The author has put together a complete order of battle and interesting information about the many formations and leaders that served with the 3d Army. Unfortunately, there are errors that call to question the accuracy of everything in the book. At least 2 and perhaps 3 pictures are completely misidentified as to the people included and their role in the war. The authors take on the Knutsford Incident is different than every other historian of note and contrary to what is known from Pattons own diaries. All-in-all readers should be highly suspect of some of the conclusions reached in the book and seek other views of Patton as well.

Patton commanded the US 3rd Army in the Second World War. He was the USA's best armour general, a master of fluid warfare, always attacking in the most unlikely places, constantly surprising the enemy. This excellent book gives a detailed account of the strength and structure of Patton's armies.

In France during the First World War, Patton established a tank training school and commanded a tank brigade. At this time, the US Army treated tanks as a support to foot infantry. Patton made them the main component of a balanced, fully mobile, combined arms division made up of tanks, armoured infantry, armoured field artillery and armoured engineers, supported by tactical air, signals and logistics units.

In 1942 and 1943, during the Second World War, he commanded US forces in Morocco, Tunisia, and Sicily. Early in 1944 he was given command of the 250,000 strong 3rd Army. He made them one of the best organised, armed and equipped armies of the Allied armed forces and instilled them with great fighting spirit. Success in battle proved how good his preparations were. 3rd Army played a key role in the headlong Allied armoured thrust to Germany after D-Day. In the summer of 1944 they broke through the Nazi defences in Normandy and advanced rapidly across France; in March 1945 they crossed the Rhine into Germany. They fought across France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, liberating 82,000 square miles of territory including 1500 cities and towns.

They captured 1.28 million prisoners of war, killed 47,500 and wounded 115,700 enemy soldiers.

Patton was a great General!!! Need to know when this book was written. Looking for a book written in 1945 about Gen. Patton.

¡§Leakey¡¦s Luck¡¨ is a riveting account of a tank officer involved mainly in the North African desert war. I am not sure why an editor was needed because Leakey¡¦s memoirs are very interesting standing alone. It is though the first and best first person account that I have read relative to this theater . Leakey did meet Rommell face to face but was fortunately able to escape in his American built Jeep.

The author was clearly a hero by any sense of the word. He virtually went AWOL on at least two occasions to join a fighting group at the front.

Regards,

John Phillips

¡§Leakey¡¦s Luck¡¨ is a riveting account of a tank officer involved mainly in the North African desert war. I am not sure why an editor was needed because Leakey¡¦s memoirs are very interesting standing alone. It is though the first and best first person account that I have read relative to this theater . Leakey did meet Rommell face to face but was fortunately able to escape in his American built Jeep.

The author was clearly a hero by any sense of the word. He virtually went AWOL on at least two occasions to join a fighting group at the front.

Regards,

John Phillips

¡§Leakey¡¦s Luck¡¨ is a riveting account of a tank officer involved mainly in the North African desert war. I am not sure why an editor was needed because Leakey's memoirs are very interesting standing alone. It is though the first and best first person account that I have read relative to this theater . Leakey did meet Rommell face to face but was fortunately able to escape in his American built Jeep.

The author was clearly a hero by any sense of the word. He virtually went AWOL on at least two occasions to join a fighting group at the front.

Regards,

John Phillips

I enjoy oral histories because of the personal touch they bring to history and the surprising details that can bubble up. This one focuses on American and British tank warfare in North Africa and northwestern Europe, although there are some pieces from the German point of view, as well as from Italy and the Pacific Theater. Forty includes some extracts from published works from Russia, but these sound propagandistic and detract from the book. For example, he includes at one point what appears to be a rather contrived account of a duel between a T-34 and a Panther. This account, according to the notes, was taken from Krasnaya Zvezda, dated March 11, 1997, by Anatoliy Dokuchayev. It sounded like pure hype (in this case, Russian hype), starting with a challenge over the T-34's radio from the German tank commander. (Hhmmm...)
Overall, this book is okay, but it didn't captivate me. The best part is its Chapter 6, Specialized Equipment, which provided some interesting information on the "funnies" (as the British called them), and the organization and deployment of the British 79th Armoured Division. His Chapter 10, Victory, was also interesting. I don't know much about the final days of operations in Europe, rounding up the vast numbers of German POWs, trying to deal with the huge numbers of refugees and the dispossessed, and the initial steps of organizing the Occupation. One of the details that bubbled up was a Briton's recollection of being attached to Italian partisans (partigiani) hunting Germans who had fled into hiding after the final surrender. "When the Germans saw the partisans were apparently officered by a major of a Tank Regiment they gave up in droves, thinking perhaps that by surrendering to a British officer they could expect a fair deal, for they knew the partisans had a score to settle." There surely are lots of interesting stories behind the images this conjures up, not only in northern Italy but in the Balkans and other parts of Eastern Europe as well. This is the human side of conflict, with people caught up in events that are bigger than they are and against which they struggle for survival and their livelihood.
This book is worth reading, but it could have been better.

This selection of personal reminiscences from troops of the armoured-forces Great Britain, the United States, Germany, France and the Soviet Union covers their entire experience from initial enlistment, through basic training, deployment and life in the field, and on to combat and beyond. Memoirs of the same basic experience in different armies are juxtaposed and the reader cannot but be impressed by the stoicism, humour, humanity and decency that crosses all boundaries of nationality and culture. An advantage of the sequential approach is that many of the same characters are met at varying stages of their careers, so giving an appreciation of the maturing process that carried them from raw recruits to seasoned warriors. The majority of the selections are unselfconscious and unadorned, the honest accounts of non-professional writers explaining in their own words the most important experiences of their lives. Many are moving in their depiction of camaraderie and of coping with loss and injury - and some are even poetic. The only exceptions are the contributions relating to the Soviet forces, which have been drawn from official publications and which were obviously subjected at some stage to Stalinist-type re-editing. The only fault of the book is its brevity - it could have been at least twice as long without straining the patience of this reader at least - and one hopes that Colonel Forty would consider bringing out an expanded version in the future.

Readers who enjoy this book will also find echoes in two fine novels concentrating on British Armoured Forces in World War II. The first, "Sands of Valour" by Geoffrey Wagner, is set in the North African theatre and is arguably one of the best novels to emerge form the war while the second, "Flesh Wounds" by David Holbrook , gives a quite terrifying picture of service in a unit of Shermans in Normandy in 1944, prior to the breakout.

Lieutenant Colonel George Forty has done an excellent job with his brief history of the early Afrika Korps. Through personal accounts, historical synopses, and a diverse selection of pictures he covers the Afirka Korps from its arrival at Tripoli in February 1941 to its retreat from Cyrenaica in December of that same year. In a style vaguely reminiscient of Cornelius Ryan, LTC Forty has created one of the most insightful and well composed books on military history available. The amazing collection of photos alone make the book worth buying. The personal accounts are well chosen and speak not only to the intensity of combat but the harshness of the environment. The organization and tactics of the Deutsches Afrika Korps are carefully analyzed and comparisons of German, Italian, and British equipment are thorough and concise. I only wish the book had been longer and the tactical and strategic situations expounded upon. However, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in World War II--it is an excellent read.

George Krambles and Art Peterson take you deep into the innerworkings of The Chicago Transit Authority, Chicago's urban mass transit system. This book is chock full of rare photos of the agency's infancy in 1947, when it was a merger of two bankrupt systems, Chicago Surface Lines and Chicago Rapid Transit Company until its glory days of the late '70's early '80's...then its decline in the early '90's.

George Krambles was not just an observer, but the well respected, hands-on General Manager that respected all who worked for him and with him at the CTA. It was not unususal to see Mr.Krambles at the controls of an L-train in the Chicago Loop, or behind the wheel of the latest model bus. This is not just a collection of memoirs, but a factual journey into the day to day operations of a transit system no one knew the way he did.

The text is complimented nicely by color photographs by Art Peterson, one of the nation's top transit proffessionals and a prolific urban photo! grapher. To further add to this volume are rare photos from the CTA's own historic files, many rarely seen. Other graphics are reproduced as well.

Wheather you are a urbanoligist, transit proffessional, or rail or bus fan, this book is worth a prized spot in your library.

By coming out in 1990 this juvenile biography of President George Herbert Walker Bush has a slight advantage over similar books published the previous year by actually covering the first year of the Bush presidency. Earlier books ended with the election or the inauguration. Of course, covering just Bush's first year is of minimal help, although it does make clear that international concerns outweighed domestic: the latter consisted of Bush's proposals to bring the Clean Air Act of 1970 up to date and the refusal of the Senate committee to approve his choice of John Tower as Secretary of Defense; the former involved he massacre at Tienanmen Square in Chain, rebel troops trying to other throw President Corazon Aquino of the Philippines, a summit with Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, and Operation "Just Cause" to arrest Panama's leader General Manuel Noriega. In retrospect, knowing that it was domestic issues that would cost Bush a second term, it is interesting to see how from the start of his four years in the White House it was difficult to focus on the economy.

Rebecca Stefoff's biography is of more use in detailing Bush's personal life and public career than his Presidency. Chapters are broken down into sections and subsections, each with headings, that help students recognize how the biographical material is organized. Any given topic, such as the Bush-Overbey Oil Development Company or the Vicious Attacks of the 1988 campaign, are covered in one to four paragraphs. Sidebar sections talk about related topics like The World of Espionage and The War on Drugs in more detail. Stefoff does not really get into evaluating or explaining Bush's actions and beliefs, preferring instead to provide information. Her treatment of the 1988 campaign is surprisingly brief and not nearly as strong as her coverage of his first year in office or the rest of the book for that matter. If you want to find out about the Bush presidency, you will have to look elsewhere, but Stefoff certainly covers all of the biographical details of Bush's life before moving into the White House. Note: An updated version of this book was published that included a chapter on Operation Desert Storm and other major events in the second year of Bush's Presidency.

"George W. Bush: Our Forty-Third President" certainly brings the Our President series up to date, but it ends early in 2001 after Bush's inauguration. Of course, everything has changed so much since then. Consequently, Ann Graham Gaines's juvenile biography is not about the Bush presidency as much as it is the story of the story of the man who was elected after the controversial 2000 election. In fact, young readers will probably learn more about the electoral process than they will about Bush's political ideology. Compared to other volumes in this excellent series for introducing young students to the lives of the Presidents, this volume is handicapped by the fact that it was published at the start of Bush's presidency. Additionally, the second Bush to serve in the White House has an extremely short political resume, especially in comparison to his father. I thought it was interesting that Gaines calls her subject George W. until he is elected Governor of Texas and then she calls him Bush.

Gaines divides her biography into four chapters: Growing Up, Out into the World, Governor of Texas, and The Race for the Presidency. Pages in each chapter highlight particular topics such as Oil, the Draft, Laura Bush, and the Electoral College. Interesting Facts appear in the margins of many of the pages (e.g., Bush became a multi-millionaire after selling the Texas Rangers and was the first governor of Texas ever elected to two consecutive four-year terms). The back of this book contains a Time Line on Bush's life, a Glossary of mostly political terms, a list of all of Our Presidents and Presidential facts, along with internet sites and books for further information. Young readers will certainly learn about the life of the current president from reading this biography; I am sure they are learning plenty about his presidency from the evening news. Other books in this excellent series can tell them not only about Bush's father, but also John and John Quincy Adams, the first father and son to serve in the White House.

A very good read. Mr. Forty gives details on armored combat that you don't get any where else. I've not read non fictional narratives with this detail very often. You might see one such narrative in a book concerning larger scale engagements...but Mr. Forty provides many separate narratives. Worth every penny I paid.

This book is very nice and has a lot of information to ffer t its reader. I recommend this book to everyone who is intrested in the us army, and wants more information on the history and delvopment of this powerful army.

It has detailed historical development of armoured fighting vehicles & SPG of individual countries in World War Two. Ranges from the most primitive design of small armoured cars to advanced armoured command cars by end of war. It contains over 200 b/w & coloured photos of: armoured cars, commander vehicles, amphibious vehicle, tracked & vehicle mounted self-propelled guns, railway guns, etc. Some of them are rarely seen from other sources. I like the part of AFVs of Italian, Japanese, & smaller countries. Another good armour reference from George Forty.