Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

The first of the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, Nortern Lights is set in an alternative England and Northern Scandinavia. A very good adventure story for childern; very scary baddies, very clever and strong goodies, armoured bears, witches, sea voyages, balloon flights. Unfortunately this story perpetuates the myths of the noble barbarian (the armoured polar bears are 'better' in their 'natural' state), and of the honest gypsy (boat-dwelling people of no fixed abode are honest and honourable, despite living outside the reach of the law.) The unsatisfying ending is unavoidable, I suppose, it being the first volume in the trilogy.

Editor by Max Hastings

Having read Max Hastings's military history books, I decided to try his autobiographical "Editor: An inside story of Newspapers", which describes the decade he spent as editor of the Daily Telegraph. A the very least this book provides a small insight into what it is to be the editor of a daily newspaper. It also gives a (very) informed man's view of the last Tory government. Hastings was hired to reform the Telegraph, to get it profitable again. One forgets that newspapers used to be printed in black and white only; the Telegraph went to colour under his direction. One of the passages in the book revealed a lot about politicians:

Politicians who achieve office, of all parties, divide into three categories. A small minority ... decide upon an agenda and pursue it with purpose and energy. There is a second group. ... Such men are adept at clinging to office for long periods, and make not trouble for Prime Ministers. The third and largest group of ministers in any government spends its entire time in office in a state of fear: fear of the Prime Minister, of the electorate, the Daily Mail, TV news, unexpected events

His attitude to the 'red top' press is, more or less, that they are beyond contempt. I'd recommend this book to anybody interested in Tory history, newspapers, journalism and British politics.

"Swastika in the gunsight" by Igor Kaberov

Igor Kaberov was a fighter pilot in the Russian Baltic Fleet Air Force before, during and after the Siege of Leningrad, and became a Hero of the Soviet Union. This little book is his personal memoirs, written up from his diaries and published in 1975. I was quite impressed by the professionalism of the Russian airmen, implicit in his description of daily life on a fighter station. When the Facists invaded, the fighter station was dispersed, dug in and camouflaged; no phony war for them. No lack of heroism under the Russians: it seems to be quite in order to fly into the fire of a Me 109, if you can save your comrade, or to get outnumbered into a dogfight to distract the Facist attention from a nearby formation. Russian technology seems to have been a trifle crude, but the main problem with the defence seems to be that the Russians were simply outnumbered, by tanks on the ground and aircraft in the air.

Max Hastings

1. Max Hastings is a newspaperman, son of a journalist and a writer.

2. I picked up his biographical "Going to the Wars" in the Aberystwyth public library. It is a description of his involvement in conflict, first as a part-time soldier, then as a war correspondent. He was in Biafra, Vietnam, Rhodesia and, famously, first man into Stanley.

3. Personally, I found great comfort in his explanation that he enjoys the company of soldiers, although he himself could not be one.

Overlord

4. Having learnt something about the man, I then read "Overlord", his book about the famous 1944 invasion of Europe. The back-cover blurb said something about 'heavy in judgement', and I have to agree. Almost every aspect is commented on with the full weight of forty years of hindsight. He asks questions that I would like to know the answers to: Was Mulberry really worth the cost in manpower? Why was there never a straight copy of the German 88mm anti-tank gun?

5. He does put stuff in perspectives I've not see before. For example, he mentions that there was only a month between the Falaise Gap and Market-Garden.

6. Monty (Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery) gets full attention, and while there is admiration for him as soldier, there is also a sharp knife that cuts away the aura the man built around himself.

Bomber Command

7. Next I read "Bomber Command", essentially a review of the British strategic bombing campaign against Germany in WWII. Here is another book that uses all the benefits of hindsight to judge questions that were controversial in its day, but came to be viewed as inevitable. My favourite quote in the book is in the foreword, where he thanks the aircrew he interviewed, and mentions that "their memories have gained in frankness what it had lost in detail."

8. The most surprising thing I learnt was that the casualty rate in Bomber Command was second only to U-boat crews.

9. Many of the well-known bombing raids are hardly mentioned (Dresden, Hamburg, the Dams), but he includes a description of a firestorm in Darmstadt.

10. Also covered in fair detail, is cases of LMF (lack of moral fibre), where aircrew refused to fly.

11. He also assesses the amount of damage caused. Although the damage was serious, he shows that it hardly hampered the German war effort until near the end. Intelligence about the effectiveness of the bombing seems to be mostly fiction, endless extrapolations and estimates produced to reinforce the belief that the air war was being won.

12. 'Bomber' Harris is of course the central figure in the story, for it was he that insisted on this campaign. Hastings shows that Harris was essentially out of control by the end of the war.

13. My favourite Nevil Shute novel, "Pastoral", is set on a bomber station. Every thing that Hastings describe seems to be in the novel.

14. Hastings comes to the interesting conclusion that the bombing campaign served to keep the Russians fighting, while the invasion of Europe was postponed. The loss of life in aircrew and the cost of aircraft and manpower was repaid by not weakly invading in 1943, but overwhelmingly in 1944.