Annual Booklist 2020 : Jonathan Fennell
Dr Jonathan Fennell is an historian and Senior Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London. He is Co-Director of the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War, Chair of the Defence Studies Department MA Assessment Sub-Board, Co-Founder and President of the Second World War Research Group and a member of the War Studies Research Ethics Panel. His aclaimed book Fighting the People's War: The British and Commonwealth Armies and the Second World War (Cambridge University Press, 2019), won the 2019 SAHR Templer Medal.
For me, there are three books that should be the first port of call for any student of the British Army in the Second World War. David French’s, Raising Churchill’s Army: The British Army and the War against Germany 1919–1945 (Oxford University Press, 2000), is seminal. French’s thematic study transformed the historiography of the British Army in this period and set the intellectual agenda in terms of the major themes and debates. His prodigious work in the archives was, and is, an inspiration. The copy of Raising Churchill’s Army that I bought when I started my doctorate is now so worn out that I had to buy a new one!
If French’s study prepares one for understanding the history of the British Army in the Second World War, Doug Delaney’s magnificent book, The Imperial Army Project: Britain and the Land Forces of the Dominions and India, 1902–1945 (Oxford University Press, 2018), does the same for understanding the Army’s experience in a longer time frame. Delaney’s transnational approach correctly places the British Army in its imperial context and covers the evolution of the ‘Imperial Army Project’ from the end of the Boer War to the conclusion of the Second World War. It is an indispensable book for understanding the British Army as an institution and fighting machine.
The third core text I would recommend is Lucy Noakes’s book, Women in the British Army: War and the Gentle Sex, 1907–1948 (London: Routledge, 2006). Noakes’s study not only engages with a critically overlooked aspect of the history of the British Army, but also functions as a methodological intervention; historians of war ought to look beyond the traditional hyper-masculine focus on battle and recognize the contribution of women in modern warfare. A truly important book for the student of the British Army.
There are a series of other books that I’d recommend to readers seeking to better understand the history of the British Army in the Second World War. The key campaign texts that have influenced me are: Niall Barr’s history of the North African campaign, Pendulum of War: The Three Battles of El Alamein (London: Pimlico, 2005); Peter Dean’s history of the campaign in the South-West Pacific Area, MacArthur’s Coalition: US and Australian Military Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area, 1942–1945 (University Press of Kansas, 2018); Ian Gooderson’s study of the the Sicilian and Italian campaigns, A Hard Way to Make a War: The Allied Campaign in Italy in the Second World War (London: Conway, 2008); John Buckley’s assessment of the campaign in North-West Europe, Monty’s Men: The British Army and the Liberation of Europe (Yale University Press, 2013); Timothy Moreman’s analysis of the Burma Campaign, The Jungle, the Japanese and the British Commonwealth Armies at War, 1941–45: Fighting Methods, Doctrine and Training for Jungle Warfare (London: Frank Cass, 2005); and Brian Farrell’s book on the Malayan campaign, The Defence and Fall of Singapore 1940–1942 (Stroud: Tempus, 2005).
Alan Allport’s Browned Off and Bloody Minded: The British Soldier Goes to War (Yale University Press, 2015) is beautifully written and provides an excellent social history of the Army. Readers grappling with the British Army’s experience at the operational level would benefit from reading another of Delaney’s books, Corps Commanders: Five British and Canadian Generals at War, 1939–45 (University of British Columbia Press, 2011). Those wishing to better understand dynamics at the tactical level, meanwhile, might enjoy Andrew Stewart’s micro history of D-Day, Caen Controversy: The Battle for Sword Beach 1944 (Solihull: Helion & Company, 2014).
Lastly, I’ll throw in two other books that got me thinking. Steven O’Connor’s Irish Officers in the British Forces, 1922–45 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), tells the story of the thousands of Irishmen and women who served in the British forces during the interwar years and during the war itself. It is one of the best social and cultural histories of the British officer corps during war and deserves a wider readership. Meanwhile, David Killingray’s Fighting for Britain: African Soldiers in the Second World War (Woodbridge: James Currey, 2010) does it all; it engages with the mobilisation of African soldiers, their experience in combat and issues of social change in the post-war years.
As to a book that needs to be written, I’d like to see a new book on training and the evolution of doctrine in the British and Commonwealth Armies in the Second World War. It is a while since Timothy Harrison-Place’s book, Military Training in the British Army, 1940–1944 (London: Frank Cass, 2000) was published. We’ve since had Alan Jeffrey’s excellent Approach to Battle: Training the Indian Army During the Second World War (Solihull: Helion & Company Limited, 2016) and it would be of great help to have a study that looked at these dynamics transnationally – across the British and Commonwealth Armies during this period.