David Irving (1) (1938–2024)

Apr23: Just acquired this book at a used book sale. Went to enter in LT, but every available title includes, "...Inside the Allied Command". My book makes no reference anywhere about this suffix added at the end. So I ended up manually adding the book to my Library. I noted during past collection reviews that LT mentioned that I had several duplicate books in my Library, but the titles were different. After opening the respective books, yes, the content was same but cover and/or titles were different. Maybe a tool to entice buyers or when they change publishers for subsequent editions, the title gets modified. Very confusing. Resulted in thinning my collection some.

I thought this was an interesting book. The title says it all. The relationship between WW2 ETO Allied land generals was all over the place. Brits vs. American. French vs. everyone. American vs. American. Air generals against each other. Focus of various prolific personalities like Monty vs. Ike. Ike vs. Devers. Patton vs. Monty and so on. Seems like William Simpson of the US 9th Army was the only general who seemed to get along with any one on a regular basis. I have read various general officer biographies so there was not a lot of new information for me. But, enough to capture my interest.

I noted the author, David Irving, is fairly prolific himself. Quite the writer. Upon reviewing his background on Wikipedia, he seems to a Holocaust denier so his track record might be slightly tainted (in my view). But the book was still good with no apparent wandering into his 'other' background.… (more)

Well-laid account of the February, 1945 raid by the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Force that destroyed Old Town Dresden. The author works forward from previous raids (such as Kessel and Hamburg), looking at the on-going debate regarding area versus precision bombing, and then goes in-depth as to the Dresden raid itself, including why the raid was so devastating. The raid comes in for some heavy (but measured) criticism, including the aftermath, in which Allied propaganda did a poor job of countering German propaganda. The book is fairly old (1965), and it's quite possible certain parts have been made obsolete by revelations since then. Still, a highly readable account; as noted above, it seems fairly balanced.… (more)