Review by David Pugliese
Defence Watch
This book is a fascinating look at some of the strangest and at times, unbelievable, plans and schemes of the Second World War.
It includes a Nazi plan to kidnap the Pope, an IRA plan to invade Northern Ireland, a British plan to attack the Soviet Union after the defeat of Hitler and details about a Japanese scheme to seize the Panama Canal. Not to mention a German plan to seize bases in Spain and Portugal and invade Switzerland and an American proposal to use U.S. Marines to attack V-1 bases in Europe.
The author has also written Cold War Plans That Never Happened.
Now this book has seen some criticism by those who don’t believe it brings enough gravitas to the subject (i.e., that it is more “pop†history as it contains only one to three pages of information, on average, for each war plan). There are also complaints that the writing is not up to standard (which I agree with).
I, however, enjoyed the book’s particular format, aside from the choppy writing. It provides a good synopsis of each plan and equally fascinating are the reproductions of the actual declassified documents of the various schemes.
Defence Watch
This book is a fascinating look at some of the strangest and at times, unbelievable, plans and schemes of the Second World War.
It includes a Nazi plan to kidnap the Pope, an IRA plan to invade Northern Ireland, a British plan to attack the Soviet Union after the defeat of Hitler and details about a Japanese scheme to seize the Panama Canal. Not to mention a German plan to seize bases in Spain and Portugal and invade Switzerland and an American proposal to use U.S. Marines to attack V-1 bases in Europe.
The author has also written Cold War Plans That Never Happened.
Now this book has seen some criticism by those who don’t believe it brings enough gravitas to the subject (i.e., that it is more “pop†history as it contains only one to three pages of information, on average, for each war plan). There are also complaints that the writing is not up to standard (which I agree with).
I, however, enjoyed the book’s particular format, aside from the choppy writing. It provides a good synopsis of each plan and equally fascinating are the reproductions of the actual declassified documents of the various schemes.