Killing Rommel Killing Rommel by Steven Pressfield tells the story about an elite British commando unit, the Long Range Desert Group, and their mission to roam the North African desert. The mission was to stop Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Corps during World War II. Rommel, also known as the “Desert Fox”, was a German army general that Hitler could rely on for almost any mission given his exceptional tactics on the battlefield. Pressfield presents the story as a first person account memoir of a fictional citizen-soldier who goes by Lieutenant Lawrence Chapman, a British Eighth Army officer. Chapman is later selected to be a part of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) in 1942. Pressfield states how he did his best not to alter …show more content…
One fact that stood out to me was early on in the book when he described the heat situation inside of an army tank and said, “For every degree-Fahrenheit rise outside, interior temperature rose a degree and a half. Seventy out was 100 in…” (16). This is astonishing to me that the troops were in the desert with 100 degree weather and roasting in their tanks at 130 degrees. The novel flows nicely, beginning with how Chapman describing his journey to the LRDG. It unravels the mission, he and his comrades were ordered to do in the heat of World War II. There is no doubt that Pressfield wanted to keep the story in first person to account for the events in Chap’s memoir. He states in the prologue that it was in his best interest to keep as much as he could directly as Chap wrote while making it as easy to read as possible. This book is a work of fiction, but it incorporates many facts and real people. I think he did a fantastic job. There is a few confusing spots throughout the book when it gets into the technical stuff. One example is trying to keep track of all the different army divisions. There was never a time I was bored reading which is why I would recommend the
The human experience in war has been a common theme within military history throughout the past forty years. Many individuals have made efforts; which have gone to further impress the majority of the local soldiers who have served in the military, but not necessarily with overwhelming excitement, apart from only the generals and heroes of the war. My evaluation of this memoir is that it serves as a voice for soldiers and ex-soldiers to keep in their memory how things were like on the battlefield. Although, the memoir for war is among the oldest
Given that this book is written similarly to how a story would be written, it is easy to become absorbed into its pages. I really appreciated that it was, for the most part, structured on a timeline. Russell does an outstanding job of conveying the hardships, dreams, and emotions of those she writes about. Following the lives of different families from the beginning of their misfortune until the very end of the war (for many, the end of their lives), it is incredibly effective in stirring up emotion in all but the most heartless of
In Killing Patton by Bill O'reilly and Martin Dugard, they tend to gloss over some important events that are not as exciting as personal accounts of soldiers. Rather than spend most of the book talking about patton and how he was dealing with these events, the authors tended to put less about patton and more about how an individual soldier was going through on the front lines. This is far more exciting than patton sitting back in his chair and smoking a cigar while pondering what he was gonna do next. The problem is that the book is about patton and the authors seem to focus on other characters as much as him. Two main times in the book when this took place were the battle of the bulge, and how the book tries to tell these important events
This section, I believe, was a little less focused with each chapter’s messages being more muddled compared to the first part of the book. While I did connect with the dyslexia section and found the tale of IKEA’s creator to be extremely interesting, I thought his connection made from that to people’s reactions during the London Blitz needed more development. Also, as a side note, why did Gladwell act like revealing Brian Grazer’s profession was a surprise? Anyone who has ever seen any Ron Howard Oscar bait movie knows this guy’s name. I was definitely onboard with the idea with the ideas of this work after Part One, but I feel like Part Two stumbled a little
Over the past week, I have been indulged in a book over one of the most approved presidents of all time. The book, Killing Kennedy, was written by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. The book was published on October 2, 2012 and was later adapted into a film in 2013. The book consist of the history that leads up to the brutal assassination of John F. Kennedy. As well as, detailing the life of Lee Harvey Oswald prior to that fateful day. It also details how those gunshots changed a nation and ultimately brought an end to “camelot”.
Combining all these serious themes into a very entertaining book should attract many readers. However, there was some confusion with the story line. Since this book is a collection of interviews, it wasn’t a conventional story. When I first started the book, I wasn’t sure why I was jumping from country to country and why each story was completely different. As I continued to read the book, I was able to understand that these were a collection of eyewitness accounts of the war. Also, Max Brooks uses a rife amount of vulgar language which I think could have been kept out. However, it made it real and that’s what this book is about.
An expectation that is shattered on his very first night when during the operation he ends up killing two Taliban gunmen. He tells the story of that night, and then the next, and then goes on to tell stories of the more complex operations that he ended up being involved with throughout the deployment. Each of the stories is told from a very personal point of view which is what makes this book work and work very well. We are told of his feelings towards his comrades, his attitude and approach to the others, and those little anecdotes of daily life that are either humorous or poignant. He experiences his comrade’s deaths as well as various injuries and he also experiences plans that go awry and situations where nothing happens. I think that the author sat down with his co-author and relived each event in his own words. These recordings (probably) ended up being transcribed and then arranged and edited into this book. This approach works very well in this case. Because of the "war story" nature of the narratives and the naturalness of the writing, this book is a very quick read across its 310
This book is very good for details, events, places, names, stories, etc. It shows the reality behind all the events that took place during the holocaust. He made sure to describe as much as he could in as much detail as possible. I have to say that this book deals greatly in imagery and lets the reader keep an image in their head. This book is truly unlike any other because it shows emotions and how people felt about the events that took place, it also shows how unstable the living conditions were and how horribly they were treated. This is all very tragic to
The book Black Hawk Down was written by Mark Bowden. It was published on February 10, 1999. It is a nonfiction book. This is the story of a raid by elite American troops on a Somalian city along the eastern coast of Africa named, Mogadishu. The story took place on October 3, 1993. This was the first detailed account of the mission in Somalia.
I read both factual, and relevant information that was supported and developed throughout the novel. I enjoyed the fact that the author used actual quotes, and dialogue from letters between Elizabeth and her husband Henry which created a sense of reality. Ginzberg included a letter that stated, ‘“I do love you Lizzie!” he was from Boston. “‘Will you forgive all my coldness & unkindness”’ (48). The author was extremely knowledgeable and had many sources for the information presented. There was an abundance of research included, I found that the book had many different sources where the information came from, in the works cited of the book the author provided a bibliography for all of the sources that were incorporated into the book and many were included. The author used a variety of different sources to provide the necessary information. I read a lot of in dept detail that explained Elizabeth Cady Stanton 's life accurately. The authors presentation was expressed effectively, the text was engaging, focused, and to the point. All of the information included was organized clearly, and in an order that was simple to follow. The events of the book were in chronological order which was extremely helpful and was a lot easier to follow along, the events flowed properly and made sense. Since the events happened in a specific time and order it made reading worth while. The information was concise, but included every detail that needed to be stated about Elizabeth. The author’s style
I found the Red Badge of Courage tough to read, which was a bit frustrating because I wanted to like this book. Finding it a bit annoying and hard to read, I picked it up and put it back down many times. For someone who loves to read, this was very frustrating for me. This important piece of literature helped to change the way people thought about war, so I know there is some merit to it, but for me, I just didn’t see the appeal. Maybe I over thought it, but I didn’t find myself getting attached to Henry the way I would have hoped and the story just dragged on to the point where I lost
The Desert Fox is a great book to read if someone is into reading WWII history, or simply just curious about Rommel. Most of the book is abut the battle that took place in the Afrika Korp. Because this book was written by a soldier that fought in the war, the author was able to give us the details incident that happen in the war, also give the depth insight of Rommel involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler. He also gives us the way opponents and contemporizes viewed an interesting look at what was going on at the time and the way Erwin Rommel. One of his opponent said that about Rommel, he called him a very daring skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general. That’s the kind of respect general Rommel
After the Great War he published a military tactics book titled “Infantry Tactics”. When Hitler read Rommel’s book he made Rommel a commander of the army. In 1939 Rommel took Poland with amazing efficiency. Rommel joined the 7th Panzer Division known to the allies as the “Ghost Division” because their attacks were so quick that allies could not pinpoint where the division where. Rommel invaded and took France with ease because France was still recovering from the Great War and inferior weaponry. Rommel was then transferred to the Afrika Corps to make some headway into capturing African countries. In Africa he gained the well-known nickname “The Desert Fox”. (Witherbee pg.1) He forced British forces to fall back until they got to El Alamein, Egypt. On the orders of Hitler Rommel stopped pushing the British back resulting in an enormous military flaw in Hitler’s plan. Rommel gained popularity with the Arab community and they
Erwin Rommel was not only a courageous war hero, but he was a hero to his family, and his country. Erwin Rommel had a fairly big impact on WWII because of his selfless acts of bravery. He once said, “ Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning.” He truly put those words in action when he attempted to kill Hitler in 1944, along with many other feats.
Upon his immediate arrival he went for an observation run and ordered his troops to circle the block numerous times and build fake armor to keep the British uncertain about the army’s strength and numbers. Once Rommel’s entire troops arrived along with equipment, Rommel attacked aggressively, driving the British 8th army out of Libya and entering the premises of Egypt. Many admired Rommel’s success in North Africa, nicknaming him the desert fox, for his very capable and innovative tactics. Unfortunately Rommel’s string of victories ended at the at the battle of el Alamien as he realized that his supply lines stretched too far and that American troops were advancing rapidly with the intention of joining the British’s counterattack against his troops. He left North Africa to meet with Hitler in Berlin in order to discuss the issue, and never returned again after his army was finally crushed in the