Just read David Blakely's Maverick One.
Apparently a true story of the 2IC of British Army's Pathfinder platoon.
It reads like the type of trash you find in men's magazines. The dude was best at everything blah, blah. They were all hardcore. Higher officers were morons unless they were in the dude's unit.
But what gets me thinking is some wierd errors:
1. In Sierra Leonne, he apparently flies on to HMS Illustrious to negotiate with the captain to get the ship into position for providing naval gunfire support to UK forces based at Freetown airport. This is mentioned a few times. Now HMS Illustrious is an aircraft carrier and doesn't pack anything heavier than 20mm-30mm AA guns. It carried Harriers at time but surely they would've been in range and the author was explicitly talking about NGFS.
2. In Iraq he talks about USMC being effectively defeated in Battle of Nasiriyah in 2003. The Marines took casualties, that is true (1/3rd to friendly fire and additional to ambush of a maintenance company taking a wrong turn i.e. Jessica Lynch). But they certainly weren't defeated by Saddam's forces.
3. In one picture he talks about being in South Africa so carrying local weapons and then specifically mentions it was an Ak-47. Now the picture clearly shows a South African Vektor R4. What kind of spec ops operator doesn't know the difference between an Ak-47 or even Ak-74 Kalashnikov and a Vector R4?
4. He also didn't seem to understand his own officer training -e.g. questions concepts such as mask of command (basically an officer being aside from his men – this is a basic HR management concept to allow for objective and impartial management. Leading men in combat as well as managing units in combat is the ultimate in management).
5. Like many modern biographies, he quotes entire conversations that he had years/decades ago word for word. Really? Most people can't remember what they were told. Indeed we have that whole "Chinese Whispers" phrase to denote how people misconstrue things.
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But I've noticed a common theme in many modern biographies/modern biographies.
They're written in a tabloid format – lot of swearing, lots of unsubstantiated claims, written in idiot language, lots of whole conversations remembered.
Very often the books make out to be more than what they are e.g. Frank Walker's The Tiger Man Of Vietnam which accusess CIA of plotting to kill an Australian spec ops guy without any substantiation whatsoever.
Or another one by some supposed French resistance fighter who mentions all these battles and failed ambushes but then you realise he was never actually in them.
There's generally always disparaging comments about Americans too in these books, especially in the Australian ones which usually accuse American troops of being overequipped, incompetent tyros.
And so often there are so many glaring errors that one wonders if it's all made up.
I would not call any of these books military history.
he is talking." My father, a WW II conscript and 20+ year post war professional, told me that when I was about 18 and I tend to judge books by that.