introduction of the Nuremberg Laws, Jews were forbidden to own factories and businesses.  In order to comply with the law, Jewish businesses were “bought out” by Germans for pennies on the dollar and then those few pennies were determined to be the cost of an exit visa from Germany as many of the Jews fled to other countries. Such theft was in itself a crime that these and other families committed but add to the list the inhuman treatment of the slave laborers and the wheels of justice should have centered on these families.  Why weren’t these families the targets of justice?

Through the mists of time, the campaign against Poland in September 1939 has seemed to have almost disappeared.  Memoirs and campaign histories of other actions of World War II have stuffed libraries around the world to overflowing and even today new volumes are produced which seldom contribute something new to our understanding of these events.  Aside from an occasional article in a history magazine, about the most complete history of the campaign that I found was by Major Robert M. Kennedy as published by the Department of the U.S. Army (1956).  Roger Moorhouse’s new book promised to bring some new facts to bare, especially around personal narrative from the Polish defenders.  To some extent, this has been achieved.

I say to some extent as there are some actions where the thoughts and activities of the defenders are noted, but not as many as I personally would have enjoyed.  The strength of this book is in putting the lead up to the war in good context, especially in the alliance between the U.K., France, and Poland.  To be brutally truthful, Poland was betrayed by its allies, who promised aid and an offensive against the Germans but had no intention or desire; instead the “allies” of Poland were depending on bluff to stop the Germans. Just two days before the invasion, when the German army was deployed on three sides of Poland, the French Minister of War assured his Polish counter parts that France was fully committed to invading Germany with the full might of its military if war were to begin.  Of course, the French “offensive” thrust a few kilometers into Germany and then quickly pulled back, while the British did not begin a bombing offensive as “private property” might be damaged.

The Polish defense of Westerplatte is covered well, but other actions such as those on the Hel peninsula and at the fortress of Modlin are barely touched.  The famous cavalry actions of Poland’s Uhlans are put into proper perspective and the Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland are also covered adequately.  Other weaknesses include not discussing the escaped of over 100,000 Polish troops through Romania and their contribution to the allied victory (as well as their betrayal in England where they were not allowed to participate in the victory parade for fear of offending Stalin and the domestic Labor Party), and a summation of German losses during the campaign.  It is known that the war costs the Germans over fifty-thousand casualties and approximately twenty percent of their tanks.

From the very start of the war, the Germans embarked on a reign of terror, executing both Polish “intellectuals” including policemen, lawyers, doctors, priests, and teachers.  In the beginning theses individuals were primarily Polish but Jews were also targeted.  The key was to break the will of the Poles to resist, the view being that the Jews had no where to go and could be handled on a larger scale in time.

In the end, the nation which was the first to stand up to Nazi Germany and who stood by the Allies in spite of bad faith, was a loser in the Second World War. There were no victory parades, no awarding of honors but there was forty-four years more years of terror under the rule of Communism. Perhaps that is why Poland realizes the danger of Russia so much more clearly than the Western Europeans.  

This work is a good introduction to the campaign and basic reference book for anyone who wishes to understand the importance of the politics on both sides and a bird’s eye view of the battles. Moorhouse follows in the footsteps of his mentor, Norman Davies so we should see additional fine histories in the future.

The logistics of war is a science often neglected.  A prime example of this was when Japan attacked the US, their soldiers went to war with 2 pounds of logistical support (supplies, shipping, etc.) while the US soldier had 4000 pounds to support him.  The result was a forgone conclusion and not even Japan’s best-case scenario (a negotiated truce where they could keep some of their gains) was possible.

     The advent of trains added new dimensions to war; suddenly campaigns could be supplied further from the homeland and war did not have to take a break during the winter when traditionally armies were broken up and dispersed widely in order to not totally plunder the land.  More men, more supplies could be moved to threatened points of conflict and the result was longer, bloodier wars.

     This book is a bit of a disappointment in that it does not fully portray the full scope of the impact of railroads.  There is an interesting discussion of A.J.P. Taylor’s thesis that railroad tables led to wars, but it is counter balanced by the strategic goals (in this case of Russia and France against Germany).  Other volumes have pointed out the huge logistical undertaking of war; while it is interesting to try to grasp that 11,000 trains were re-directed in a campaign, that number does not tell you of the freight involved.  How many meals, guns, coats, boots, etc. were moved and delivered to the right units at the right time?  Or, there is no real discussion of how the lack to railroads going in the right direction led to French armies being beaten during mobilization by the more strategically designed Prussian railway system.

     This is a good book for the novice, for someone who wants to get a very basic grasp of the impact of railways on war, but it will lead one to look for follow up volumes on the subject.