Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II (1993)

To begin with an observation. This is not a history of the Second World War. It is rather an examination of many of the instances of mental myopia, wishful thinking and blind stupidity that cost both sides dearly in that conflict. Inevitably, to place these in context, there are large chunks of historical detail that form the greater part of the work. Moreover, it calls a halt in early 1942. This means both that the bulk of the work deals with the war between Britain and her Empire and the Axis and that the United States gets off pretty lightly. There is no mention, for example, of the bloodbath of Omaha beach, caused in large part by Bradley's refusal to accept British specialist armour, and the massacre of shipping off the American Eastern Seaboard, largely due to Admiral King's errors, receives only a passing mention in the summing up.

For that part of the war that the book does cover, Deighton bars no holds in his exposé of the mental deficiencies of the antagonists. It is a fine piece of historical analysis. Nevertheless, it loses one star in my rating for the number of silly errors of fact that creep in, errors that any reader with a good knowledge of the subject matter will immediately spot (as the editor should have done), and the rare occasions when he lets his prejudices get the better of him; the most striking example is in the account of the sinking of the Bismarck, when he accepts the idea that British gunfire failed to sink the battleship but then draws the conclusion that she sank because her crew scuttled her, ignoring the six or more very large torpedo holes that were calculated to be more than adequate to sink her by the 2001 expedition and were certainly there at the time of the Ballard expedition that Deighton quotes.

Nonetheless, this is remains a powerful and important work and more of it than I was comfortable with echoes on in current events. ( )

a bit tedious but very interesting ( )

Portrays WW2 from the British perspective superficially y but with rapier like penetration on some of the many faux pas that were generated by old generals and inept politicians of the Empire. The documentation for most of these egregious errors that caused many casualties is sufficient and further substantiated in subsequent and more scholarly histories. Very suitable for someone that is seeking an excellent one book overview of WW2. ( )

3098 Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II, by Len Deighton (read 5 Aug 1998) This is a 1993 book which looks at various aspects of that part of World War II before and at the time of Pearl Harbor. Deighton is not sparing of British folly, even though Deighton is English. He is tough on Dunkirk and the days preceding it and his words are caustic and extremely critical of British behavior. He spends a great deal of time on technical aspects of weapons and equipment, which was of limited interest for me, since I cannot hope to understand the things discussed. But he has lots of insights and I reveled in much of the discussion. World War II was such a momentous event that though I followed it very closely when it was going on it is good to periodically revisit the subject. This was a long book--634 pages--but much of it was good reading. ( )

As reviewer berrypuma says, this book does concentrate mainly on the British role in WWII, although it also has good sections on the German invasion of the Soviet Union and Japan's plans to conquer South-East Asia. But the main thrust of the book is puncturing the self-satisified myths that the British were able to indulge in after being on the winning side of the war.

Deighton reserves special scorn for a British ruling class that thought that men who could write cultured essays were far more suited to national leadership than people who understood science, engineering and technlogy.

There is also plenty of detail about infighting and factionalism within the armed forces (mainly, but not limited to, the British forces). For instance, the RAF refused for years to supply long-range patrol aircraft to escort merchant shipping convoys, even though those aircraft would have been very useful in the fight against German submarines. For the RAF, maintaining their independence was more important than making sure desperately needed supplies got through to the UK.

You may also be surprised to read that the Bletchley Park codebreaking centre was not as successful as recent publicity has suggested.

Deighton, as usual, is able to explain technical and engineering information simply so it makes sense even to the non-technically minded.

Superb. Well worth a read - I suggest you buy or borrow it as soon as you can. ( )