Book Review : The Baby Killers by Thomas Fegan

Zeppelins fascinate me especially their use in WW1 where, lets face it, they didn't do very well. The Baby Killers documents the use of the zeppelin (which i am using for the Schütte-Lanz airships too) as a bomber in WW1 along with aeroplane bombers which followed on afterwards.

We can only suppose what it must have been like on one of these raids, flying slowly over the seas and then over land in often terrible weather and cold (raids took place at night). Navigation was rudimentary and the zeppelin could not outrun trouble. Although it could out climb aeroplanes and flak at least for a while the crews were always aware they were traveling on a huge slow moving bag of highly inflammable gas. Indeed such was the fear of the gas that in some cases crewmen chose to jump overboard out of the zeppelin (without a parachute and thus to near certain death) if the zeppelin was on fire rather than be burnt alive. Thomas Fegan documents all this as well as including some intriguing photographs from the raids.

The reaction of the British people is also documented, and Fegan reveals that the "stiff upper lip" was not always in evidence. This was the first time war had been raged against civilians on such a scale on the British mainland for centuries and the first time civilians had been bombed from the air and it was a terrible shock. Waging war on civilians was considered cowardly and criminal, the German zeppelin crews were called baby killers (hence the book's title). Fegan quotes from letters and diaries of normal people to convey the shock, fear and sometimes excitement of the people during the raids.

The second part of the book is a gazetteer documenting where each raid took place. Of course i had to look at Birmingham, actually we fared quite well here and got off pretty lightly. However amusingly on one zeppelin raid the zeppelin was sent to bomb Liverpool but went slightly off course and ended up mistaking Tipton for Birkenhead and bombed that instead.

Overall a very readable and enjoyable book which does a good job of portraying the events and also the people behind them.

Book Review : Japanese Tanks 1939-45 by Steven J Zaloga

Osprey produce many interesting books on less obvious subjects at a handy price and this book is one of their New Vanguard series which focuses on weapons of war, and in this case Japanese tanks of World War 2, an aspect of the war much less covered than tank warfare in the west. Though the book is a bit misnamed, as the period covered stretches from early Japanese tank developments just after the First World War onwards.

The Japanese were the largest manufacturer of tanks in the 1930s outside of Europe, their early designs based on imported British and French tanks and steadily developed thanks in some part to combat experience in the 1930s in China. At the start of WW2 they were pretty much on a par with European and American designs and led the way in the incredible Japanese advance across the Pacific proving that tanks could be used through jungle terrain and played a full role in actions such as the capture of Singapore.

However their development and production stagnated as the Japanese navy and airforce took the priority so when the Allied fightback against the Japanese later in the war began the Japanese tanks were outclassed and had been left behind by armour and weapon advances and suffered accordingly.

This is an interesting read on the less well known aspect of tank warfare in WW2, gorgeously illustrated as with all Osprey books with some fine colour artwork. The writing by Stephen Zaloga is up to his usual high standard and covers the history of development and combat experience. My only real criticism is the book is a bit short but that is the case with all of the New Vanguard series which could be better served with a few more pages.

Republished from my tech blog