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echosanderas's review against another edition
4.0
I don't normally read books like this one, but decided to pick up as a bit of recreational study before starting university last summer. That was one of the best ideas I've had!
It is an eye-opener of what actually happened and from all view points. It tell the happenings in a story-like manner, and beautifully incorporates detailed witness accounts/memoirs. It is a very well planned out book.
It is an eye-opener of what actually happened and from all view points. It tell the happenings in a story-like manner, and beautifully incorporates detailed witness accounts/memoirs. It is a very well planned out book.
komet2020's review against another edition
5.0
This book covers the period May - November 1940 when Britain was in its most precarious position, struggling for its very survival.
Through diary extracts and personal interviews (from the survivors) by both authors, you get a really tangible sense of the urgency, fear, hope and danger that the British lived with during that time. Among the people profiled in this book were:
i) a British tank commander who fought against Rommel's "Ghost Division" (the 7th Panzer Division) during the spring fighting in Northern France, barely escaping capture, and later managing to escape to England
ii) an RAF fighter pilot who flew Hurricanes in France and later over England
iii) a WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) fighter controller
iv) an American journalist with connections to both Roosevelt and Churchill
v) a young sailor in the Royal Navy, who assisted in the evacuation of Allied military personnel from Dunkirk and later served in a naval task force Churchill sent to Oran to attack the surface vessels of the French Navy stationed there, so as not to allow those ships to come under German control following the French surrender.
If you are one of those readers who seeks to find a "real and human" connection with what the Second World War was like, you can't go wrong with "THE FINEST HOUR".
Through diary extracts and personal interviews (from the survivors) by both authors, you get a really tangible sense of the urgency, fear, hope and danger that the British lived with during that time. Among the people profiled in this book were:
i) a British tank commander who fought against Rommel's "Ghost Division" (the 7th Panzer Division) during the spring fighting in Northern France, barely escaping capture, and later managing to escape to England
ii) an RAF fighter pilot who flew Hurricanes in France and later over England
iii) a WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) fighter controller
iv) an American journalist with connections to both Roosevelt and Churchill
v) a young sailor in the Royal Navy, who assisted in the evacuation of Allied military personnel from Dunkirk and later served in a naval task force Churchill sent to Oran to attack the surface vessels of the French Navy stationed there, so as not to allow those ships to come under German control following the French surrender.
If you are one of those readers who seeks to find a "real and human" connection with what the Second World War was like, you can't go wrong with "THE FINEST HOUR".
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