Featured battle : Sorauren Part 2

Part of The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Date : 30 July 1813

[See Sorauren Part 1] After the battle on the 28th Soult worked on plans to hit the British but still be able to extricate his army. Wellington prepared to attack. Soult announced that he was going to relieve San Sebastian and ordered the difficult manoeuvre of marching across the front of the British army over night. The summer night was not long enough and dawn showed three division of French crossing the hillside within cannon range. The guns opened up immediately and soon after the British line moved forward. Foy's division was cut off from the rest of the French army and he ordered a retreat over the pass of Roncesvalles. During this march Foy collected so many men that his 'division' doubled in size. The remainder of Soult's army conducted a fighting breakout, lead by units of d'Erlon's corps. In spite of good generalship and determined fighting by British, Portugese and Spanish soldiers Wellington could just not get enough men in the right place to prevent Soult using the Bidassoa gorge and reaching French soil. Numbers involved and casualties are totals for the three days. [see Soraureen 1]

Operation Colossus. The First Airborne Raid of WW II

Lawrence Paterson
Lawrence Paterson’s book is an incredible story beautifully told. As fiction it would be barely believable but the thoroughly researched facts are from official reports and first hand accounts. This book is about so much more than operation Colossus because it necessarily has to include the beginnings of military parachuting. Anyone familiar with modern military parachuting will be amazed by the early efforts in exiting from unsuitable aircraft. In a sense Colossus was an operation both to try out and test this new weapon in Britain’s armoury. From the missions successes and failures many useful lessons were learnt but to say more would be to give the game away and this book should be read as a novel which shouldn’t be spoilt by knowing the end before reading it. Supporting the text is a very good set of photographs.
To those who want to be better informed and to anyone who wants a good read we highly recommend this book.

Greenhill Books, 2020