Annual Booklist 2023 : Dr Andrew Wheale
Andrew Wheale has enjoyed a life-long interest in military history and lives in Oxfordshire. His research interests include the World Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, Special Forces, combat effectiveness, leadership and military technology. In 2019 he was awarded his DPhil by the University of Buckingham. He is a member of the British Commission for Military History and the Society of Army Historical Research. His own volume, Ham & Jam: 6th Airborne Division in Normandy - Generating Combat Effectiveness (Helion, 2022), won the SAHR Templer First Book Prize in 2022.
The Waterloo Companion by Mark Adkin (Aurum Press Limited, 2001)
Like other large-format Adkin books focusing on a particular battle (Gettysburg, Trafalgar), this is a feast of concise research and interesting narrative mixed with superb illustrations, technical diagrams, present-day photographs and maps. In many ways I picked this book as it would make a great Christmas present for anyone interested in the Napoleonic Wars. The sections covering the campaign chronology and geography give a real sense of distance and the challenges small key bridges and rough dirt roads presented. The orders of battle are authoritative and are enlivened by small pencil sketch descriptions of the formations combined with their situation as the battle commenced - ‘The 19th Division was formed from the Paris garrison. It was the last to pass through Charleroi and arrived at Ligny too late to be used effectively.’ The ‘Command and Control’ chapter provides excellent biographies of all the key generals in each of the three armies. The arms of each army (artillery, cavalry and infantry) are dealt with together in chapters which enables the reader to compare easily. The battle action is explored with a chapter that goes through the ‘Highlights’ of the struggle on 18th June 1815, starting with the assault on Hougoumont. Each section is complimented with maps showing combat detail and more photographs of key locations. The ‘Myths and Controversies’ chapter explores those questions which any student of the great battle ponders on – did the Prussians actually win Waterloo? The only drawback the book has as far as I am concerned is that due to its size you are obliged to sit at a desk or table to read it.
The Day the Devils Dropped In: The 9th Parachute Battalion in Normandy by Neil Barber (Pen and Sword, 2010)
This book is a superb blow-by-blow account of the actions of one battalion (9th Battalion, the Parachute Regiment) in the critical first few days of the Normandy invasion. Neil Barber’s research is outstanding. The book microscopically examines the experience of 9th Battalion between Monday 5th June 1944 and Tuesday 13th June 1944. Barber has an extraordinary knowledge and understanding of British airborne operations in the Orne bridgehead, and he mixes this expertly with the material he gained from a mass of veteran interviews. This kind of detailed unit combat experience account has been much repeated since Barber’s book first appeared in 2002. The Battalion, under the command of Terence Otway, landed badly scattered but still ably dealt with the Merville Battery, preventing it from making any meaningful resistance to the seaborne landings on SWORD beach later that day. The unit then withstood a forceful German assault around the Château St. Côme. The study has extensive appendixes and notes which add further background and explanation to complete the picture. The book has an immersive quality, not only due to the detailed but easy-to-read nature of the text, but also because the author has managed to find images of so many of the interviewee contributors. This creates an almost personal sense to the narrative and adds to its power.
Military Identities: The Regimental System, the British Army, and the British People, c. 1870–2000 by David French (Oxford University Press, 2005)
Anyone serious about researching the British Army must read David French’s work. His writing style is engaging and he is expert at communicating complex arguments and conclusions regarding the exhaustive research he always carries out. I could have picked Raising Churchill’s Army instead of this volume, but settled on Regimental Identities as it is such a fascinating analysis of the elusive subject of character/identity (also Dr Christopher Tripodi has previously reviewed the former volume in the 2022-2023 booklist). The scope of this book, which won the Templer Medal Book Prize in 2005, is ambitious, encompassing more than a century of history. However, this allows French to draw in numerous examples to build his arguments. The thrust of his thesis explores the extent to which regimental culture has been transmitted from one generation of soldiers to the next, while a the same time the Army has been re-forged to deal with new doctrine and weaponry. The book begins with the reform of the Army by Cardwell and Childers, improving conditions and pay for soldiers and rationalising army organisation. He shows how the percentage of troops in line cavalry and infantry regiments fluctuates with the tide of war, the proportion dropping significantly in each world war as the corps (RA, RASC, RE etc) greatly increase, showing the development of war-fighting techniques. As Dr Tripodi pointed out, French’s scholarship is so strong it makes other historians feel they have to raise their game.
Battle Tactics of the Western Front by Paddy Griffith (Yale University Press, 1996)
While this book has a clear chapter structure and is meticulously researched, it is seemingly a stream of well-written consciousness from an author who has a complete mastery of his subject. Griffith breaks the book down into four multi-chapter parts – ‘Setting the Scene’, ‘The Infantry’, ‘Heavier Weapons’ and ‘The BEF’s Tactical Achievement.’ The chapters then isolate specific issues and themes, for example the increasing importance of the light machine gun. I first read this book at the start of my interest in the Great War, and found it to be a very useful introductory text. The last fifty of the book’s 290-odd pages are formed of an exhaustive set of chapter notes and bibliography of published and unpublished sources. The book also includes useful diagrams and figures to illustrate the changing nature and scale of the War. Another very useful asset is an appendix that gives a 1914 - 1918 perspective on the American Civil War, further setting the War and its evolution into a wider context.
The Commandos, 1940–1946 by Charles Messenger (Grafton Books, 1991)
This is a classic, for me still the best single volume written to date about the Commandos during the Second World War. The short foreword by Commando extraordinaire Brigadier Peter Young adds gravitas, linking the book strongly with the men who concern the study, many of whom contributed their memories and are credited in the acknowledgements. The monograph takes a clear approach by leading the reader chronologically with chapters focussed on each theatre of operations. The book emphasises the problems encountered in the early days, for example the lack of intelligence. An officer returns to Norway on 2nd May 1940 from the War Office with ‘unit maps’ – a holiday guide focussed on the beauty of Norway that included an enclosed map. Messenger then explores the difficult early raids on the Channel Islands before shifting focus to the Middle East including the Crete debacle. In-depth eye-witness accounts support the descriptions of the action with clear maps and photographs. Through the wholesale conversion of the Royal Marines into commandos, the impact of Mountbatten as Chief of Combined Operations and the lead-up to OVERLORD, the author never loses his eye for detail and clear analysis as the scope of operations expands. The concluding assessment of the effect of the Commandos in the final chapter is fair in my view. Messenger’s book is rich in the accounts and influence of the Commando Association and its veterans from start to finish, and combined with his concise writing style the result is a highly readable history.
What book would I wish to see written? An exhaustive analysis of the reorganisation of the Army after the BEF’s return from France in the summer of 1940 would be very interesting. The distant demands of garrisons (especially those in the Mediterranean suddenly endangered by Italy’s entry into the War); the need for massive re-equipment; marshalling forces to meet what was the near-certainty of SEELÖWE (Operation Sea Lion); all set against the Bartholomew Report’s efforts to assess what had gone so wrong in May/June 1940.