A new book in my library. (1 Viewer)

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Two new books - one a real winner and the second very disappointing in the first 40 pages. Unless it improves I will give up reading it.

First the winner. This guy pulls no punches. Despite being a career RAAF officer he is quite scathing at times. A couple of examples below. He devotes a whole chapter to post war repatriation including the appalling way that the RAAF told many members who were in places like Moratai that they had to find their own way home after VJ day. Many did not make it home until well into 1946 to quote the author




HQ Melbourne were budgeting parts and manpower on the units 11RSU supported flying 600hrs/month but in reality they were flying 1500hrs/month.

As far as I am concerned the second book is a farce. After the 15 page preface on how wonderful one of the authors is and how he spent so much time at NARA getting material one would expect a high level of accuracy. Pages 6 and 7 are an example of how sloppy the authors are.


Starting with the red underline (and ignoring the claim that Australia expected Japan to enter the war (War Cabinet papers make that clearly incorrect). The way the paragraph reads the Aus government acted prior to the Japanese entering the war. The truth is somewhat different.
Under Churchill's direction the Aus troops were pulled from North Africa and sent to Asia in January 42. Initially these troops were to be deployed to the Netherlands East Indies, present-day Indonesia, to help British troops create a defensive line against the Japanese advance. However, the British General Archibald Wavell, in charge of the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command, informed Churchill that the East Indies could not be held. At this point Churchill insisted the Australian troops redeploy to Burma.
On 17 February 1942, two days after the fall of Singapore, the Pacific War Council (the inter-governmental body controlling the Allied war effort in the Pacific) met and Australia's representative advised Curtin that the Australian Government would be asked to agree that the Seventh Australian Division already on the water should go to what Churchill considered the most urgent spot at the moment, which was Burma. Curtin replied the next day: 'The Government has decided that it cannot agree to the proposal that the 7th AIF Division should be diverted to Burma.' Therefore the inference that Australia acted swiftly is incorrect as Curtin did not demand the Aus troops come home until over ten weeks after the Japanese attacks started.

Next the blue underline - Lend-Lease did not exist until March 11, 1941.

Finally the green underline - Port Moresby was always in PAPUA.
Papua and New Guinea joined into one country in the mid 1970's and that country is called Papua New Guinea so no matter whether you are speaking ww2 or now POM was never in New Guinea.


And those are just three of the errors in the first seven pages.
 
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Seems you've done well too Paul...
 
Escuadrilla Azul said:
Hey Paul, how is it? It is worth if you have BCRS vol 5? How much detailed is? Or it is a rehash?
Click to expand...

Morning, I believe this series is different than the Black Cross Red Star series. I only have book 3 of that series out of 5. I did not see any pictures that where the same with a quick flip through both series on Stalingrad. I have not read the series yet of the books I got. I didn't want to start till I had all 4 and to get all 4 has taken a lot of time as they are asking pretty high prices for some of them. Below are all 4 books for the series.

 
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