This Book Will Give You Nightmares – Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (2004)

 

I read this book several years ago while going through my “Major Leaders of WW2” Biography challenge and although it was a LONG read, it was extremely well researched.

Stalin was in my opinion ten times the monster that Hitler is made out to be by modern historians. Dig into the history and find out for yourself.

 

Pacific Profiles Book Review

WW2 Military History Reference Books.

Inch High Guy

Pacific Profiles Volume One: Japanese Army Fighters New Guinea & the Solomons 1942-1944

By Michael Claringbould

Softcover, 104 pages, index, photographs, and 85 color profiles

Published by Avonmore Books, December 2020

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0648665917

ISBN-13: 978-0648665915

Dimensions: 6.9 x 0.2 x 9.8 inches

At the close of the Pacific War the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy were directed to destroy their records and photographs, including logbooks and snapshots kept by the individual service members. This order, coupled with the language barrier, has long frustrated historians and modelers researching the Japanese military. The result is few publications in English on the subject, and even many Japanese language sources lack the depth and detail seen in their foreign counterparts.

The author has stepped squarely into this void. An Australian who spent several years in New Guinea, Michael Claringbould had the opportunity to examine many of the aircraft wrecks there and recorded…

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World War Two Movies and Books Worth a Damn: The 12th Man

One of the most fascinating subjects about WW2 for me has always been the stories of the resistance fighters that the OSS and SOE supported throughout the war.

The 12th Man: A WW2 Epic of Escape and Endurance  is the true story of Jan Baalsrud, whose struggle to escape the Gestapo and survive in Nazi-occupied Norway has inspired the international film of the same name. In late March 1943, in the midst of WWII, four Norwegian saboteurs arrived in northern Norway on a fishing cutter and set anchor in Toftefjord to establish a base for their operations. However, they were betrayed, and a German boat attacked the cutter, creating a battlefield and spiraling Jan Baalsrud into the adventure of his life. The only survivor and wounded, Baalsrud begins a perilous journey to freedom, swimming icy fjords, climbing snow-covered peaks, enduring snowstorms, and getting caught in a monstrous avalanche. Suffering from snowblindness and frostbite, more than sixty people of the Troms District risk their lives to help Baalsrud to freedom. Meticulously researched for more than five years, Karlsen Scott and Haug bring forth the truth behind this captivating, edge-of-your-seat, real-life survival story.

As a general rule, Foreign WW2 movies are always of higher quality than anything that comes out of Hollyweird. Yes, they have subtitles, but take my word on this, always choose reading subtitles than having the voices dubbed with out of sync ridiculous sounding voices!

12th Man (Den 12. mann) resembles other Nordic WW2 offerings like Max Manus: Man of War and Flame and Citron but differs in that the theme of the film revolves around SURVIVAL. In that regard it resembles movies like As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me and The Way Back.

The study of WW2 partisans is not just important from a historical perspective, but also from a Preparation standpoint as well.

History makes it plain that the ARMED citizens will always be the last bastion against Tyranny. And while an individual alone may be easy pickings, 5 individuals with a common goal joined together become a fist.

 

Stay Alert, Stay Armed and Stay Dangerous!