Current Reading - September 2017

Finished an interesting No Banners, No Bugles by Edward Ellsberg, about a US Navy captain in charge of salvage operations in North Africa during WW2.

So...what was he salvaging? French warships at Casablanca perhaps?

Yes, also British and American ships at Oran, etc. And keeping torpedoed ships from sinking in a couple of cases. I got the book through Amazon Kindle.

In terms of straight-up combat military history Prinz Eugen: Story of 7 Freiwilligen Gebirgs Division 1942 - 1945 (B) was the main book of the month, pretty good straight-up campaign history that doesn't gloss over the unsavory bits. Most of the other books I could mention are probably better described as aviation & aerospace history.

I've just started Land of Frozen Laughter: a Community Development Volunteer in the Vietnam War, 1967-1969 by John Lewallen. John is in fact a friend of mine here in northern California. He wrote this memoir immediately upon returning from Vietnam in 1969, but didn't publish it until last year. He did a reading in my bookstore, and I'm finally getting around to reading the book myself. Going from the excerpts he read at my event, and the first few chapters, I'm very much looking forward to this book.