I have Costello's "Pacific War" book. Very good. I may have to check out this one.
thanks.

Of course having just discovered this one, I had no idea that one existed. Now I have another to take a look at. Thank YOU.:sunny:

I have a steadily growing list of books on the Pacific Theatre, suggested by a few people at subsim. With the imminent release of SH4, I may have to put Norman Davies' monster down for a while and get acquainted with the contents of the Amazon package arriving next week (hopefully).

I have approximately 150+ books on WW2 (u-boats and fleet boats) submarine warfare and I am constantly adding to my library. I also have copies of the war patrol reports of 34 US boats...and I am adding to that as well.

Currently reading Stephen L. Moore's Spadefish: On Patrol with a Top Scoring World War II Submarine, an infinitely readable account of US submarine warfare. Moore uses many Spadefish veteran interviews coupled with extensive use of Spadefish's war patrol reports. I have copies of those patrol reports and Moore does a wonderful job with his narrative. This book covers Spadefish's career from launching, fitting out, commissioning, shakedown, five patrols through to her mothballing at the end of the war. Cannot recommend this book enough...easily compares with Dick O'Kane's classics, Wahoo and Clear the Bridge.

I just finished Mike Ostlund's Find 'Em Chase 'Em Sink 'Em: The Mysterious Loss of a WWII Submarine Gudgeon. Ostlund had an uncle that was lost on Gudgeon and thus drove his mission to find out about his uncle's sub and attempt to find the location of Gudgeon. Again, extensive interviews with veterans who served on Gudgeon before her final fateful patrol are used to fill-in the details. The book is written in two parts with the first having chapters dealing with all 12 of the sub's war patrols and the second part detailing Ostlund's detective work in locating his uncle's final resting place. Ostlund's detective work rivals that of Sherlock Holmes with elementary reasoning...something that it hindsight seems to have clearly eluded the US Navy. Highly recommended as well.

On deck is Kenneth Ruiz's submarine memoir Luck of the Draw. I am looking forward to reading that immensely.:ping:

At the moment I'm reading The Winds of War by Herman Wouk, the author of The Caine Mutiny. Its a good read, recounting WWII from the fictional perspective of a Navy family. BTW, anyone who hasn't read The Caine Mutiny (Winner of the 1951 Pulitzer Prize), it's a must read for anyone interested in the workings of the Navy and its role in WWII from a very human and realistic view. Wouk writes at a high level so you have to work at reading his books, but believe me, its worth it!:up:

Fine recommendations.

<image deleted>

Cheers.

Right now I'm about 50 pages into Silent Running: My Years on a World War II Attack Submarine by James F Calvert, who was the TDC operator onboard the Jack.

I just donated that to the library last week.
Right now I'm reading Retreat Hell the 1st Marine division in Korea.

A good novel, Winds of War. If you don't know, there are two successors, or better book two and three, title is "War and Remembrance, parts 1 and 2". It is a fluid continuing from the first book, and they all belong together. I liked how the amosphere and the "breath of that time" was brought to life, on multiple continents. A good example of history book meeting fiction. Sometimes you learn more from a more subjective approach on things, like here. So far I have red the complete work twice. The TV series was not en par with the books, but Robert Mitchum as Pug Herny did well.

What I read currently: during siesta time after midday, "The Plumed Serpent" by DH Lawrence and "Silk" bei Alessandro Baricco (short book and an artful narration, a most exquisite little surprise), and in bed some easier stuff, a thriller: "Lautlos" (noiseless) by Frank Schätzing.

Cool! I'll have to get started with those when I'm done with this one, but it could be a while, its a big 'un!:D

Just started with "rapidi ed invisibili" (quick and stealth) the sort of historical submarine almanac casually found yesterday.

Just finished The Secrets of the Holy Lance by Jerry Smith.
It's about the spear that pierced Christ's side by a Roman solider when he was on the cross.
The first half of the book I couldn't keep up with all the historical sounding names and places but later when Hitler acquired it it got very interesting.
Another interesting bit is that it was taken to Antartica where the Nazis built an underground base called Station 211 where a planned assault on it was allegedly taken place sometime in 1946 by Admiral Byrd and practically an invasion fleet.

I know it's an old title but i keep coming back to it: Alistair MacLean's "HMS Ulysses". Great and truly gripping story.
:up:

Reading Alexander the Great by Robin Lane Fox. Only about half way throught it but not to bad. Has alot of interesting insights and possibilities since there isn't a whole lot of actual written record from his time. Tries to make sense of what his "historians" wrote of him and the actual happenings.

I have just finished Hunter and the Hunted.Quite good but there were a few factual errors.

What I'm now reading!
 

Hello sub pimps and pimpettes, :|\\

Your friend, posting yet again hellas1 here. :|\\

I currently am reading the "writing on the wall" of my being umemployed and thus am not reading nor collecting any subbie books. :down:

My current station in the submarine called Life is "Unemployed Loser." :|\\

Fear not, loved ones, I SHALL rise again.....
:rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock:

hellas1 :|\\

:o ... Marajuana does interesting things to the human mind...






J/k!:p

I stepped away from the naval books for a bit, and read a great biography of the man who invented America-Benjamin Franklin, by Walter Isaacson.

Everybody has heard of Franklin and the kite, but what I didn't know was that after he retired from printing (at age 42), he purchased several Leyden Jars and hooked them together in a box, experimented with dumping the water out to see it the charge was actually held in the water or in the glass (it was the glass) and finally published his findings with the Royal Society, for which they gave him a gold medal. He apologized for coining his own terms, and asked them to feel free to change whatever they wanted. The terms he used are still with us today: Positive, Negative, Plus and Minus Charge, Conductor and Electrical Storage Battery.

Later he was the first scientist to actually experiment with the idea that lightning might be electricity, and designed and built the first lighting rod. When he visited Britain later he was honored as an equal and counted among his friends the great chemist Joseph Priestley, philosophers Edmund Burke and David Hume, and the legendary economist Adam Smith. Franklin's papers don't mention it, but according the the papers collected by Smith's daughter Smith actually asked Franklin's opinion on some early chapters of The Wealth Of Nations.

When the American Revolution was starting in 1775 Ben Franklin was still in Britain, trying desparately to get both sides to come to an agreement. He returned to America in time to sign the Declaration Of Independence, and it was after John Hancock said "Now we must all hang together" that Franklin made his famous rejoinder: "Yes, we must all hang together, or most certainly we shall all hang separately!"

Franklin spent the rest of the war in Paris, and in 1783 was the primary negotiator for the peace treaty betwean Britain and the newly-independent America. In 1787 he was one of the prime movers behind the new Constitution, and he was the one who cut through all the infighting and arguing and managed to get the states to finally compromise. He has been called the First American, and one writer pointed out that of all the Founding Fathers, he alone would be at home in an office park or a shopping mall. That same writer called him "Our Founding Yuppie"; and he really did personify the upwardly mobile shop-keeper of the 1700s.

Benjamin Franklin, by Walter Isaacson. The best I've read in a long time. Highly informative, very readable, lots of fun.

War Beneath The Sea, by Peter Padfield. I just finished it, and I can't recommend it enough. It doesn't have the depth of Blair's books or the breadth of Roscoe, but it is very readable and contains the stories of all the major commands, including the accomplishments of the British submarines in the North Sea, Med and Pacific (including the X-craft), as well as the Japanese successes and failures.

Things I didn't know:

1) At the same time the British were being amazed that BdU never realized they were reading the Enigma codes, they also never once considered that B-Dienst was reading their signals!

2) I guess I was spoiled by SH1, and assumed that the Americans always had a waterproof TBT, but according to Padfield the first US boats fitted with a surface relay system at all had something similar to the German UZO, with regular binoculars being fitted into a control system that relayed the bearing down to the TDC, and that not until early in 1944!

3) In spite of the successes of US boats against Japanese shipping, US high command never had a German-style policy of an all-out anti-merchant war. Enemy warships were always the first priority. If the Americans had followed the German example they might have starved Japan by the end of 1943.

All this is speculation of course, but Padfield makes a good case. Overall the book is very detailed for only 500 pages.

I learned a lot from this book. Get it and read it; it's a good one!

"Wolfpack" by Steven Trent Smith about the pack attacks into the Sea of Japan. Gotta get ready for the Pacific !.

Thanks for the review of Padfields book Steve.