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Williams, Charles. Petain: How the Hero of France Became a Convicted Traitor and Changed the Course of History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan Publishing Company, 2005

ISBN 1-4039-7011-4
xi + 298 pages

Acknowledgments; Introduction; photos; endnotes; Bibliography; Index

   Robert Bruce's book on Petain from Potomac was scheduled for release in 2005 but has been delayed until later this year. In the meantime, Palgrave released its own title about the Marshal, a man of sufficient interest and importance to warrant at least eight different English-language biographies.
   Charles Williams writes here the entire story of Petain's life, with approximately half the book devoted to the immediate pre-war years, the war, and the immediate post-war years. The opening chapters might go some distance toward revealing how Petain was molded and helping readers understand his motivations during the Vichy years, but in fact much of Petain remains a mystery despite the author's best efforts to shed light on the man.
   It seems that by the time of the German invasion Petain had already decided he was the best figure to lead France and was ready, under proper circumstances, to take the helm. As a military man, and a soldier of the old school at that, accustomed to giving orders, authoritarianism seems to have come easily to him. But how many of Vichy's pro-German policies emanated from Petain, and how many came from other sources, such as Laval? Is it true that he secretly worked with the Allies to oppose the Germans?
   For the most part, Petain seems to have genuinely believed that German victory in the wider war was inevitable. Furthermore, he seems not to have cared too much about who won and who lost, only that France in any event should be restored to its rightful place of power and honor by the victor, whoever that might be. As a consequence, Petain seemed willing in most cases to collaborate with Germany. Furthermore, it appears that his dislike of Laval was based more on personal matters rather than any deep-seated differences in political philosophy. In addition, Williams demonstrates that many of the secret pro-Allied contacts and opinions attributed to Petain might actually have came from those around him. For example, during the early days of the Allied invasion of French North Africa, the secret coded messages telling Darlan essentially to act in favor of the Allies (while the official messages told Darlan to act against the Allies) apparently came from Admiral Auphan rather than Petain. (This issue is covered more thoroughly in Melton's Darlan.)
   In any event, Petain was undeniably at that time an old man not always in full possession of his faculties, sometimes signing laws without reading them and then "...surprised at the result." His doctor, it is also said, manipulated the Marshal with "...injections of benzedrine, ephedrine, and even amphetamines." For Williams though, one particular decree, the oath of personal allegiance, marks the defining moment in Petain's rule over Vichy:

   Petain spent much of the rest of March and early April visiting the provincial towns—and then made another blunder. Against his—admittedly feeble—opposition, Darlan had succumbed to German demands to set up a Commission General aux Questions Juives. By early April Xavier Vallat, a former deputy of pronounced anti-Semitic views, had become its first head. Its function was to enforce the existing law against Jews, to coordinate them with the ordinances issued by the German military governor in France—and to devise further laws. Vallat was to prove rigorous in his task, and there was little Petain could or wanted to do to restrain him. Vallat's unpopularity was in time to rub off on Petain himself. The announcement, and Vallat's appointment, were greeted in most of unoccupied France with outright hostility.
   It was this hostility which encouraged the fledgling resistance groups to become bolder. In response, on 7 April Petain delivered his first attack on the "dissidents," as he called them. In a radio broadcast he stressed the need for national unity, and went on to criticize "propaganda, subtle, insidious, inspired by Frenchmen.... Halted for a moment, the calls to dissidence take up again each day a tone which is ever more arrogant." To shore up further the government's position, Darlan extended the application of the oath of personal allegiance to Petain to magistrates and, above all, the army.
   This was for Petain a personal Rubicon. For the whole of his life, Petain had been educated to believe that it was the duty of the army to obey the instructions of a duly constituted civil authority. If that authority changed complexion the army would obey the instructions of the new authority. That had been the rule which had proved a binding force in the turbulent French politics ever since the Revolution. That was now to change. From the most senior general to the humblest poilu all were solemnly bound to obey without hesitation or question Petain's orders, however eccentric they might be and whether or not Petain was the duly constituted civil authority. Of all the measures which Petain signed at Vichy it is this measure which brought him—against everything he had learnt in his military career—into the ranks of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco.

   In the end, some aspects of Petain's life and actions—or were they his own actions?—are still unexplained, but it will be difficult for anyone to read this book and conclude that the Marshal remained a hero of France. Germany used him for its own interests as long as he remained sufficiently compliant, then swept him aside as soon as it suited Hitler's purposes to do so.

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Smart, Nicholas. Biographical Dictionary of British Generals of the Second World War. Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword Books Ltd, 2005

ISBN 1-84415-049-6
xxvii + 353 pages

Acknowledgements; Introduction; Glossary; photos; Bibliography

   Overall, Mark Boatner's The Biographical Dictionary of World War II remains the best book in this genre, but even Boatner can't come close to matching the number of British generals covered in Smart's compilation. The Pen & Sword title encompasses every general officer serving in the Brit Army during the war, ranging from Major General Sir William Ernest Victor Abraham to Major General John Edward Talbot Younger.
   Each entry, of which there are 340, contains name, highest rank attained, year of birth, year of death, honors bestowed, and thumbnail biography. The text, depending on the importance of the officer, ranges from about a third of a page up to several pages. Here's a typical entry:

MORGAN, Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Edgworth
(1894-1967), KCK

   Born in London, the son of a timber merchant, and educated at Clifton and RMA, Woolwich. Morgan was commissioned in the Royal Artillery in 1913. His First War service was in France, where he was twice mentioned in despatches. A captain in 1916. he married the next year.
   Most of Morgan's inter-war soldiering was in India. He attended the Staff College, Quetta, 1927-1928, and, a major in 1932, served on the staff at AHQ, India, 1931-1934. A staff officer at the War Officer 1936-1938, he was promoted colonel and was chief staff officer with 3rd Division 1938-1939.
   Put in charge of 1st Armoured Division's support group in 1939, 'Freddie' Morgan served briefly in France in 1940. Operating with 'no teeth at all' (Marshall-Cornwall, 1984, 139) as his infantry had been detached in the vain attempt to garrison Calais, he was evacuated from Brest and made BGS to II Corps. Promoted major general in 1941, he was GOC Devon and Cornwall Division that year and commanded 55th (West Lancashire) Division 1941-1942. Promoted acting lieutenant general in 1942, he was appointed GOC I Corps with Home Forces. In March 1943 he was made Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC) and charged with planning the opening of the Second Front. Brooke, lukewarm towards the project, apparently told him, 'Well there it is. It won't work but you must bloody well make it' (DNB).
   Although Morgan worked hard as COSSAC, even to the extent of sleeping on a camp bed in his office, he was hampered in that there was not, from the beginning, a Supreme Commander to deputize for. Moreover, when the command set-up was put in place, Montgomery, the land forces commander, 'stood up and demolished' the COSSAC plan (Hamilton, 1983, 512). Not all Morgan's work was wasted; the 'Mulberry' artificial harbours were, in part, his idea, but for the rest of the war, and in his memoirs, Montgomery criticized Morgan for 'considering Eisenhower a god' (Montgomery, 1958, 236), for being too pro-American and for leading a campaign, of vendetta proportions, to discredit him.
   Deputy Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) 1944-1945, Morgan was knighted in 1944 and was chief of UNRRA operations in Germany 1945-1946. Dismissed from that post, after claiming that UNRRA was being used by Soviet agents to foment unrest in the western occupation zones, he wrote bitterly of his experiences in post-war Germany in his otherwise good-humoured memoirs Peace and War: A Soldier's Life (1961).
   Retired from the army in 1946, Morgan was Controller of Atomic Energy 1951 1954 and Controller of Atomic Weapons 1954 1956. He was also Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery 1948-1958. Living in Middlesex, he was much honoured in the United States after the war, but received no further British decorations.

   Of course, the bios of generals such as Montgomery, Alexander, and Slim run considerably longer, and Smart doesn't shy away from mentioning controversial subjects or drawing his own subjective conclusions about the quality of individual British generals. On the other hand, the author often fails to provide exact dates for events (for example, even births and deaths show only years) and sometimes leaves events unmentioned or ambiguous. For example, Smart writes about Auchinleck "[h]aving divorced his wife in 1946 on the grounds of her adultery...." without mentioning that she actually ran off with RAF Air Marshal Richard Peirse during the war.
   Smart could also have improved his book by including a photo of each general (there's a relatively small collection of photos in the middle of the book) and listing relevant memoirs and biographies for each officer. In general, however, this is a highly pleasing book and should prove very useful to anyone with more than a cursory interest in the war. Would someone please prepare similar volumes for high-ranking officers of the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy?

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Bashow, David L. No Prouder Place: Canadians and the Bomber Command Experience, 1939-1945. St Catherines, ONT: Vanwell Publishing Ltd, 2005

ISBN 1-55125-098-5
544 pages

Acknowledgements; Introduction; Foreword; photos; maps; Notes; Glossary; Bibliography; Index

Appendix: Balance Sheet: The Costs and Gains of the Bombing Campaign

   While a few WWII topics have yet to command a solid, full-length, English language book, other topics continue to pile up tome after tome. We counted eight biographies of Petain (see above), but it would be impossible to tabulate all the books about Bomber Command. Nevertheless, Canadian author David Bashow tallies another on that subject. In this case, he finds a relatively fresh perspective on the bomber campaign.
   No Prouder Place does a perfectly workmanlike job of charting the campaign's changing fortunes—especially its evolving technologies and tactics—for both sides, but that's mostly old hat to anyone who's been paying attention. In addition to that familiar territory, however, Bashow focuses specifically on the Canadian role in Bomber Command, including Canadians serving in RCAF squadrons as well as RCAF airmen in British squadrons and individual Canadians serving in the RAF. Throughout the book he sprinkles his pages with anecdotes from Canadian veterans.
   In this example, Bashow writes several paragraphs about the well-known controversy between Portal and Bomber Harris at the end of 1944 concerning the offensive against oil targets before he segues into a full page of excerpts from the diary of a Canadian pilot. We pick this up at the end Bashow's discussion of the Portal-Harris flap:

   It has been suggested by some, including historian Max Hastings, that Portal should have dismissed Harris at this juncture of the war for his intransigence, which bordered on insubordination. But others, including John Terraine contend that Harris's popularity and prestige were such that the remedy would have been worse than the ailment in the ensuing backlash of public opinion. In fact, Harris had volunteered to resign over the issue, but Portal refused to accept his subordinate's gesture, however frivolously it may have been tendered. As we have seen, Harris also had friends in the highest circles, and his dynamic leadership was an unquestioned asset to the war effort. Henry Probert in his book Bomber Harris sums up the issue with the following comments:

   As Harris himself later recognized, oil did prove more critical than he had judged at the time. Influenced by the views of Albert Speer, Hitler's Armament Minister, he wrote in 1947 that in the final weeks of the war all the German armed forces had been immobilized for lack of fuel, rendering the triumph of the oil offensive complete and indisputable. It was the one "panacea" that actually paid off.

   From the autumn of 1944 onwards, Bomber Command staged daylight raids with ever-increasing frequency until the end of the European war the following spring. This was somewhat ironic, since by this time the Command had reached such a level of technological sophistication and tactical expertise that its aircrews were by and large as comfortable and as accurate at night against an obscured target as they were in daylight. The Luftwaffe, with a few notable exceptions, had by now been rendered largely impotent by the oil and transportation bombing campaigns; the relentless pounding of Luftwaffe stations and support facilities by the free-ranging tactical air forces; the dogged pursuit in the air, day and night, of the remaining German fighter forces by vastly more numerous hordes of Allied fighters; the takeover of enemy facilities by the advancing land armies; and, to a lesser extent, the bombing of the now largely decentralized aircraft industry Still, the Luftwaffe, like a phoenix rising out of the ashes, did prove dangerous on occasion. Also, the Germans never appeared to run short of anti-aircraft artillery The important targets remained stoutly defended with guns, and flak continued to claim many victims.
   While the Command generally experienced much more acceptable loss rates from the spring of 1944 onward, there were certainly exceptions to the rule. Flight Lieutenant Lyle James from Sarnia, Ontario, was a later-war Lancaster pilot with 101 Squadron of 1 Group. In the short, operationally intense period from 12 September until 15 December, he and his crew completed a full thirty-two-raid tour of operations. However, 101 Squadron was a Special Duties unit tasked to perform Airborne Cigar (ABC) in concert with their regular Main Force bombing duties. As such, their special radio interception and jamming equipment, manned by German-speaking operators, was particularly susceptible to detection and homing when they were transmitting, which made their loss ratio among the highest in Bomber Command at the time. And while these Special Operators had direct links to RAF Intelligence personnel back in England, the tactical advice the home stations provided to the ABC crews in some evolving combat situations was not always considered the most appropriate. James's aircraft, coded "W2" or "William Squared," returned with battle damage on ten separate occasions, and three of this stalwart crew, including James, eventually received DFCs for their gallant work. Lyle James's diary provides an exciting snapshot of the operational tempo this crew experienced and the initiative they demonstrated during their tour of duty in the autumn of 1944.

23 Sep 1944 Neuse, Germany

   Night, 4 hrs 40 minutes, 18,000 feet. It was on this trip that the virtuosity of Flying Officer "Gordie" Bullock (bomb-aimer) was put to the test. One of his many duties was to turn his bomb sight on approximately half an hour before the target. The bomb sight was driven by a "Pesco" pump, which spun at about 23,000 rpm, and the gyroscopic field that it set up at this speed stabilized the very delicate sight. However, about 15 minutes into the run, everything went dead! Later examination would show that a pin had sheared off. Now we had a fully loaded bomber rapidly approaching the target, and no way of aiming our load! However, Gordie, remembering some long-forgotten lecture given by an ex-bomb dropper, when we got to the proper height, had always made some dummy (practice) runs on features visible on the ground, and when the supposed target would appear in the cross-hairs, he would stick his wad of chewing gum on the perspex in front of him, and in theory, this became his new bomb sight. So when the original bomb sight toppled, Gordie carried on using nothing but some old Doublemint for a sight, and he got a very respectable bomb release picture for his efforts! He also got great praise from everyone from the commanding officer down. It was typical of the many ways in which Gordie contributed to our tour.

   This excerpt continues with more material quoted directly from James' wartime diary, then turns to the design and introduction of the Mosquito, moving to Canadian experience with that aircraft: "Many Canadians flew all variants of the wartime Mosquito operationally...."
   Bashow follows the same pattern for the entirety of Bomber Command's campaign. He looks at the overall flow of events, discusses the Canadian role in each phase of the air war, and illustrates the material with recollections from Canadian veterans.
   In sum, the book is a solid work, but never quite rises to inspired heights. Given Bashow's perspective, it will probably prove most attractive to a Canadian audience. More than that, it will certainly appeal to Canadian vets and all the generations of their families. Unfortunately, Bashow's single false note is his "Appendix" (which really should be titled "Conclusions"). In it, he uses the final thirty pages of his book to hammer home every conceivable argument in favor of the bomber offensive, curtly dismissing or ignoring other points of view, in what almost seems to be little more than an effort to convince veterans and families that their sacrifices weren't in vain. This part of the book, in comparison to what comes before, is far too one-sided and relies too much on sources like the Time-Life World War II series and Bomber Harris himself. Referring to Horst Boog as Horst Borg doesn't help Bashow's cause much, either. Especially taking the final thirty pages into account, No Prouder Place, as the title suggests, mostly turns into a paean to the Canadian veterans.

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Rohwer, Jurgen. Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939-1945: The Naval History of World War Two. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005

ISBN 1-59114-119-2
x + 532 pages

Preface; Abbreviations; Indexes

   It's no exaggeration to say this is the single most important book about WWII naval operations in existence. The pages are packed with details about actions, forces, commanders, and losses often not found elsewhere, not even in books written about a specific subject. For example, Rohwer has more to say about naval operations in the Red Sea during 1940-1941 than any book on the campaign in Italian East Africa. Similarly, Rohwer methodically lists the compositions of task forces, often including warship skippers, when other others fail to provide such information. Furthermore, Rohwer—himself a veteran of the Kriegsmarine—writes the same kind of detailed information on minor navies and minor actions that he lavishes on important, well-known naval battles.
   Although billed as a chronology, the author doesn't approach his material in a strict day-by-day fashion. Instead, he builds his pages with chunks of material that move gradually through time in a series of loops and backtracks tied to specific geographical locales. Here's an example:

22 February-March Indian Ocean

   On 22 and 23 February light assault craft, supported by the Indian sloops Narbada and Jumna, land 6,635 men of 3 Commando Brigade and other British and Indian Army units on the banks of the Myebon river near Kangaw.
   From 24 February to 4 March the escort carriers Empress and Ameer, with the cruiser Kenya (Vice-Adm Walker), the destroyers Virago, Vigilant and Volage and the frigates Spey, Swale, Plym and Trent, carry out air photo reconnaissance of the Kra peninsula, off the north-east coast of Sumatra, of Penang and of the Simalur and Banjak Islands (Operation 'Stacey'). They also make raids on Japanese shipping in the Andaman Sea. On 24-25 February the destroyers Rapid, Rocket, Roebuck and Rotherham shell the Andaman Islands, an operation repeated on 3 March. In a sortie towards the coast near Tavoy, coastal craft are sunk on 1-2 March and a Japanese air attack is beaten off on 1 March.

23-24 February Air War/Norway

   Eighty-three RAF Bomber Command aircraft attack shipping installations at Horten; one is lost. The torpedo boat TA 8 (ex Norwegian), fitting out there, is badly damaged.

24 February Air War/Germany

   In a USAAF air raid on Bremen, U 3007 (Lt-Cdr Manseck) is sunk and U 3052 (not yet commissioned) is destroyed on the slipway.

24 February-5 March South-West Pacific/China

   In sorties undertaken by B-29S of the US 20th AF from India, Singapore is attacked on 24 February, the Johore Straits are mined during the night 27/28 February" and the River Yangtse in China is mined on 4/5 March.

25-26 February Central Pacific

   TF.58 starts new attacks on airfields and factories in the Tokyo area but they are hampered by heavy seas and on 26 February Vice-Adm Mitscher has to call off raids planned for the Nagoya and Kobe areas. On 26 February the Commanding General USAAF Pacific, Lt-Gen Harmon, is lost when his aircraft, taking him from Guam to Oahu, is reported missing.

26 February-18 March Baltic

   On 26 February the armies of the Soviet 1st White Russian Front launch an attack from east of Stargard in the direction of the Stettiner Haft and Kolberg in eastern Pomerania. From around Friedland, part of the 2nd White Russian Front advances towards Koslin, which is taken by the 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps on 5 March. In the west, the 2nd Guards Armoured Army reaches the Stettiner Haff on 3 March, the 1st Guards Armoured Army and the Polish 1st Army the area near Kolberg and the 3rd Assault Army the crossing to Wolhn near Dievenov. To cover the bridgehead opposite Wollin, TF.2 (Vice-Adm Thiele), comprising the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer (Capt Thienemann), the destroyers Z 38 (Cdr Frhr von Lyncker), Z 31 (Cdr Paul) and Paul Jacobi (Cdr Bulter) and the torpedo boat T 36 (Lt-Cdr Hering), is employed. From 11 to 18 March Z 43 (Cdr* Lampe), Z 34 (Cdr Hetz) and T 33 (Lt-Cdr Piebe) support the approximately 2,500-3,000 defenders of Kolberg, which has been encircled since 7 March, so as to make possible the evacuation of about 75,000 isolated refugees with the help of naval ferry barges of the 11th Landing Flotilla and support from the 5th Gun Carrier Flotilla. In the roads, some of them are embarked on the transports Westpreussen (2,870 tons) and Winrich von Kniprode (10,123 tons) and warships. During the night 17/18 March the evacuation of some 75,000 refugees, soldiers and wounded is completed.

   Chronologically, the book offers some extra material, beginning with 19 August 1939 ("Owing to the critical international situation, the German Naval Staff sends 14 U-boats into the North Atlantic....") and ending on 12 February 1946 (including the Operation Deadlight sinkings of surrendered U-boats).
   Among all the other data on these pages, Rohwer includes every successful sinking by submarine attack, convoys, wolfpacks, naval gunfire support of ground forces, attacks by carrier air groups, minelaying operations, and accidental sinkings. For amphibious operations, Rohwer details ground OBs. He also keeps track of important events in the field of signals intelligence at sea and he follows the flow of ground operations as they relate to the naval war.
   This is at least the third edition of Rohwer's book, and this one has been revised and expanded from 446 pages to 542 pages of very small print. As usual, there are no photos or maps, but everything is carefully indexed, making all the data easy to find. This book receives our very highest recommendation and absolutely belongs on the shelf of everyone who studies WWII. If you don't own it, click over to your favorite online bookseller and get a copy right now.

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   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from the publishers.
   Thanks to the publishers and their importers/distributors for providing these review copies.

Reviewed 15 January 2006
Copyright © 2006 by Bill Stone
May not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Stone & Stone