Sebastian P. Breit's Blog, page 22

Review - East Wind Returns
What if the Trinity test explosion fails because of a design failure of the implosion device? What if through accidents and negligence the available enriched uranium of the US nuclear bomb program has been destroyed, forcing the United States to go ahead with its planned invasion of the Japanese home islands? And worse, what if the Japanese themselves have built their own nuclear device, using the enriched German uranium?
Set against the impending - and later, unfolding - events of Operation Downfall (specifically: Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu), Grasso spins a very convincing story. With the American uranium stores destroyed in a fire - with both, scientists and army guards blaming one another - and the initial plutonium-based device not working, President Truman sees no alternative other than to go ahead with putting American boots on Japanese ground. Unbeknownst to the him, the Japanese have successfully tested an atom bomb of their own off the coast of Korea and are now planning to put their remaining weapon to good use. The Navy opts for a suicide run against either San Francisco or the invasion fleet. The Imperial Army wants to use the weapon on a key invasion beacj to inflict horrible casualties on MacArthur's task force and break the US spearheads in two. And the new prime minister secretly prays for common sense to prevail and a peace deal to be reached.
Like much the Japanese Navy proposed during the latter days of WW II their suicide run turns out to be impractical. The weapon is too large to be carried inside even their bigger submarines, and to be activated they would have to surface and manually prime it - in the middle of enemy forces. Thus the task of putting the bomb to good use is awarded to the army. The author also explains quite vividly why a delivery by airplane would be impossible for the Japanese. In an already strong novel, these are the strongest parts. It clearly shows that Grasso knows his trade, filling the flight scenes with just the right mix of technical knowhow and lively imagery. It is here where the danger of flying lurks just beneath the surface: mechanical and human failure can turn even straight flights in good weather into deadly events. It only gets worse when its cold, you're flying through anti-aircraft fire, and you've got Japanese fighters on your tail.
I've got to commend Grasso for his choice of tense and point of view.
The author employs a strange mix of past and present tense narration, but at no point in the novel was I put off by that. In fact, it immersed me deeper into the story, making it actually feeling closer, more personal.
The main POV character of East Wind Returns is Cpt. John Worth, a recon pilot operating from an airfield on Okinawa. He's an expert flyer, and we witness most of the story through his eyes as he experiences the uncertainties and dangers of war: new comrades appear, only to never return from a mission; the Japanese adapt their tactics to ever more deadly ones; trouble brews back on the base with a pampered fighter jock; and true love blossoms between him and Lt. Marjorie Braden. Grasso writes a believable love story in the face of war without it being cheesy or overbearing, and quite unlike what I thought when I began reading the novel, it adds to it more than I thought it would detract (because most people can't write good romance). There's not a single character in it without a certain depth to him or her; even the secondary ones are more than fleshed out. If I sound as if I'm heaping praise on East Wind Returns... well, I am, deservedly so. Without it feeling rushed or shortened, Grasso manages in barely 90,000 words to feature a love story, the story surrounding an American invasion of Kyushu, a nuclear plot, personal rivalry and - something I criticized as severely lacking in my last fiction review Hitler's War - a look on the macro-perspective, showing the discussions and decision-making of the Japanese and American leadership. This also includes a twist at the end.
Final Verdict: 5/5. This is the hallmark of a well-structured novel. It's got everything: alternate history, adventure, drama, and a love story. You can get East Wind Returns on Amazon or Smashwords for only $0.99. I highly recommend you do so.
About the Author:History is a parade of chance outcomes, influenced by any number of natural forces and human whims. As a lifelong student of history and lover of alternative historical fiction, William Peter Grasso's novels explore the concept "change one thing...and watch what happens." In this fast-paced debut novel, East Wind Returns, the atomic hegemony in the summer of 1945 is turned on its head. Retired from the aircraft maintenance industry, William Peter Grasso is a veteran of the US Army and served in Operation Desert Storm as a flight crew member with the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF). These days, he confines his aviation activities to building and flying radio-controlled model aircraft. 

Why is it that the same people who usually tell me that I've got to view the Qu'ran in the context of the time it was written - a view which blatantly disregards mainstream Muslim jurisprudence, scripture and practice which all agree that the Qu'ran stands timeless and valid as it was written, forever - are the same lot that tells me that Mein Kampf - a book written by an angry young politician under the very vivid impressions of four years of chaos, a lost war, the Ruhrkampf, the hyperinflation, the Polish incursions and the indignities suffered from the Treaty of Versailles - somehow applies to everything Hitler and the Nazis did fifteen years later, regardless of the context, under vastly different circumstances?

Once in a while when I scour the web for new food to review I come across such glaring examples of someone trying to shove his politics down my throat that actually make me stop in utterly dumbfounded bewilderment. And I say this regardless to the kind of politics that may be involved, be they liberal or conservative or whatever else they might be. As an author, the easiest and fastest way to turn me away from your work is to make it blatantly clear to me that you're just peddling a political manifesto thinly veiled in a layer of fiction.

How does that old line in "Portal" go? I made a note here: Great success! Indeed.

This is the preface of Beneath Gray Skies :

As America suffered under the rule of an extremist government from 2000 onwards, and seemed determined to turn itself into a world pariah, my thoughts turned to why a nation of such generally pleasant people could turn into something that was so alien and hateful to most of the rest of the world. My quarrel was not with Americans, who constitute many of my friends, but with the nation of America, whose ways and values continued to puzzle me as I researched the topic.

In my exploration of the subject, I discovered that many of the underlying attitudes expressed by Bush's America were those of the 19th-century Confederacy, and indeed, much of today's South: xenophobia, belligerence, a tendency to military violence, and a racial and religious intolerance.

Such values were close to those held by Hitler's Nazis, of course, and this set me to wondering what would have happened if the Confederacy had survived, and made an alliance with the Nazis.

However, in writing this story, I didn't want the Confederates to have won the Civil War. For one thing, I couldn't imagine how they could have retained control over the Union states for long, given their relatively small armed forces. Much more likely, I felt, was the possibility that the Civil War had never been fought, and my conversation at the start between Seward and Chase is, as far as I can tell, fairly representative of various shades of opinion in the North at that time. Of course, a divided America would have had other implications on world history as we know it now, and I have tried to incorporate these ramifications into the story. For example, the First World War, here referred to as the Great European War, would probably have gone on longer without American intervention.

You preaching your politics to me - and quite vividly so - as some kind of a mission statement is an instant "no purchase"-decision for me, especially if they are clearly so lopsidedly partisan that your bias has gathered enough mass to attract a moon of its own. And, let me repeat that again, that's regardless of the slant of your politics! If you are writing fiction... write fiction! If you want to make a political point - and it damn sure looks like it - write a political, non-fiction piece.
And, by the way? Without the US intervention and economic support during your Great European War, Germany would've probably won by 1917...

I hadn't realized the level of quality a good machinima animation could reach nowadays. As such, I was thoroughly surprised when I found this little gem here on the web. It depicts an 8th USAF raid on Germany from briefing until the bombers' return to their homebases, including some animated battle footage. Check it's composed really well, has a certain artistic style to it. It's really good.

You can find more here.

Browsing a random "cool picture" thread I came upon a painting by Nicolas Trudgian. Who is Nicolas Trudgian? Well, yesterday I'd have that answered I had no idea who that was supposed to be, but today? Today I'd say he's probably the most awesome WW2-themed artist I've found so far. Don't believe me? How about this then? [image error] Wehrmacht combined arms on the Eastern FrontNo? Not a friend of German tanks and FW 190s in action? Okay, tastes may differ. Then how about this? [image error] Spitfires over southeastern England.Please, for the love of God, check out that man's webpage. Getting one of his works as a painting may most likely be a bit too expensive for most, but do yourselves a favor and at least look at them. I know I would like to put one on my wall. I daresay nothing would remind me more of having to write a sequel to Wolf Hunt. So, please, check out Mr. Trudgian's webpage. It's really worth your time.

I'm afraid I may have have given a wrong impression with the recent post I wrote about the trailer for the movie La Rafle - The Roundup. Just to make that clear: I'm not against giving the Holocaust it's place in education and in the public discussion. In fact, I am very much for giving the whole topic of the Holocaust and the persecution of minorities a thorough treatment in school and in the arts. Yes, I do believe German pupils should have visited a former concentration camp at least once, or for that matter, at least have watched a documentary about them in school. No, I'm not against having a day at school where that's all that's themathized. The simple fact is that it's a drastic series of events in German history. Future generations should have some awareness of that. [image error] German History consists or more than just that.But it's also the fact that the difference between medication and poison often only lies in the dosage. And as I exposed here, we've long since gone of into poisonous terrain. For all intents and purposes, teach the Holocaust, teach the crimes of Nazi Germany - but don't place your sole focus on them. Do what you always claim in every other field of history, society and politics: explain them from their context; explain the situation that ultimately lead to them; but please, teach the rest of history, too, would you?

I've been hoping for this to happen since I ever played my first WW 2 first person shooter (the original Medal of Honor, FYI), and finally it seems someone has heard my pleas: Red Orchestra 2, the sequel to the immensely popular multiplayer shooter Red Orchestra, features a Russian AND a German singleplayer campaign - in Stalingrad! Here are some of the game's features:

Stalingrad Campaign: The Stalingrad campaign will feature the multiplayer maps used in a campaign layout recreating the battle for Stalingrad from both the German and Russian sides. This will be enhanced with story elements through the form of mission introductions and in-game cinematic sequences that begin and end the campaign.

Unique Focus – the Battle of Stalingrad in depth: takes the familiar WWII genre into a unique direction. Far removed from the well-trodden Normandy setting, gameplay is based on fresh scenarios and actions the player has never experienced before. Follow the German army as they assault the city of Stalingrad, to the banks of the Volga. Follow the Soviet army as it holds the city against all the odds then destroys the Axis forces.

First person cover system: Experience the ultimate firefights that a cover system allows, from the immersion of a first person view. Peek or blind fire over and around cover and more.

Squad Command: Command fire teams on the battlefield using an easy to use first person interface. Suppress the enemy, send a fire team to flank them and hit them where it hurts!

WWII weaponry redefined: true to life ballistics, bullet penetration, breathing, adjustable sights, free aim, weapon bracing, photo-real graphics and more, create WWII weaponry that has no equal.

Morale: Experience what it is like to be a soldier in one of the bloodiest conflicts in history and the importance of a soldier's state of mind and how it can turn the tide of battle.

Single Player Campaigns: Play through a full German campaign AND a full Russian campaign, in iconic engagements from the Battle of Stalingrad.

 Well, I'm pumped! This is definitively on my "Must Have"-List.

The infamous Vel' d'Hiv Roundup is the focus of this gripping French drama starring Melanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds, Beginners) and Jean Reno (The Da Vinci Code, The Professional). Two days after Bastille Day in 1942, French police carried out an extensive raid of Jews in Greater Paris. More than 13,000 people were arrested, among them 4,000 children, consigned to several miserable days in Paris's Velodrome d'Hiver stadium before being shipped to internment camps within France, and finally to Auschwitz. Long a taboo subject in France--Jacques Chirac issued a public apology only in 1995--the raid and its political backdrop are brought to stirring life in writer-director Rose Bosch's detailed scenario. With a meticulously constructed script based on extensive research and first-hand accounts, La Rafle (The Roundup) became a big box-office hit in France, and its audiences included thousands of young people who came to learn about a dark chapter in their country's history.

Sorry, I may have gotten up on the wrong side of bed today, but: Oh, look, it's another movie about Jews and Nazis and about another European country "confessing it's guilt" and "facing its past". If I hadn't been force-fed that very scenario for twenty years already, I'd probably even give a damn. There must be a dozen films - made for TV and the big screen - in Germany alone that have dealt with this topic at length. And my interest in it has long since been saturated. The Nazis were bad. And those who cooperated with them - for whatever reason - were also bad. I get it, okay? I got it the first time I heard about it, and that must have been more than 20 effin' years ago. We all get it!

I'm sure it's well done, and it has Jean Reno in it, which is always a plus. But the way it is, all I can see is a movie with great production values whose story already bores me to death. I'm just so fed up with this topic. Give me a movie about civilians, politicians and soldiers in London during the Blitz. Give me one about the post-WW II Lithuanian resistance. Give me a good one about the Spanish Civil War. Hell, for all I care, make one about the clash between Slovakians and Hungarians when Czechoslovakia broke apart. But please, give me something other than another repeat of a theme I've heard, watched and read a thousand times already!

Quite frankly, I've reached a point where if I'm given the choice between yet another moral piece about WW II and an Uwe Boll movie parodying another Uwe Boll movie, I'll opt for the Uwe Boll movie.

* * *
Yes, the Vichy French collaborated with Nazi Germany, and they did so because they thought it'd allow them to be an equal in the New Europe they thought a Nazi victory would create. But I'd like you to consider the following: by collaborating, France didn't suffer the great hardships that the eastern European nations suffered. Total French war dead amounted to 567,600, civilian and military. Poland, on the other hand, resisting to the best of its abilities even after its occupation, suffered 5,620,000 casualties, ten times as many as the more populous French. I know the comparison is off because of the impact of Nazi policies, but still: who made the wiser choice? It's easy to condemn people three generations down the line because they failed to meet our moral standards. Maybe from time to time we should consider the fact that the only reason we have these moral standards is because in the last three generations we didn't have to face an attack and the occupation by a totalitarian regime? It's always easy to be morally upright if it's not tied to any obligations or dangers.

Hi there, guys. New month, new things to review.

I'll start with fellow author William Peter Grasso's East Wind Returns. I hope to have read it by the end of the week, but writing a review may take longer since I'm taking the weekend off from blogging to go to a festival. Having said that, I've just taken the first few looks at it and it promises to be a good mix of alternate history, war fiction, and adventure.

About William P. Grasso:
History is a parade of chance outcomes, influenced by any number of natural forces and human whims. As a lifelong student of history and lover of alternative historical fiction, William Peter Grasso's novels explore the concept "change one thing...and watch what happens." In this fast-paced debut novel, East Wind Returns, the atomic hegemony in the summer of 1945 is turned on its head. Retired from the aircraft maintenance industry, William Peter Grasso is a veteran of the US Army and served in Operation Desert Storm as a flight crew member with the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF). These days, he confines his aviation activities to building and flying radio-controlled model aircraft.
Following that, I'll first dig into Guy Saville's The Afrika Reich. It has received rather favorable reviews by The Times and The Economist, which doesn't have to mean anything. But I'll keep an open mind and will judge it on its own merits. Here's the product description:
1952. It is more than a decade since the Dunkirk fiasco marked the end of Britain's war and an uneasy peace with Hitler. In Africa, the swastika flies from the Sahara to the Indian Ocean. Gleaming autobahns bisect the jungle and jet fighters patrol the skies. Britain and the Nazis have divided the continent but now the demonic plans of Walter Hochburg - architect of Nazi Africa - threaten Britain's ailing colonies. In England, ex-mercenary Burton Cole is offered one last contract. Burton grabs the chance to settle an old score with Hochburg, despite his own misgivings and the protests of the woman he loves. If Burton fails, unimaginable horrors will be unleashed in Africa. No one - black or white - will be spared. But when his mission turns to disaster, Burton is forced to flee for his life. His flight takes him from the unholy killing ground of Kongo to SS slave camps and on to war-torn Angola, finally reaching its thrilling climax in a conspiracy that leads to the dark heart of the Reich itself.
And last but not least I'll take a look at Andy Johnson's Seelöwe Nord. The product description isn't exactly exhaustive, but despite the outcry I can hear across the AH community, this one might not be as bad as on might expect:
Late summer 1940, and Britain stands on the brink of complete and utter defeat. Thrown out of mainland Europe by the unstoppable Nazi war machine, the British stand alone against the might of Hitler's Third Reich. Poised for imminent invasion, cut off by U-Boats and bombarded daily from the air, the British strive to re-equip their shattered army. They don't know when, and they don't know where, but one thing is certain... The Germans are coming!

The author, Andy Johnson, is a retired former soldiers who left the forces in the rank of regimental Seargent-Major. He's consulted with several histoians to write this book and has used contemporary sources like the War Diaries of Field Marshal Lord Alan Brooke to recreate the relationsships and mannerism of the historical actors to the best of his knowledge and abilities.

Call me an optimist (well, that would be a first), but I'm tentatively positive that August might become a month with books that - although not guaranteed to be good - may at least all be entertaining and maybe even insightful.

Ariete-class torpedoboat. Doesn't look like much, but how about
you go and try to sink one with nothing but .50 cals?In the trailer for the upcoming Tuskegee Airmen movie Red Tails we see them attacking and sinking a (German) destroyer. I was intrigued - and skeptical - when I saw that and deciced to dig around a bit. The ship in question was the TA-27, an Italian torpedoboat (not a destroyer) built as the RM Auriga in 1943 and taken over by the Germans after the Italians surrendered. TA stands for Torpedoboot Ausland or Foreign Torpedoboat. The Wiki entry plainly lists TA-27 as "Lost 9 June 1944 to air attack by P-47s of the U.S. 332nd FG".

Here's the technical data as taken from Wikipedia:Type: Torpedo boat Displacement: 745 long tons standard
1,100 long tons full load Length: 83.5 m (273 ft 11 in) Beam: 8.62 m (28 ft 3 in) Draught: 3.15 m (10 ft 4 in) Propulsion: 2 shaft geared steam turbines
2 boilers
22,000 hp (16,400 kW) Speed: 31.5 knots Complement: 158 Armament: • 2 × 100 mm (3.9 in) guns
• 10 × 20 mm (0.79 in) anti-aircraft guns
• 6 × 450 mm (18 in) torpedo tubes
• 20 mines