Haven't posted in this thread in a while but it's not because I haven't been reading... because I have.
Two history books I recently vanquished. The first is Fighting For MacArthur: The Navy and Marine Corps Desperate Defense of the Philippines by John Gordon. It's funny, when I started reading this book I was wondering why the Author seemed to focus so much on the Marines and Navy in the Philippines before realizing that was literally what the topic of the book was. I've read more then a few books about the Philippines Campaign in '41 and more then a few about MacArthur himself so I was actually really pleasantly surprised with all of the new information I learned about this since it came from a viewpoint of covering the US Asiatic Fleet as stationed in the Philippines and the US Marines there.
Along with being readable and packed with lots of interesting information, the way the Author writes the book means its never dry and so it was actually an engrossing read seeing how the Navy was better prepared then MacArthur and the US/Filipino Army both in planning and preparation, including the stockpiling of supplies prior to the invasion. A lot of the Navy reinforcements actually came from the US Navy's gunboats and other small, often river based vessels that were departing China right before the outbreak of hostilities so it was actually extremely fascinating seeing their long, perilous journeys from China, to the Philippines and how each of these random gunboats, armed yachts, minelayers and other assorted small vessels operated during the campaign and their ultimate and often heartrending fates.
Also learned about the adhoc units the US Asiatic Fleet formed out of US Sailors who hadn't fired a rifle in years. One interesting anecdote was that during a Japanese amphibious landing behind the lines in the Bataan Campaign, it was a battalion sized force largely consisting of sailors who were wholly undertrained as infantry led by some random US Marines that led the counterattack which ultimately contained the bridgehead the Japanese had made. The Japanese anecdotes were written down stating how these US troops were suicidally different from other US and Filipino soldiers, talking loudly, sitting in the open, smoking cigarettes, all in efforts to draw out Japanese fire and expose their positions...
Yeah that's what they were doing...
Loved it because it also had a lot of maps and tables and charts about the various vessels in port, the firepower of the various coastal fortifications and so forth. A lot of good books sometimes just lack the presentation of facts and figures which is unfortunate.
My favorite takeaway from the book though was the Invasion of Corregidor by the Japanese. For so long I was wondering just how such a fortress island, with months of supply of food and well garrisoned and everything could succumb to a Japanese amphibious assault that was apparently very costly. This book really laid out the invasion and battle in detail and I finished the book realizing why Corregidor did actually surrender. It really helped me understand certain facets of warfare that you don't really get from reading broad overviews of engagements or Wikipedia articles or animated battle maps about. So overall, despite being a niche topic of a single campaign, I'd recommend if you have interest in the subject matter. Learned a lot.
The second book I read, which I enjoyed even more then the previous one, is Michael Oren's Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. I really enjoyed this book. It starts off giving some context to the events... leading up to the events... that led to the Six Day War. So it goes through the War of Independence for Israel briefly, the changing diplomatic situations and Arab intransigence regarding Israel existing, the 1956 Suez War and its fallout and how America was seen as the ally of Israel but even by 1967... was rather cold in supporting it directly with military aid since they too didn't want to alienate the Arab world.
It goes in depth on the Prime Minister of Israel, Eshkol and his noted lack of military experience, how Moshe Dayan (ol one eye) was kind of forced on him as a new Defense Minister despite being a political and ideological rival, and other notables like Yitzhak Rabin and so forth. It really goes in depth on Gamel Nasser, his Deputy Amer who was once his protege and best ally but increasingly became a rival to him in power and talks about Pan-Arabism and Nasserism in general and how popular it was. Also King Hussein of Jordan, U Thant who was the Secretary General of the United Nations. There was so much internal and international politics involved that led up to 1967 and its really interesting seeing it unfold.
The 1967 War was completely avoidable by all sides it seems but a conflict seemed inevitable and potentially wrong choices made for what seemed like the right reasons at the time. King Hussein of Jordan was trying to be a 'conservative' (along with Saudi Arabia for example) Monarchy while Syria, Iraq and Egypt were Baathists. Plus two thirds of Jordan's population were Palestinians as opposed to Jordanians. He was constantly in fear of being deposed which neither the West nor Israel wanted, but the Baathists did and even talks about the repeated attempts Egypt made on King Hussein's life. Nasser meanwhile was stuck in a quagmire in the Yemeni Civil War fighting Saudi backed Royalists which prevented Nasser's Egypt from pursuing the noble destruction of Israel. We'd learn about how Syria would back Palestinian/PLO operations originating from Jordan causing reprisals from Israel against Jordan, leading to one exceptionally tragic incident that almost destabilized the Hashemite Monarchy of Jordan.
Eventually Nasser would extricate his forces from Yemen and then in order to win prestige abroad, would force the UNEF stationed in the Sinai since 1956 out of the country. But then thanks to his Deputy, Field Marshal Amer who was commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, things escalated and soon Egypt found themselves in a position of not just reoccupying the Sinai, but decided to close off the Straights of Tiran, shutting down the southern port of Eilat in Israel as well as overflying Israel's Dimona Nuclear Complex which was only a few minutes flight over the Southern Negev Desert. Then as tensions ramped up more and more, you read about the diplomacy intensifying and even in late May how both Egypt... THEN hours later Israel, called off their own offensives in the last hours. You read about how Jordan decided to abandon the West and join Egypt in Alliance and the sacrifices it had to make and then you learn about how Israel is struggling to ponder whether it can even risk taking offensive action as Jordan is bombarding their farms north in Galilee, Palestinian guerrillas are infiltrating Israel proper, and a US led effort to bring an international convoy through the blockaded Straights of Tiran falls apart.
Eventually, Israel decides on War and the meat of the book, despite being a couple hundred pages in, is a highly detailed account, with lots of anecdotes and sources from all sides of the conflict, about how the Six Day War unfolded, day by day... often hour by hour as timetables are pushed forward, war goals are modified as diplomatic measures take hold and vice versa. On the military matters, I contrast this book with the infamous book Arabs at War by Kenneth Pollack which portrays the Arab militaries in a very negative light. In here, it feels more balanced. The Israelis were better overall then their opponents, but Michael Oren discusses how well the various Arab forces fought, even in counterattacks and the like, with understandably a lot of praise going to the Jordanians but the Egyptians and Syrians put up formidable fights as well before, oftentimes... due to ineffective senior leadership... the resistance of their armed forces often just collapsed.
And like any military book, there are a lot of interesting stories and anecdotes and little historical nuggets of information. Like how hundreds of Egyptian officers were captured, while only thirty Syrian officers were, because the Syrian officers often fled, leaving their troops behind. In some cases Israelis found Syrian troops CHAINED to their defensive positions. You also learn about the two factions in Soviet leadership, both encouraging Arab aggression towards Israel but one side far more Hawkish. There was this Deputy Defense Minister, a decorated and experienced WW2 General named Andrei Grechko who, when Egyptian Field Marshal Amer visited the Soviet Union, practically convinced Amer that the Egyptian military was strong enough to absolutely crush the Israelis in any sort of military conflict... turned out... very poor advice. One Soviet Ambassador to Israel, in the wake of the Six Day War, was sent to Siberia for his failing in Israel. You read about how King Hussein went almost literal days without sleep and was the only leader of any Arab Nation to actually come close to visiting the frontlines. On the eve of War almost all Egyptian senior leadership was on vacation hundreds of miles away from the front. And there's just so much more. It's a really fascinating story and it's told very well.
One of the things that really struck me about this book was the parallels it had to today. And I'm not just talking parallels to the current Middle Eastern situation, but things like the Russo-Ukrainian War as well as the current ongoing Gaza War. The rhetoric the Soviet Union, who was backing the Arab States in this crisis, was almost identical to that used nowadays in regards to Ukraine and Gaza and elsewhere. The Soviets were calling the Israeli's the Nazis back in 1967, constantly stating their countries aggressive actions would doom it, that they were settler colonists/imperialists, actively engaging in genocide and propagating in 1967 what was known as 'The Big Lie' which is an Arab fiction that the United States and Britain were actively helping Israel in 1967 with direct military action where at one point Nasser even asked King Hussein if Britain had aircraft carriers.
Two history books I recently vanquished. The first is Fighting For MacArthur: The Navy and Marine Corps Desperate Defense of the Philippines by John Gordon. It's funny, when I started reading this book I was wondering why the Author seemed to focus so much on the Marines and Navy in the Philippines before realizing that was literally what the topic of the book was. I've read more then a few books about the Philippines Campaign in '41 and more then a few about MacArthur himself so I was actually really pleasantly surprised with all of the new information I learned about this since it came from a viewpoint of covering the US Asiatic Fleet as stationed in the Philippines and the US Marines there.
Along with being readable and packed with lots of interesting information, the way the Author writes the book means its never dry and so it was actually an engrossing read seeing how the Navy was better prepared then MacArthur and the US/Filipino Army both in planning and preparation, including the stockpiling of supplies prior to the invasion. A lot of the Navy reinforcements actually came from the US Navy's gunboats and other small, often river based vessels that were departing China right before the outbreak of hostilities so it was actually extremely fascinating seeing their long, perilous journeys from China, to the Philippines and how each of these random gunboats, armed yachts, minelayers and other assorted small vessels operated during the campaign and their ultimate and often heartrending fates.
Also learned about the adhoc units the US Asiatic Fleet formed out of US Sailors who hadn't fired a rifle in years. One interesting anecdote was that during a Japanese amphibious landing behind the lines in the Bataan Campaign, it was a battalion sized force largely consisting of sailors who were wholly undertrained as infantry led by some random US Marines that led the counterattack which ultimately contained the bridgehead the Japanese had made. The Japanese anecdotes were written down stating how these US troops were suicidally different from other US and Filipino soldiers, talking loudly, sitting in the open, smoking cigarettes, all in efforts to draw out Japanese fire and expose their positions...
Yeah that's what they were doing...
Loved it because it also had a lot of maps and tables and charts about the various vessels in port, the firepower of the various coastal fortifications and so forth. A lot of good books sometimes just lack the presentation of facts and figures which is unfortunate.
My favorite takeaway from the book though was the Invasion of Corregidor by the Japanese. For so long I was wondering just how such a fortress island, with months of supply of food and well garrisoned and everything could succumb to a Japanese amphibious assault that was apparently very costly. This book really laid out the invasion and battle in detail and I finished the book realizing why Corregidor did actually surrender. It really helped me understand certain facets of warfare that you don't really get from reading broad overviews of engagements or Wikipedia articles or animated battle maps about. So overall, despite being a niche topic of a single campaign, I'd recommend if you have interest in the subject matter. Learned a lot.
The second book I read, which I enjoyed even more then the previous one, is Michael Oren's Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. I really enjoyed this book. It starts off giving some context to the events... leading up to the events... that led to the Six Day War. So it goes through the War of Independence for Israel briefly, the changing diplomatic situations and Arab intransigence regarding Israel existing, the 1956 Suez War and its fallout and how America was seen as the ally of Israel but even by 1967... was rather cold in supporting it directly with military aid since they too didn't want to alienate the Arab world.
It goes in depth on the Prime Minister of Israel, Eshkol and his noted lack of military experience, how Moshe Dayan (ol one eye) was kind of forced on him as a new Defense Minister despite being a political and ideological rival, and other notables like Yitzhak Rabin and so forth. It really goes in depth on Gamel Nasser, his Deputy Amer who was once his protege and best ally but increasingly became a rival to him in power and talks about Pan-Arabism and Nasserism in general and how popular it was. Also King Hussein of Jordan, U Thant who was the Secretary General of the United Nations. There was so much internal and international politics involved that led up to 1967 and its really interesting seeing it unfold.
The 1967 War was completely avoidable by all sides it seems but a conflict seemed inevitable and potentially wrong choices made for what seemed like the right reasons at the time. King Hussein of Jordan was trying to be a 'conservative' (along with Saudi Arabia for example) Monarchy while Syria, Iraq and Egypt were Baathists. Plus two thirds of Jordan's population were Palestinians as opposed to Jordanians. He was constantly in fear of being deposed which neither the West nor Israel wanted, but the Baathists did and even talks about the repeated attempts Egypt made on King Hussein's life. Nasser meanwhile was stuck in a quagmire in the Yemeni Civil War fighting Saudi backed Royalists which prevented Nasser's Egypt from pursuing the noble destruction of Israel. We'd learn about how Syria would back Palestinian/PLO operations originating from Jordan causing reprisals from Israel against Jordan, leading to one exceptionally tragic incident that almost destabilized the Hashemite Monarchy of Jordan.
Eventually Nasser would extricate his forces from Yemen and then in order to win prestige abroad, would force the UNEF stationed in the Sinai since 1956 out of the country. But then thanks to his Deputy, Field Marshal Amer who was commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, things escalated and soon Egypt found themselves in a position of not just reoccupying the Sinai, but decided to close off the Straights of Tiran, shutting down the southern port of Eilat in Israel as well as overflying Israel's Dimona Nuclear Complex which was only a few minutes flight over the Southern Negev Desert. Then as tensions ramped up more and more, you read about the diplomacy intensifying and even in late May how both Egypt... THEN hours later Israel, called off their own offensives in the last hours. You read about how Jordan decided to abandon the West and join Egypt in Alliance and the sacrifices it had to make and then you learn about how Israel is struggling to ponder whether it can even risk taking offensive action as Jordan is bombarding their farms north in Galilee, Palestinian guerrillas are infiltrating Israel proper, and a US led effort to bring an international convoy through the blockaded Straights of Tiran falls apart.
Eventually, Israel decides on War and the meat of the book, despite being a couple hundred pages in, is a highly detailed account, with lots of anecdotes and sources from all sides of the conflict, about how the Six Day War unfolded, day by day... often hour by hour as timetables are pushed forward, war goals are modified as diplomatic measures take hold and vice versa. On the military matters, I contrast this book with the infamous book Arabs at War by Kenneth Pollack which portrays the Arab militaries in a very negative light. In here, it feels more balanced. The Israelis were better overall then their opponents, but Michael Oren discusses how well the various Arab forces fought, even in counterattacks and the like, with understandably a lot of praise going to the Jordanians but the Egyptians and Syrians put up formidable fights as well before, oftentimes... due to ineffective senior leadership... the resistance of their armed forces often just collapsed.
And like any military book, there are a lot of interesting stories and anecdotes and little historical nuggets of information. Like how hundreds of Egyptian officers were captured, while only thirty Syrian officers were, because the Syrian officers often fled, leaving their troops behind. In some cases Israelis found Syrian troops CHAINED to their defensive positions. You also learn about the two factions in Soviet leadership, both encouraging Arab aggression towards Israel but one side far more Hawkish. There was this Deputy Defense Minister, a decorated and experienced WW2 General named Andrei Grechko who, when Egyptian Field Marshal Amer visited the Soviet Union, practically convinced Amer that the Egyptian military was strong enough to absolutely crush the Israelis in any sort of military conflict... turned out... very poor advice. One Soviet Ambassador to Israel, in the wake of the Six Day War, was sent to Siberia for his failing in Israel. You read about how King Hussein went almost literal days without sleep and was the only leader of any Arab Nation to actually come close to visiting the frontlines. On the eve of War almost all Egyptian senior leadership was on vacation hundreds of miles away from the front. And there's just so much more. It's a really fascinating story and it's told very well.
One of the things that really struck me about this book was the parallels it had to today. And I'm not just talking parallels to the current Middle Eastern situation, but things like the Russo-Ukrainian War as well as the current ongoing Gaza War. The rhetoric the Soviet Union, who was backing the Arab States in this crisis, was almost identical to that used nowadays in regards to Ukraine and Gaza and elsewhere. The Soviets were calling the Israeli's the Nazis back in 1967, constantly stating their countries aggressive actions would doom it, that they were settler colonists/imperialists, actively engaging in genocide and propagating in 1967 what was known as 'The Big Lie' which is an Arab fiction that the United States and Britain were actively helping Israel in 1967 with direct military action where at one point Nasser even asked King Hussein if Britain had aircraft carriers.
