George Forty (1927–2016)
Autore di US Army Handbook 1939-1945
Sull'Autore
George Forty was commissioned into the 1st Royal Tank Regiment in 1948 after passing out from RMA Sandhurst. His career in the army took him to Korea and Borneo and he retired from service in 1977 to pursue a career in writing. In 1981 he was appointed Director and Curator of the Tank Museum at mostra altro Bovington, retiring in 1994. He is the author of over fifty books on military subjects and lives in Dorset. mostra meno
Fonte dell'immagine: George and Anne Forty
Serie
Opere di George Forty
Atlantic Wall: Channel Islands: Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark (Battleground Europe) (2002) 14 copie
The World Encyclopedia of Tanks & Armoured Fighting Vehicles: An Illustrated History Of The World's Most Important… (2006) 13 copie
Hitler's Atlantic Wall: From Southern France to Northern Norway, Yesterday and Today (2016) 13 copie
The Desert Rats At War 2 Europe 1 copia
As Montanhas; POP-UP 1 copia
Opere correlate
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1927-09-10
- Data di morte
- 2016-05-19
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- UK
- Luogo di nascita
- London, England
- Luogo di morte
- Briantspuddle, Dorset, England
- Istruzione
- Ashville College, Harrogate, England
Oxford University (Queen's College)
Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst - Attività lavorative
- military officer
museum curator
writer - Relazioni
- Forty, Simon (son)
Forty, Jonathan (son) - Organizzazioni
- British Army
The Tank Museum, Bovington - Premi e riconoscimenti
- OBE (1994)
Fellow, Museums Association (1993) - Breve biografia
- I suspect I met George Forty once when I visited the Tank Museum at Bovingdon with my father in the 1980s. We were waiting outside the museum for it to open at 2pm when a military-looking character advanced across the open ground by the car park and made a bee-line for my father, and then engaged him in conversation. It transpired that he was looking for a party he was due to conduct around the museum, and as former military, he decided that the person most likely to be in charge of a party was someone standing in a military fashion (which my father, a former drill seargeant, always did). GF (if it was he) was most disappointed when he found that we weren't his party...
Utenti
Recensioni
The 1970's saw the appearance of a different kind of book that enhanced the study of World War II campaigns and battles--the service handbook. Although far from numerous, such handbooks are a necessity to explain how the armed forces of different nations operated, information not readily available in the histories written in the immediate postwar era.
To help fill this information gap comes prolific author George Forty. A retired Royal Armoured Corps officer who joined the service in the waning days of World War II, Forty later became the director of Britain's Tank Museum, helping to make that institution a world class museum. Forty also penned more than 70 titles, including 1979's "U.S. Army Handbook", a comprehensive guide to the service that discussed its organization, equipment, training, and tactics. Nearly 20 years later Forty gives the same treatment to his former service in the "British Army Handbook".
Weighing in at 436 pages, the "British Army Handbook" begins with acknowledgements, three pages of abbreviations, and an introduction. The abbreviations pages are important as Forty uses them extensively to shorten the text as much as possible. Chapter 1 provides the historical background for the World War II British Army, while Chapter 2 speaks to the mobilization and training of the Army once war was declared. Chapter 3 begins the discussion of the organization of the Army at its higher levels (corps level and above), while Chapter 4 goes into the non-divisional units, headquarters, and staff. Chapter 5 describes the combat arms and provides some details of the very traditional and historic formations that make up the British Army, while Chatper 6 is about the supporting arms, such as the Royal Army Service Corps, Royal Army Medical Corps, and so on.
Chapter 7 delves into divisional organizations, where Forty desribes combat formations and details of their organization at different times during the war. Chapter 8 talks about the British soldier: what he wore, his personal equipment, rank and insignia. Chapter 9 is all about weapons, vehicles, and equipment. Chapter 10 is a short discussion about tactics, while Chapter 11 is a treat for modelers in talking about vehicle markings, flag codes, and camouflage. The last chapter is about the role of women in the war, starting with the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) and continuing with the other uniformed services that women could join.
The author provides six informative appendices. Appendix 1 provides a list of British divisions that served in the war along with a brief note of where they served. Appendix 2 is about military symbology used in British maps, while Appendix 3 provides formatted examples of appreciations of the situation and operation orders that were key to British Army command and control. Appendix 4 is a helpful but incomplete listing of the units that formed the all-British 21 Army Group in Northwest Europe at the end of the war, while Appendix 5 is a short discussion of the radio sets used by British forces during the war, again a key element of command and control. Finally, Appendix 6 is a brief section on key general officers and their wartime service.
I am a fan of these kinds of books as they allow anyone with no background in the subject to learn enough to make the reading of conventional military histories more understandable, as most historians decline to provide the kinds of details shown in the handbooks. The author must walk a fine line in writing these volumes--provide just enough detail without making the book too lengthy and complex. An illustration of that difficulty can be found in Chapter 7, where Forty works hard to provide the details of British Army divisional organization in the form of charts and tables that are difficult to understand but are necessary for their brevity.
Along with its companion volumes on the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps, Forty's work is most useful to those looking to fill that gap in their knowledge of World War II military history, and would be a welcome addition to many libraries.… (altro)
To help fill this information gap comes prolific author George Forty. A retired Royal Armoured Corps officer who joined the service in the waning days of World War II, Forty later became the director of Britain's Tank Museum, helping to make that institution a world class museum. Forty also penned more than 70 titles, including 1979's "U.S. Army Handbook", a comprehensive guide to the service that discussed its organization, equipment, training, and tactics. Nearly 20 years later Forty gives the same treatment to his former service in the "British Army Handbook".
Weighing in at 436 pages, the "British Army Handbook" begins with acknowledgements, three pages of abbreviations, and an introduction. The abbreviations pages are important as Forty uses them extensively to shorten the text as much as possible. Chapter 1 provides the historical background for the World War II British Army, while Chapter 2 speaks to the mobilization and training of the Army once war was declared. Chapter 3 begins the discussion of the organization of the Army at its higher levels (corps level and above), while Chapter 4 goes into the non-divisional units, headquarters, and staff. Chapter 5 describes the combat arms and provides some details of the very traditional and historic formations that make up the British Army, while Chatper 6 is about the supporting arms, such as the Royal Army Service Corps, Royal Army Medical Corps, and so on.
Chapter 7 delves into divisional organizations, where Forty desribes combat formations and details of their organization at different times during the war. Chapter 8 talks about the British soldier: what he wore, his personal equipment, rank and insignia. Chapter 9 is all about weapons, vehicles, and equipment. Chapter 10 is a short discussion about tactics, while Chapter 11 is a treat for modelers in talking about vehicle markings, flag codes, and camouflage. The last chapter is about the role of women in the war, starting with the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) and continuing with the other uniformed services that women could join.
The author provides six informative appendices. Appendix 1 provides a list of British divisions that served in the war along with a brief note of where they served. Appendix 2 is about military symbology used in British maps, while Appendix 3 provides formatted examples of appreciations of the situation and operation orders that were key to British Army command and control. Appendix 4 is a helpful but incomplete listing of the units that formed the all-British 21 Army Group in Northwest Europe at the end of the war, while Appendix 5 is a short discussion of the radio sets used by British forces during the war, again a key element of command and control. Finally, Appendix 6 is a brief section on key general officers and their wartime service.
I am a fan of these kinds of books as they allow anyone with no background in the subject to learn enough to make the reading of conventional military histories more understandable, as most historians decline to provide the kinds of details shown in the handbooks. The author must walk a fine line in writing these volumes--provide just enough detail without making the book too lengthy and complex. An illustration of that difficulty can be found in Chapter 7, where Forty works hard to provide the details of British Army divisional organization in the form of charts and tables that are difficult to understand but are necessary for their brevity.
Along with its companion volumes on the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps, Forty's work is most useful to those looking to fill that gap in their knowledge of World War II military history, and would be a welcome addition to many libraries.… (altro)
Liste
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 74
- Opere correlate
- 1
- Utenti
- 1,296
- Popolarità
- #19,807
- Voto
- 3.7
- Recensioni
- 9
- ISBN
- 147
- Lingue
- 5
While I am generally not impressed with US military history books written by British authors, the writing style of George Forty is not bad.
I enjoyed this book for several reasons:
- George Forty writes in a smooth style and makes reading a pleasure. Especially when the subject material is a dry like with army organization going into World War II. He could have delved deep into subject content and overwhelmed a casual reader. But, instead maintained a measured approach.
- The initial chapters reviewed general army organization, structure and training starting in 1939 and how it evolved through the war. Following chapters got into different types of army units then a series of photos showing most typical Army equipment. Add-on chapters on a variety of topics rounded out the reading.
- I have personal interest in some day creating a large poster of US Army divisional histories so my recent reading has focused on various books including: The Rise of The GI Army, 1940-1941 by Paul Dickson, Order of Battle: U.S. Army World War II by Shelby Stanton, US Army in World War II, The Army Ground Forces: The Organization of Ground Combat Troops by Kent Greenfield+ and The Army Almanac. This book is a nice addition to above.
- During my time in the Army in the late 1980’s, one of my assignments was as the S-3 Plans Officer of 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division. I often dealt with development of road march plans for the entire Bridge Combat Team going out for maneuver training (like at the NTC). I had to know the types and numbers of all vehicles/equipment in the BCT in order to execute a timely operation. Thus I found the charts of personnel and vehicle numbers interesting to compare WWII to my time in the Army.
- As a former junior Armor officer, I appreciated the focus on the armor units for example discussions.
- The series of photographs seemed nostalgic realizing some of the major changes in the 80 years since WWII (and some things that seemed to have remained that same).
If you are focused on finding certain types of information, a book like this one is a find. However, I would think that even for a casual reader of military history, this book would still be interesting. I would give it 5 stars if the version I received would have been hardbound.… (altro)