Michael Korda

If only all history books could be written by Michael Korda (or David McCullough or Doris Kearns Goodwin or Candace Millard or Stephen E. Ambrose or a handful of other writers with a gift for making history come alive). Enthralled as I was last year reading Korda's "Ike," a biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower, with its primary focus on the D-Day invasion, I was eager to read his 2009 book "With Wings Like Eagles: The Untold Story of the Battle of Britain." What a fine book it is.

The "untold show more story" has to do with Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, whom few Americans have even heard of and whom may not even be that highly regarded in Great Britain. Korda says the official history of the Battle of Britain, which sold more than 6 million copies, did not even mention Dowding's name. Yet Korda calls Dowding "the architect of this victory." It was he, more than anyone (with the possible exception of Winston Churchill, who instilled in the British the will to resist Hitler) who prevented a German invasion of Britain in 1940.

The German bombing raids that came to be known as the Battle of Britain were intended to weaken British resistance to an invasion during the summer of 1940. Destroying the Royal Air Force was a major part of that plan. Dowding began developing Britain's fighter planes long before the war started, at a time when most other military authorities thought bombers, not fighters, were where the money should go. When large numbers of German bombers began flying across the English Channel, however, it was Dowding's fighters that intercepted and destroyed so many of them.

Some military strategists try to convince the enemy he faces a larger force than he actually does. Dowding had the opposite strategy. He convinced the Germans the British had fewer fighter planes than it did, so the German kept sending bombers and fighters to try to destroy those remaining fighters, but Dowding brought more and more of them into the fight, weakening the German air force all the while. By the time late September arrived, it was too late in the year to count on favorable weather for an invasion, and Hitler called it off, for good as it turned out. "Perhaps without even realizing it, in mid-September 1940 Hitler lost the war, defeated by the efforts of perhaps 1,000 young men," Korda writes.

Yet in another aspect to this "unknown story," Korda gives credit to the many young British women who played major roles in the victory. Female pilots delivered new fighter planes, ready for combat, to the bases around Britain. Women worked as radar plotters and radio operators, continuing to work even as German bombs dropped all around them. (It was Dowding who insisted back in 1937 that telephone lines be buried deep underground to protect them during any possible airstrike.) Women deciphered German codes and defused bombs and dragged them off runways so British planes could take off and land.

Introverted and not one to build friendships or promote his own causes, Dowding was a controversial figure whose many rivals were always trying to replace. They succeeded long before the end of the war. Even Churchill didn't like Dowding and, according to Korda, never forgave him for being right about sending more fighter planes to France during the German invasion of that country. Churchill wanted to send more and more planes, while Dowding insisted France was a lost cause and those planes were needed to protect England. That Dowding was able to protect as many fighters as he did went a long way to making victory possible. show less

In some ways, this was a 4 star book about horses, but more of a 3. It wanders a bit with choppy timelines & can be repetitious or even boring in spots. Korda isn't a bitten-by-the-bug type of horseman nor does he get his hands too dirty, but he admits that. Given his job, the top editor of Simon & Shuster, I wouldn't expect it of him. He writes well & credibly, though. Some of his wandering is entertaining & I learned a lot about city riding that I hadn't known, if it was show more true.

Unfortunately, he's dishonest &/or disingenuous about Fox Hunting & horse slaughter & that makes me wonder where else he's led me astray. Probably nothing of importance since I know horses & horse people at least as well as he does, but he still loses 2 stars, one for each instance in which I caught him.

Fox Hunting is actually now known as Fox Chasing, which it was & has been even back in the time Korda recounts about in Middleburg, VA. I read that section & thought he was really good capturing the hunting people, but he doesn't know squat about actually riding in a hunt. According to Korda, only rich thrill seekers & nuts seem to hunt & the purpose is to kill the fox. WRONG!!!

Not a big deal, but then he went on to further foster that opinion about the hunt around his property in Upstate NY. Supposedly one of the proponents of the hunt says it helps farmers protect their chickens. He has to be kidding. No real fox chaser would say anything like that except in jest. A fox hound can't get into a fox den. That's why Fox Terriers & Jack Russells were bred, neither of which are carried on the saddles of any US hunt that I've known or heard of. He's slick about this lie, though. In Middleburg, he has one person say the hunt isn't about the fox, but the way he paints the guy drinking, who would believe him? Sorry, Korda, you flat out lied & you had to know it.

If a fox goes to ground, the run is done. Good job & thanks for the run. I've known foxes to run from their cover around an area a couple of times & then go to ground right where we picked them up regularly. It wasn't as if we (2 dozen baying hounds & maybe 50 people on horse back) snuck up on them. One was close to the kennels and knew damn well we were coming. If she didn't feel like playing, she just didn't come out. Her choice & we appreciated it when she wanted to play.

Further, he talks about how wild & crazy a run is. He fails to mention there are usually at least 2 fields; jumpers (fast) & non-jumpers (slow). The first can get pretty wild & is a blast. The second is paced for those with weaker riding skills & green horses. Many hilltop, too. That's just viewing the hunt from afar. He mentions drag hunts, but never went on one. That's where a sack is dragged earlier in the day or even the day before & the hounds follow that scent. No wild fox involved. They're not as fun because foxes are sneakier & far less predictable, which is part of the excitement.

Apparently he's against horse slaughter too. He tells us how many horses were shipped one year, but fails to mention how many are born or what the trends are. I agree with him that the numbers are too high, but have no respect for anyone who paints half a picture on an emotionally charged problem, using the numbers with the most impact, & then wanders off. Only one side told & no solutions are offered. He talks about some alternatives, but fails to mention how few horses fit into those programs.

For instance, he makes a big, shining deal out of one old, lame mare who will take up space in a penal program for life, but doesn't mention that if she were put down, a dozen other younger, better horses could have used her slot to be rehabilitated & sent on to decent homes. Instead, what becomes of them? Slaughter? I sure hope not, but it might be better than the alternative of starving to death out on some backwoods farm, which happens all too often. Like dogs & cats, there are more horses bred than people can take care of. The Thoroughbred racing industry is only one part of the problem, but it is the richest target, so the whole way Korda handled this seemed like a cheap shot to me.

I don't recall a mention of his son, Chris, once he was remarried, but I found it odd, no matter what Chris has turned into (the transgender leader of the Church of Euthanasia) according to Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Korda
That's his business, but I found the lack very sad. My kids' horseback adventures are some of my fondest memories. He has my condolences there. show less

There is a great romanticism to the Battle of Britain. In the summer of 1940, at the height of Nazi power, all that stood between England and invasion were the pilots of RAF Fighter Command. Contrails traced labyrinths in the blue summer sky miles above the Earth as Spitfire and Messerschmidt tangled. The war fell from the sky on picnickers; shell casings, flaming wreckage, men, bombs. And of course, the good guys won. "This was their finest hour." Roll credits.

The real story is more show more complicated, of course, and Korda centers the battle as conflict between Air Marshall Hugh Dowding of the RAF, and Herman Goering for the Luftwaffe. Dowding is cast as a visionary. In the 1930s, when prevailing wisdom was that 'the bomber would always get through', Dowding pushed for the creation of the world's first integrated air defense network, a combination of radar, spotters, hardened telephones lines, centralized dispatch rooms where maps and indicator lights which enabled command of an air battle in real time, and fast and powerful monoplane fighters to do the killing. This was not going to be a random brawl, but a carefully planned battle of attrition. In the 21st century, with NASA Mission Control, the Star Trek bridge, and network-centric warfare, this is common stuff, but Dowding invented it all.

The Churchill Bunker, with the big board

Against this, Goering's Luftwaffe was the most powerful airforce in the world at the time. But the Bf-109 had the range to stay over England for mere minutes, the medium bombers lacked accuracy and destructive power, and the Stuka and Me-110 were sitting ducks for modern fighters. The Nazis were also hampered by terrible intelligence, that continually predicted the RAF was at the breaking point, and political problems, when a retaliatory strike on Berlin lead to bombers being pulled off of airfields and factories to punish Berlin.

In one sense, the outcome was never in doubt. Dowding just had to contest control of the air through the first week of October, after which storms would make Operation Sea Lion impossible. On the other hand, RAF fighter command sacrificed immensely, taking tremendous casualties in the process of bleeding the Luftwaffe white. Dowding himself was never a political player, and had to turn over his command in November 1940. But Britain had been saved. As Churchill put it, "Never in the history of mankind has so much been owed by so many to so few."

With Wings Like Eagles is an erudite popular history that rises above the pack through a novel, and well-founded thesis around the command of Air Marshall Dowding. show less

Evacuation is as neutral a term as one might find to describe what happened at Dunkirk in May and June of 1940, and Michael Korda uses it frequently in “Alone: Britain, Churchill and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory” (2017). Yet as the subtitle indicates, other terms can be used as well.

At one point he refers to Dunkirk as a "victory of sorts." By the time it was over, the British people were celebrating the removal of some 400,000 British and French troops from France while under heavy fire show more from German forces. Yet it was also a defeat. British troops were in France to help stop the expected German attack that spring. They were pushed back further and further until the port town of Dunkirk remained their only path of escape across the English Channel. So escape and retreat are other words that can also apply to Dunkirk.

To the Germans it was a blunder. With more concentration of forces they could have easily prevented the evacuation of so many troops. Some French generals saw Dunkirk as a betrayal. They had, in fact, tried to keep French forces between the British and the channel to prevent what later occurred.

Yet Korda points out that nearly half of the troops evacuated were French. This did little good, however, for most of these were soon back in France, where they became prisoners of war upon the French surrender. And some of those French generals most critical of Britain's supposed lack of honor were quick to collaborate with the Nazis.

Although Dunkirk is likely what a reader will most remember about “Alone,” the book actually describes how the war started, how British attempts at appeasement failed and how Winston Churchill came to power. It is also, surprisingly, something of a memoir, even though the author was just six years old when these events occurred. Yet what memories he has remain vivid and fascinating

Korda was born to a prominent show business family. His mother was a successful stage actress. His father, Vincent, was a set designer for his brother, Alexander Korda, a major film director who was working on “The Thief of Baghdad” and “That Hamilton Woman” even as these events were unfolding. The author knew Hollywood actress Merle Oberon, then married to Alexander, as Auntie Merle. Korda writes that even while he was busy directing the British war effort, Churchill helped write dialogue for “That Hamilton Woman,” which he viewed as a propaganda film intended to help draw the United States into the war.

It took more than a year for the U.S., thanks to Pearl Harbor, to enter the war. And thus Korda's title: “Alone.”

Korda is a gifted writer. As in “Ike: An American Hero,” with its focus on D-Day, and “With Wings Like Eagles,” about the Battle of Britain, he describes key events in World War II in a simple way without being simplistic. show less