Military Books

[That Guy]

Jarhead-Author painted a very vivid picture of what it was like to be in "the suck."

The Battle for Mogadishu-You see the battle as viewed from different perspectives.

Bravo-Two-Zero-Incredible story and good to learn about foreign military.

Ranger School and The Coveted Black and Gold-Two great books about Ranger School, you will be laughing even if you are not in the military.

Killing Pablo-About U.S. Gov. involvement in the tracking of Escobar. There is some "action" parts, but for the most, alot of political talk, and over view of the situation.

In the Company of Heroes-Good backstory, reading about Durant's experiences from pilot in Korea to SERE to his capture in Somalia.

Nobody Comes Back-Fictional book on "The Battle of the Bulge." Author is both the author and screenwriter of "Cool Hand Luke." (one of my favorite movies).

[CloakAndDagger]

This Kind of War by T.R. Fehrenbach - covers the Korean War. Written before the Vietnam War really started (at least for the U.S.; first edition ~1963), this gave me some surprising insight about our motivations for the Vietnam War, as well as being a good primer about the Korean War and DPRK (north Korean) psychology.

World War I by S.L.A. Marshall - while the title is a give away, it also covers the political debacle and intrigue that led to the frivolous waste of life that was WWI.

Rommel's War in Africa by Wolf Heckman. This primarily details the battles between the German Afrika Corps and the British 8th Army, but also includes a some detail on the history before Rommel's entrance and after his exit. The edition I read was translated by Stephen Seago, who appears to do so skillfully.

[lonergr77]

The Berlin Candy Bomber by Col Gail Halvorsen

I sat next to this guy on a flight a few months ago, great guy had all kinds of crazy stories to tell. He's been actively flying a plane in 1941. The AF named a cargo plane after him.

[mikelogics]

The Man on Horseback by Samuel Finer

[Joshua]

I must say that there are many books you can reed on the subject of war. I have included only books on African wars and more specific southern African wars. Some books are better than others. Some books deal strictly with certain South African Army units and other with more than one unit at time. Some books on isolated incidents or period other more general incidents. The majority of the books are about the South African war but there are a few about Rhodesia and other areas/wars. There are no books I am aware of present conflicts in Africa.

There are a few authors that you can generally trust and read their books as they tend to do their research proper or were there them self’s. They are authors like Chris Cocks, Peter Stiff, Col. Jan Breytenbach, Al J Venter, Jim Hooper, Willem Steenkamp, Paul Els, Jack Greef, Helmoed-Romer Helmoed ,ect.

And then you have authors that wrote single books that are worth while to read like Eeben Barlow, Piet Nortje, Brigadier Dick Lord, Matthew Paul etc.

Then there are authors that wrote books not specifically on the war but rather the politics involved in them. Authors like Piero Gleijeses and Pieter Wolvaardt

Then there are non- Africans that did participate in African wars. They are generally a very good read. Peter McAleese and Harry McCallion (Both British)

Here are some books and their information.


Journey without Boundaries
Author André Diedericks
Cover Type Paperback
ISBN-10 1-920169-58-X
ISBN-13 978-1-920169-58-9
No of Pages 212
Size A5
Publication Date 23 June 2007
Lulu ID 959213
This is the extraordinary tale of an extraordinary man. An honestly told story of his military career, of a man who was twice decorated for valour, who pioneered and developed the concept of “small team reconnaissance” within the South African Special Forces. He was a consummate warrior and gentleman and has told his story with humility and a disarming sense that what he did was simply the job he was given, when even the most cursory reading will show that it was anything but simple or easy. From start to finish, his life was truly a ‘Journey without Boundaries’


Fireforce
Chris Cocks
0-9584890-9-2
R185.00
Softback: 152 x 222 mm
368pp
March 2006
THE HORROR OF GUERRILLA WARFARE IN AFRICA
Fireforce is the compelling, brutal but true account of Chris Cocks’ service in 3 Commando, The Rhodesian Light Infantry, during Zimbabwe’s bitter civil war of the ’70s—a war that came to be known almost innocuously as ‘the bush war’. ‘Fireforce’, a tactic of total airborne envelopment, was developed and perfected by the RLI, together with the Selous Scouts and the Rhodesian Air Force. Fireforce became the principal strike weapon of the beleaguered Rhodesian forces in their struggle against the overwhelming tide of the Communist-trained and -equipped ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas.

The combat strain on a fighting soldier was almost unbelievable, for the Rhodesians, who were always desperately short of ground troops, were sometimes obliged to parachute the same men into action into as many as three enemy contacts a day. While estimates of enemy casualties vary, there seems little doubt that the RLI accounted for at least 12,000 ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas—but not without cost.

Fireforce is not for the squeamish. Although it has been written with unforgettable pathos and humour, it tells of face-to-face combat in the bush and death at point-blank range. It is a book which does nothing to glorify or glamorize war, for as Chris Cocks found at such a young age, war is merely a catalogue of suffering, destruction and death.

Fireforce has been described by critics as being to the Rhodesian War what All Quiet On The Western Front was to World War I and Dispatches was to Vietnam. Read it … it will an experience you never forget.

Executive Outcomes
Against all Odds
Author: Eeben Barlow
552pp, 32 pages colour photographs
Six in-text maps and other in-text illustrations
Trade paperback
ISBN/Bar code: 978-1-919854-19-9
Executive Outcomes is the model on which all Private Military Companies (PMCs) operating in Iraq and Afghanistan are based. Founded by author Eeben Barlow in the early 1990s he originally offered courses in intelligence to South Africa’s Special Forces and security work to De Beers’ diamond mining industry. This was greatly expanded in 1993 when an oil company offered EO a contract to provide security for its staff while they recovered valuable drilling equipment stranded at the Angolan oil port of Soyo — after its capture by UNITA rebels.

Barlow recruited ex-members of South Africa’s elite military units for the job. EO was contracted for a month, but this ended up being extended and EO spearheading an Angolan Army assault on Soyo and its capture from UNITA. This highly successful operation led to a contract to retrain the Angolan Army. Both UNITA and MPLA had taken part in UN supervised elections in 1992, but UNITA had rejected the results after losing and it had returned to civil war.

During a hard-fought campaign, retrained Angolan Army units led by EO captured Cafunfu — the diamond producing area that funded UNITA’s war effort. Eventually, international pressure spearheaded by the UN and the ‘blood diamond’ lobby, forced EO’s withdrawal from Angola which quickly sank back into chaos. The UN’s efforts to restore the situation achieved by EO for US$35 million, cost the world body many billions of dollars.

EO’s next contract was in May 1995 when 200 men were despatched to Sierra Leone where RUF rebels, chopping off people’s limbs and engaging in cannibalism, were marching on Freetown. EO smashed the rebels and this led to free and fair elections with a new government being elected. Pressures were again exerted which resulted in EO’s withdrawal. In the place of its 200 troops the UN deployed 18 000 soldiers at a cost of US$1 billion per year. The rebels regrouped, frequently taking UN troops as hostages, and the country again sank back into an orgy of cannibalism and limb chopping.

There is much, much more to the Executive Outcomes’ story and Eeben Barlow tells it the way it was in this no-punches-pulled account.


Selous Scouts: Top Secret War
by Lt Col Ron Reid Daly as told to Peter Stiff
752pp; 180 X 112-mm; 16 pp b/w illustrations
Paperback ISBN 0-620-06674-1; non fiction
(HARD BACK & PAPERBACK - OUT OF PRINT)
and
Pamwe Chete, the legend of the Selous Scouts. Tell you more about the selection, training and operations of this Elite unit in the Rhodesian Bush war.
Lt Col R F Reid Daly


The War Diaries of André Dennison
Author: JRT Wood
394pp; 236 X 153mm; maps and b/w pics;
Hardback; ISBN 0-620-13545-X
Non-fiction.
Another fighting soldier, Johan Meiring, Bronze Cross of Rhodesia, said about Dennison that ‘somehow his battles seemed bigger brighter and bolder. His war was always noisier, far noisier, than the fights of other soldiers. At one stage of the Rhodesian conflict, ‘A’ Company 2-RAR held the current record, notching up the largest single kill of the war, eliminating 32 of the enemy after a bloody day-long battle on Rhodesia’s south-eastern border with Mozambique.
‘But Dennison’s war was largely a blunt, no frills operation. There was no glamour in the killing ground. The glamour was at home. She was his pert attractive British wife, Helen. After the failure of this, his second marriage, and her subsequent return to her aristocratic home in Britain, there were other glamorous women. There were other wars, too. Egypt, Cyprus, Aden, Borneo, The Oman and Northern Ireland.
‘Of these he spoke as little as he did of his women. But there were unguarded moments when Dennison hinted of dark deeds. Like the elusive IRA leader holed up in his Londonderry safe house, where the frustrated SAS could not ‘legally’ reach him for months on end. Then came the mysterious, never explained shotgun blast in the dark of the night, snuffing out the IRA man on his own doorstep when he answered the coded knock known only to his mistress.
‘There was an equally inexplicable incident when the newly arrived British Commissioner designate, Field Marshall Lord Carver, flew in to meet 2-RAR. Moving down the line of officers at 2-RAR HQ in Fort Victoria, the Field Marshall paused to exchange a few words with each. Introduced to Dennison, he paused briefly but then moved on wordlessly, ignoring the outstretched hand. Dennison never spoke about it and no one thought of asking Lord Carver.
‘Mostly he kept his thoughts to himself and wrote of the war as he had seen it. He would labour into the night over his diary, recording events while memories still jangled fresh in his mind. There were reports of large fireforce actions and of 2-RAR officers and men receiving bravery awards. And there were tersely worded Combined Operations HQ’s communiqués announcing deaths in action.




The Silent War: South African Recce operations, 1969-1994 by Peter Stiff
• This book covers all of the top-secret raids by Special Forces into surrounding African states, the political dynamics which led to them and the turbulent history of the times.



The Covert War: Koevoet Operations in Namibia, 1979-1989 by Peter Stiff
• The mostly untold story of Koevoet – the South African Police’s highly successful counter-insurgency unit. Initially based on the Selous Scouts of Rhodesia, it was formed in 1979 and deployed in Namibia until independence in 1989 when it was disbanded as a sop to the UN.



Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, Pretoria by Piero Gleijeses
• This is a compelling and dramatic account of Cuban policy in Africa and of its escalating clash with US policy and later its direct military clashes with the South African Defence Force in Angola. It is the other side of a conflict that South Africans have not been told about until now.
Piero Gleijeses' Conflicting Missions is the 2003 winner of the prestigious Ferrell Prize of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations.



The Buffalo Soldiers: Story of South Africa’s 32-Battalion, 1975-1993 by Col. Jan Breytenbach
• 32-Battalion was forged from guerrilla irregulars during the South African military intervention in Angola in 1975 under the code name Operation Savannah. The author, Colonel Jan Breytenbach, was its founding commander. Because of the secrecy surrounding it, 32-Battalion not only became one of the finest fighting units in the South African Army, it also became the most controversial. This is its story.

32 Battalion: The inside story of South Africa’s elite fighting unit by Piet Nortje
• Every war has at least one unit so different, so daring, that it becomes the stuff of which legends are made and heroes are born. Among the South African forces fighting in Angola from 1975 to 1989, that unit was 32 Battalion.


Taming the Landmine by Peter Stiff
• The first book written on the development of the landmine as a tactical weapon combined with the advances made in the design of mine protected vehicles in Rhodesia and later in South Africa.


A Greater Share of Honour by Jack Greef
• The first major first person account of South African special operations written by a former Recce operator, Major Jack Greeff. It is an essential companion to Peter Stiff’s The Silent War: South African Recce operations 1969-1994, the publication of which finally inspired him to put pen to paper. ‘One of the early problems I faced was how to tell the whole truth,’ Jack Greef says in his foreword. ‘Some operations, until recently, were still classified as Top Secret and have never been acknowledged by the SADF. The problem was solved when Peter Stiff’s book, The Silent War came on the shelf where most of the operations were described, some in detail while others were mentioned briefly.’


Nine Days of War by Peter Stiff
• This book focuses on the last nine days of fighting in the Namibian War of Independence. It gives a clear picture of the day by day political machinations going on behind the scenes while the soldiers battled it out on the ground. Peter Stiff writes in rather stilted prose. Nonetheless, the story he relates of SWAPO trickery and UN complicity helps one to understand recent events in Namibia, such as the outbreak of guerrilla war in the Caprivi Strip against the SWAPO government. Written from a pro South African bias this book is still an important contribution to understanding the long South Africa vs SWAPO border war in Namibia (1966-1989) and why South Africa held on to Namibia for so long in the face of intense international pressure.


Parabat by Matthew Paul
• Personal accounts of paratroopers in combat situations in South Africa's history. In order to obtain a balanced and fair account, the author interviewed paratroopers of all races. It is also an account of how the exploits of the South African airborne family are seen by the men on the ground. The experiences have been recorded directly as were related to the author, with no changes or apologies- the swearing, the torture, the emotions, the turmoil, the killings and the humour. These are the accounts of the paratrooper family from the war in Angola in the 80s to the various township wars in the 90s, as well as South Africa's intervention in Lesotho in 1998. These are the accounts of personal bravery - some are horrific.


We Fear Nought but God by Paul Els
• The story of the elite South African Special Forces ("the Recces") from inception in the 1960s to disbandment in 1993. A unique account of one of South Africa's premier units, masters in the art of reconnaissance and clandestine warfare. Pro rata, the most highly decorated unit during the wars in Angola and Namibia / SWA. This is no gung-ho account, but rather a loving compiled series of accounts put together by the author who was there at the inception of this fine regiment. This is about the "operators", the men of the Recces, their exploits in Angola, SWA/Namibia and other southern africa territories. Includes a free copy of Lourens Fourie's music CD "The Recces".


Borderstrike! by Willem Steenkamp
• Three cross-border incursions by the South African Defence Force are dealt with, starting with operation Reindeer (1978) into Angola, which marked a policy change by the South African goverment of the day to allow cross-border operations by the military. That is followed by Operation Revenge which was a follow-up operation into Zambian territory following the bombing of Katima Mulilo and lastly Operation Sceptic (1980) into Angola which is more commonly known by it's opening engagement Operation Smokeshell.



Continent Ablaze: Insurgency wars in Africa, 1960 to the present by John Turner
• The book provides a detailed operational history of the major Cold War conflicts on the African continent.


The War for Africa: Twelve months that transformed a continent by Fred Bridgland
• Towards the middle of 1988, Castro, who had taken personal control of the war, wanted to withdraw from Angola and discussions began on how this could be accomplished without losing face. One of Castro's top generals in Angola had already tried to defect and Moscow was pressing Castro to reach a settlement. The Cuban leader adopted an aggressive stance and threw more Cuban troops into the front line in order to lend weight to his negotiating position in the peace talks. General Del Pino, who also defected to the West, pointed out that it was pure bluff on Castro's part and that he feared defeat was imminent.
Cuban forces, integrated with SWAPO units, nevertheless pressed on to within 12 kilometres of the Namibian border. Facing 11,000 Cubans and perhaps 2,000 SWAPO was a force of 500 battle-hardened men from 32 "Buffalo" Battalion, the only available troops at the border until reinforcements could arrive. They held the line until tanks and artillery could be moved up. Cuban MiG-23s joined the fray and one was shot down. As the South African forces prepared to move North to engage the Cubans in what promised to be a Cuban nemesis, the Cubans signed the New York peace accords and avoided disaster.
The Cubans immediately claimed victory, which Bridgland points out was 'nonsense', but that:
the Cuban story was taken at face value by Castro's sympathisers in the Western press and repeated so many times that it became received truth. The Cubans were helped by the South Africans' own clumsy efforts at propaganda, which amounted to saying as little as possible about the full-scale war they fought in Angola.
The SADF at no stage had wanted an all-out war that would take them to Luanda as conquerors. Their objectives had been to fight a limited war in support of UNITA and prevent the Cubans from capturing UNITA's strongholds. The SADF had succeeded in this and was content to let the Cubans take the limelight. As Bridgland points out in his final summary of the war:
The War for Africa and the New York accords provided Cuba with pretexts for slipping out of a commitment that had become too hot and too expensive to handle. In 1975, when the Cuban adventure in Angola began, the 'scientific socialist' and 'internationalist' tide running from Moscow looked unstoppable. By 1988 it was a faded dream. Despite 13 years of Cuban support, the Angolan economy was ruined. The Marxist MPLA was in utter disarray and was trying desperately to shed its 'scientific-socialist' past... Castro's dreams of a Marxist revolution spreading from Angola to encompass the whole of Southern Africa had become a poor music hall joke...
"The War for Africa" by Fred Bridgland....the most accurate account of Cuba's involvement in the Angolan conflict.


South Africas Border War, 1966-1989 by Willem Steenkamp
• A very detailed description, filled with photographs and maps, covering this period of South African history.


Forged in Battle by Col. Jan Breytenbach
• This is a soldier's story about South African soldiers in southern Angola and Namibia and the enemies they fought. It tells of insurgency and counter insurgency, guerilla warfare and counter-guerilla warfare, almost conventional warfare and conventional warfare. It tells of a conflict which to the world was unpopular, in which South Africa was perceived as the aggressor, but which South Africa saw as a war fought to stop what is Namibia falling into the hands of the Soviet and Cuban backed SWAPO organisation.



They Live by the Sword: 32 ‘Buffalo’ Battalion – South Africans Foreign Legion by Col. Jan Breytenbach
• This is a soldier's story about South African soldiers in southern Angola and Namibia and the enemies they fought. It tells of insurgency and counter insurgency, guerilla warfare and counter-guerilla warfare, almost conventional warfare and conventional warfare. It tells of a conflict which to the world was unpopular, in which South Africa was perceived as the aggressor, but which South Africa saw as a war fought to stop what is Namibia falling into the hands of the Soviet and Cuban backed SWAPO organisation. A follow up book to Forged in Battle.


South African War Machine by Helmoed-Romer Helmoed
• Lavishly illustrated in b&w and colour. This briefly describes the history of South Africa's armed forces, outlining their roles in the two World Wars and in Korea and explaining how this background has contributed to the unique make-up of South Africa's defence forces today. The weapons, organisation and training of each of the South African armed services are fully described with sections on elite formations like 1 Reconnaissance Commando and 44 Parachute Brigade and the special techniques they have developed. The campaigns in South West Africa (Namibia) against the SWAPO guerillas are fully described, as are the various operations in Angola from the initial South African intervention in 1975.


Koevoet! by Jim Hooper
• Koevoet! is an intense and unique account of the little-understood Southern African bushwar, written by American Jim Hooper. He is the first journalist ever to have been granted unrestricted access to the controversial and predominantly black South West African Police Counterinsurgency Unit-the notorious Koevoet.


Honorus Crux by At van Wyk
• Descriptions of the various actions that resulted in the awarding of the Honorus Crux (South Africa's highest award for bravery) to the recipients.


South African Special Forces by Osprey Publishing
• This volume details the uniforms and organization of South Africa's special forces, which have been fighting an almost continuous war against external and internal enemies since the 1960s.



Ragged War: The story of unconventional and counter-revolutionary warfare by Leroy Thompson
• This book examines the development and origins of Guerrilla and unconventional warfare. Among the first recorded examples are the Scythians 'hit and run' tactics against the Persians and Romans, and Hannibals counter to their operations - the use of independent light infantry units - remains one of the best tactics to this day. This study reviews the most effective tactics, the importance of intelligence, the weaponry used, and analyses the training of three elite special warfare units.



Bloodsong!: First hand accounts of a modern private army in action, Angola 1993-1995 by Jim Hooper
• Executive Outcomes was the title of the most successful mercenary army of modern times. In Angola, Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea, it stepped in while the UN revealed itself as little more than a debating society. But the motives of this mercenary army are open to question: was it more interested in protecting Sierria Leone's diamond mines than the people caught up in a savage guerrilla war? What was the reality of a private war in the closing part of the twentieth century? This is the story of Executive Outcomes' operations in Angola.

The killing Zone by Harry McCallion. A British Paratrooper joins the South African Special Forces for an adventure in Southern Africa (Very good read)

No Mean Soldier by Peter McAleese. British SAS, Rhodesian SAS and later joined South African 44 Parachute Brigade. This is his story and all the wars he participated in. (Very good read)

A list of additional reads on the wars.


The Rhodesian African Rifles
Christopher Owen

The Zambezi Salient (conflict in Southern Africa)
A.J. Venter

Contact
John Lovett

Badges and Insignia of the Rhodesian Security Forces 1890-1980
A J Arniel

Contact 2
Paul L Moorecraft


The Elite, the story of the Rhodesian Special Air Service
Barbara Cole

See You In November
Peter Stiff


Modern African Wars 3 (South West Africa)
Helmoed-Romer Hietman & Paul Hannon



Survival course
Chris Cocks


Modern African Wars 1 (Rhodesia 1965-80)
Peter Abbott & Philip Botham


One Commando
Dick Gledhill

Dead Leaves
Dan Wylie

The Rain Goddess
Peter Stiff


Assignment Selous Scouts
Jim Parker

Never Quite a Soldier
David Lemon

[chuck976]

Thanks for all of the suggestions Rangers, too many good books to choose from! Joshua...thanks for the post and all of the details! I just finished reading Boots On The Ground by Dusk about Ranger Pat Tillman, very interesting read.

[BadMuther]

http://www.alpinetactical.com/store/

Military Fitness by Nate Morrison. Absolutely the best manual on PT ever. It will change everything you think you know about PT.

[Rabbit]

House to House - SSG David Bellavia

[That Guy]

A couple of good fiction books: Starship Troopers and Ender's Game.

Ender's Game=AWESOME


Remembered another one, this about Revolutionary War, My Brother Sam is Dead

[rgrokelley]

Horse Soldiers

This one just came out. It is about the first SF teams into Afghanistan, that ended up riding horses into combat. Out of the 12 man team, only one had actually been on a horse before (actually two others had, but only as kid's at a birthday party). They then fought out of the saddle for five weeks.

The author did his legwork and interviewed the CIA, SF and the Afghan Northern Alliance who were involved, so the viewpoint is seen from each angle.

[Invictus]

Horse Soldiers

This one just came out. It is about the first SF teams into Afghanistan, that ended up riding horses into combat. Out of the 12 man team, only one had actually been on a horse before (actually two others had, but only as kid's at a birthday party). They then fought out of the saddle for five weeks.

The author did his legwork and interviewed the CIA, SF and the Afghan Northern Alliance who were involved, so the viewpoint is seen from each angle.

Thanks for the tip, just requested at library.
On that same note, can you offer any suggestions on good Revolutionary war reading?
I got 1776 for Christmas, and I read Shaara's two fictional books.

[rgrokelley]

Horse Soldiers

This one just came out. It is about the first SF teams into Afghanistan, that ended up riding horses into combat. Out of the 12 man team, only one had actually been on a horse before (actually two others had, but only as kid's at a birthday party). They then fought out of the saddle for five weeks.

The author did his legwork and interviewed the CIA, SF and the Afghan Northern Alliance who were involved, so the viewpoint is seen from each angle.

Thanks for the tip, just requested at library.
On that same note, can you offer any suggestions on good Revolutionary war reading?
I got 1776 for Christmas, and I read Shaara's two fictional books.

Besides my own books (go to bluehousetavern.com) I would recommend anything by Larry Babits. His book on Cowpens and his most recent one on Guilford, are excellent. Shaara's fast and loose with history, but if you want novels read Howard Fast's novels on the Rev War. Another one, about the reality of how the British kicked ass into becoming the empire of the 19th century, is "With Zeal and Bayonets Only".

[Lefty]

On the Revolutionary War, I must put in a plug for two of Kenneth Roberts (author of Northwest Passage) classics:

Rabble In Arms - describes the campaign from the rebel side and has the expected slant.

Oliver Wiswell - told in first person from the colonial Loyalist point of view. It gives one an entirely different perspective on the issues and can make the reader empathetic to the Loyalists.