Featured battle : Gamonal

Part of The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Date : 10 November 1808

The Spaniards were formed up in an indefensible position, easily outflanked and with a wood to their front. The French, under Soult, made a concealed approach through the wood and sent dragoons in a flanking move which rolled up the Spanish line.

Task Force 58

Rod Macdonald
Here we have a big meaty read which I enjoyed from cover to cover. This book is well focussed on the fast carriers but it also works on many other levels. Overall it is the story of the naval come back after Pearl Harbour in the course of which there was a change of fleet capital ships from battleships to carriers. The author, Rod Macdonald, has looked with his own eyes on some of the ships wrecked by American carrier aircraft and has done a great deal of research which is here presented in a clear chronological progression. There is little departure from the pure factual level except in some of the many quotations from people involved in the events. Much of the descriptive impact comes from the numbers of ships, planes men and casualties. The fleet assembled for the final attack on mainland Japan had more carriers than there are in the whole of the world’s navies today. There was a large percentage of downed American fliers who were rescued by ships and submarines placed along the route they were expected to take; this contrasts with a military who sent out kamikaze planes and man guided bombs. There are many more themes running through the narrative than can be covered in a brief review all of them are interesting.
It is a big book of over 500 pages containing a gripping story, a few good photographs, brief biographies of some of the leading Americans and an extensive bibliography. The one weakness is the absence of a good size scaled map of the whole area plus a few maps of particular actions.
We highly recommend this book.

Frontline Books, 2021