Keeping memories of war alive

GAVIN ELLIS surveys the latest list of military histories and more personal accounts of war.

An immense body of literature has ensured that time has not dulled our senses to the horrors of two world wars and that succeeding generations understand the scale of devastation and sacrifice. At a time when warfare and individual acts of terrorism have become perversely intertwined, the latest military publications are timely reminders of the toll that conflict exacts on nations and individuals.

The most significant New Zealand military history published this year must be Cassino by Tony Williams (Penguin, $34.95) which, with equal vigour, commends the courage of Kiwi soldiers and castigates the command that put them in front of the monastery on Monte Cassino.

Williams deftly interweaves the experiences of the fighting men with analysis of the action. He assesses the four battles fought at Cassino with clarity and perception, but bites off somewhat more than he can chew by questioning the entire Italian campaign. He may be right in suggesting the invasion of Italy had no wider strategic purpose, but if that was the real purpose of his book he has, like those who came before him, become bogged down at Cassino.

The individual actions and events Williams recounts will be familiar to many. However, the opinions he has formed of key players in the command structure - not least his acerbic assessment of the American 5th Army commander General Mark Clark - adds to our understanding of the last major battle of World War II fought by New Zealand troops. It was, he says, a battle that should not have been waged.

A broader perspective of New Zealand's role in 1939-45 is contained in Kia Kaha: New Zealand in the Second World War, edited by John Crawford (Oxford University Press, $34.95). This paperback edition of 21 essays chosen by the Defence Forces historian was first published in hardback two years ago. These are scholarly pieces of military history that include essays on conscientious objectors, manpower, the church and, through historian Claudia Orange, an insight into the largely overlooked contribution of Maori to the war effort at home.

A less scholarly but no less diverse anthology is Doing Our Bit: New Zealand Women tell their Stories of World War Two, edited by Jim Sullivan (HarperCollins, $34.95) in which 50 New Zealand women, some born in Britain, look back on their wartime service in a great variety of roles - nurses, telephonists, cooks, clerical workers, gun crews, cipher clerks, in meteorology, radar, signals and even in Balloon Command. One woman's job was to record the propaganda broadcasts of Tokyo Rose.

For some, the work they did was highly secret and at least one woman wondered whether she should be talking about it even now.

Although memories are acute, one suspects that time may have flattened emotional responses to the horrors they often encountered, for many of the stories are surprisingly matter-of-fact, making Doing Our Bit a little dry in parts. However, as the contribution of women to the war effort is often underestimated, it certainly sets the record straight.

There is no lack of emotion in two new wartime recollections: Kiwi Spitfire Ace by Jack Rae (Grub Street, $59.95) and Yesterday's Drums by Tony Vercoe (Steele Roberts, $34.95). Rae vividly recounts his aerial action over England, Malta and France before a too-close encounter with an exploding German fighter forced him down in occupied France. Thereafter his story turns into a POW tale of tunnels, escapes and forced marches. Why did Jack Rae wait so long to write it? This is a classic war story.

Tony Vercoe's story, also, was too long in coming. Captured in the desert, incarcerated in Bardia for six weeks before being liberated only to be captured again and thrown into the infamous Benghazi POW camp, Vercoe was down on his luck. Things picked up again, however, when he escaped from a camp in Italy and was befriended by a family of tenant farmers. His luck well and truly ran out when he was betrayed and packed off to Stalag IVB in Germany. Marched west, away from the advancing Russian Army, Vercoe was finally liberated near another camp that stood with its gates open but with vacant-eyed prisoners still inside. Its name was Buchenwald.

Diaries and letters continue to provide personal insights into men at war. Shrapnel and Semaphore by Jan Chamberlin (Radioworks, Private Bag, Ponsonby, $12) is the Gallipoli diary of Bill Leadley, compiled by his granddaughter, together with post-war reminiscences.

A very different work is Doctor at War (Fraser Books, $35) in which Christine Daniell has collected the letters of her late father, Montie Spencer, who served in both world wars before dying of typhus in 1943. The book leaves the impression that after seeing the carnage of Gallipoli at close quarters, Spencer, a doctor, resolved to protect his family from his innermost thoughts. His letters home are often like a travelogue and paint word pictures of the places he saw and the people he met. It provides yet another perspective on men coping with war.

The way in which a city coped with war is the subject of London At War 1939-1945 by Philip Ziegler (Pimlico $45).

Eminent biographer Ziegler (Mountbatten, Edward VIII) puts the human face on World War II with this superb study of how ordinary people coped with deprivation, disruption and destruction, and how the city changed during the various phases of the war.

The Road to Verdun by Ian Ousby (Jonathon Cape, $69.95) is a detailed account not only of a battle that cost more than 700,000 casualties but also the complex issues that underlay it.

Finally, two classic works have returned in new editions. The First World War: An Illustrated History by John Keegan (Hutchinson, $105) is a lavishly illustrated version of a well-known work by the defence editor of London's Daily Telegraph. The illustrations, which in themselves are a remarkable piece of research, add significantly to Keegan's authoritative text.

If there is any definitive work on World War II it must be Winston Churchill's six-volume history. The Second World War: Abridged Edition (Pimlico, $55) remains a worthwhile alternative for those unwilling to attempt Churchill's substantive work. It preserves the most significant events of the war and the author's text - which is nothing less than Churchillian.

* Gavin Ellis is the Herald editor-in-chief.