'The first satisfactory survey of the naval side of the war', was how the eminent historian Professor Arthur Marder described Geoffrey Bennett's Naval Battles of the First World War. This book, as the Foreword by Admiral Arleigh Burke makes plain, is in the same tradition and of the same high quality. Captain Bennett discusses the traumatic effects of the Washington and London Naval Treaties on the fleets of the principal powers between the wars, and their astonishing growth and technical progress between 1939 and 1945. He then deals with the war in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The Battle of the River Plate, the struggle for Narvik, the hunt for the Bismarck, the convoys' battles with the U-boat, the destruction of the Italian Fleet at Taranto and Matapan, the sinking of the Scharnhorst are all vividly described and authoritatively analyzed.

The book's main focus is on the detailed logs of the allied ships involved in 14 encounters in the Solomon Islands during WWII at the start of the allied offensive against Japan. There is some excellent and brief commentary, which I found a very nice companion to the log records that provide the excitement and quite clear pictures of the participants. I found the book helps to point out that these battles are a reflection of the entire Pacific War - allied aggressiveness, determination, and eventually technology, education & experience (from early disasters & unwitting victories), attrition & production, and fortune, helped turn these battles in the allies favor. If the book were perfectly edited it deserves at least 4 stars, but the editing is one of the worst jobs I've ever seen. Since the text is in chronological order, obvious errors exist when times are minutes, or sometimes hours, out of place, yet the sequence of events are in the correct order. Also, when giving rosters of ships involved in an encounter, I found that some ships were listed twice, while others where not mentioned. The editing deserves only 1 star. I have a used first edition copy that I read, so maybe there were more editions that corrected these obvious errors. I do admit that I will keep the book for reference despite its flaws, and is worth reading if one is not too annoyed with those editing errors.

D-Day, 6 June 1944, saw the largest amphibious landing operation in history. From ports and harbours on the southern coast of England, an armada of troopships and landing craft launched the Allied return to mainland Europe. Stephen Badsey provides a concise account of the Normandy campaign, from the fiercely contested landings, to the struggle to capture Caen, the 'Cobra' offensive and the dramatic pursuit of the Germans to the River Seine. This was the crucial campaign of the Western theatre: after the Battle of Normandy the only question was how soon the war would end, not who would win it.

The author, Gilbert, was an American intelligence officer who in his capacity as prison psychologist at the Nuremberg Jail had unlimited free access to the top Nazi leaders throughout their trial. He produced an invaluable book. With few exceptions, the top Nazis reveal themselves as ordinary men promoted to higher positions than their abilities merited, and willing to do or at least tolerate pretty much anything in order to hold onto them. What they say privately about each other gives a unique perspective on the interplay of personalities and motivations that produced the Nazi regime and its horrors. Foremost among those exceptions is Hermann Goering. Goering's character is rich and multifaceted. The facets can hardly be reconciled as belonging to the same person. So much about him is appealing - his intelligence, his sense of humor, his expansive good-natured bonhomie, his childlike responses to praise or reprimand. But a man can smile and smile and still be a villain. Goering uses the weaker defendants to pressure the more independent ones to toe his "party line" of maintaining loyalty to Hitler. He offers to trade or withhold testimony, inveigles his lawyer into intimidating a witness, and even threatens retaliation by the Feme kangaroo courts. In part because the author's duties required him to prevent that sort of behavior, he spent more time with Goering than with any of the other defendants. In part, though, I think he just found him fascinating. The author's duties as psychologist required that he spend considerable time with Streicher, whose leering, lascivious, bigotry probably indicated mental illness. Streicher's anti-semitism was obsessive - it was the only subject he talked about - and he incessantly lobbied anyone who would listen. Gilbert also had to monitor Hess (Bormann's predecessor) and Ribbentrop (Foreign Minister) because of Hess's recurrent amnesia and Ribbentrop's descent into depression. Hess was empty-minded even when his memory was intact. Ribbentrop was an endless stream of rationalizations, denials, evasions, and lies - truly a washrag of a man. These entries become tedious, but are instructive as an antidote to the Hollywood image of the hard, focused, strong-willed Nazi. So too with Keitel, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces High Command whom the author fairly describes as having no more backbone than a jellyfish, and with Hans Frank, Governor General of Occupied Poland. When with the author, Frank was all introspection and contrition, but in the dock with his fellow war criminals, he joined freely in their stock rationalizations. The author is sympathetic toward those defendants - Speer, von Schirach, Jodl, Fritsche - who passionately wanted the world to learn as much of the truth as possible about the Third Reich and its crimes. He usually but not always manages to restrain his animosity toward those who persisted in rationalizing or denying their guilt, particularly the vicious anti-semite Rosenberg (Nazi philosopher and Reich Commissioner for Eastern Occupied Territories) cold callous Frick (Minister of Interior) and the unspeakable Kaltenbrunner (Chief of RSHA - SD and Gestapo). A story related by Funk (President of the Reichsbank) is especially revealing. After Kristalnacht, his wife wanted him to resign from the government. She said that the whole antisemitic business was just disgraceful, and they should have no part in it. He felt she was right. But to give up the status and luxury that went with his position and go live in a three-room flat? He just couldn't do it. Funk was no monster. Of his own volition, he wouldn't have hurt anybody. But step by step he went along, until he was accepting deposits of dental gold from the camps. Active malice is rare. This book makes clear that although great evil may originate from active malice, its success in this world depends upon weakness - human, understandable, and frighteningly common weakness.