Featured battle : Dunkirk

Part of Second World War

Date : 26 May 1940 - 04 June 1940

Along a 25 mile stretch of beach between Gravelines and Nieuport around Dunkirk, 338,226 allied troops were evacuated from France in the face of German panzer divisions and Luftwaffe bombardment. 848 ships and boats from Navy destroyers to coastal fishing vessels plucked the soldiers off the beach and carried them back to Kent. A small rearguard were left behind along with about 40,000 French troops who were left due to confusion about their positions. Although ultimately this action saw the British Expeditionary Force along with it's French and Belgian allies pushed into the sea and the Germans confirming their control of western Europe, it was seen at the time, and continues to be seen as a miraculous evacuation of an army in the face of a skilled and determined enemy.

Battle of the Bulge. The German View

Danny S Parker Ed.
A book both enjoyable and frustrating. Enjoyable because of its insights into the complexity of planning the campaign and for the remarkable different view one gets of Hitler. In my view worth reading for that alone. The content is all meat, no padding, and rich in depth and width. A thoroughly worthy piece of work. The frustration comes with the paucity of maps for which I had to compensate with a much larger scale map. If I were Prime Minister I would make it a law that in any work of fact every place named in the text must appear on a map in the book. Also frustrating was the lack of a glossary. Many German general staff ranks are mentioned in abbreviated form and lots of formation initials are used which one has to reference elsewhere. This detracts from the enjoyment and makes reading in bed difficult.
Even with those criticisms I would commend this book to anyone interested in a fuller understanding of how wars/battles are planned or with an interest in the Battle of the Bulge.
Frontline Books. Pen & Sword Books \ltd., 2016