This Will Be A Somewhat Martial Post

So If You Aren't Into TANK -
You may want to skip this bit.  Although it's more to do with air power rather than armour (note the correct spelling, South Canadians), and yes, I am referring back to the podcast "We Have Ways Of Making You Talk", which I would recommend to anyone at all interested in the history of the Second Unpleasantness.  Art?

Jim and Al larging it up in Holland

     They were discussing how disastrous were the Luftwaffe's losses in the Mediterranean, and how this affected the Eastern Front.  Essentially, thousands of planes and aircrew were transferred from Russia to try and turn things around in the Med, unsuccessfully.  Not only did they not stop the rot in Tunisia, they were permanently weakened on the Eastern Front.  As Jim puts it, they lost an average of 20 aircraft a day, every day, for ten months.  And as Al put it, even if Teuton industry could replace the airframes, they couldn't replace dead or captured aircrew; plus the replacements were becoming successively less experienced and able.

Dunno who the artist is, but they nailed it with this one

     Jim then comes up with an explanation why the focus of Teuton histories of the war by this stage (mid-1943) is all on land warfare - "Land-centric", if there is such a word, and if there isn't there is now.  The Luftwaffe was essentially a broken reed, their surface fleet was gone, the U-boats had been defeated, so all they were left with was a very one-dimensional method of waging war.  Hence 'Landcentric'.  Unfortunately for them, the Allies were capable of waging war in three dimensions.
     Right, enough of that, time to move on!
     Motley, fuel up the car with nitromethane and let's breaks some speed limits*!

"An Englishman At War" By Stanley Christopherson
Edited by James Holland - yes that man again - being an account of SC's service in the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, from the beginning to the end of the Second Unpleasantness.  It's a remarkable work, first in that SC survived the war unscathed, and that it's an account of a regiment's adaptation to modern warfare.

My edition

     At the war's outbreak the SRY was a yeoman cavalry regiment, most of whose members were wealthy members of the landed gentry, who looked down upon the wartime members who joined.  Art?

From the First Unpleasantness

     They were sent to Palestine via France (before the Teutons invaded it), ending up on garrison, patrol and police duties.  |SC explains how much attention and care horses needed, up to four hours a day.  Then, in 1941, they were sent to Tobruk after being trained as gunners, where they sat out the long and (unsuccessful) first siege, enduring quite awful conditions.  Several batteries were sent to Crete and were mostly captured there, only 50 men of 150 getting back.  They rotated back to Palestine, and traded in horses for tanks, and they remained an armoured regiment for the rest of the war, fighting across the whole of North Africa, and from France on D-Day to Bremen by the end of the war.  They were widely, and justifiably, seen as one of the best British armoured (again, please note correct spelling, South Canadians) formations in the whole of the Anglo-Canadian British Liberation Army.  This was a double-edged sword, as they were frequently requested by divisions to be their supporting armour, which meant getting stuck in sticky situations.

SC with pipe.
(Which he once put into his pocket, not realising it wasn't out, and set fire to his britches)

     I feel I ought to annotate this work; maybe after I've finished "18 Platoon".

That Reddit Revenge Story
You recall that our narrator has refrained from identifying the major star who was playing a concert at the London Docklands, and whom we left having a drink and a laugh at the bar tent with her stage crew.
     In comes the arrogant, ignorant and abusive management liaison whom the stage staff had nicknamed "The Harridan", announcing that The Major Star had to leave now with her,  since she had to attend a VIP function.
     Ten minutes later The Major Star came back into the bar tent, a look like thunder on her face.  It turns out the "VIP function" was two plates of stale sandwiches and couple of boxes of wine.  So she left and came back to the stage crew, as she was having such a good time with them.  In fact she enjoyed herself so much she stood everyone a round and, at the end of the evening, picked up the whole bar tab.
     "But - but - where is the revenge? I hear you ask.  Funny about that.  The Harridan was apparently fired from her five-figure salary job when The Major Star's agent tore into the management company and how it had treated TMS, who hadn't been happy at how the stage crew were treated, either.  Behaving like an entitled bumbletuck can have consequences, it seems, and not pleasant ones, either.
     "Who was that mysterious Major Star?" I and all of you wondered.  One of the commenters revealed it to be -

Kylie Minogue

     This picture is captioned "Kylie Minogue performing at London Docklands" lest you doubt my veracity.

     There you go, a relief from matters military.

Finally -
An Aha! moment hit me earlier this week.  If you recall, I've recently read a work by Professor Robert Citino, who is an acknowledged authority on Teuton military history, and whose works I am liable to acquire in future.
     The titles of some of these works seemed oddly familiar, though I've definitely never read them: "Death of the Wehrmacht", "The Wehrmacht Retreats", all about specific years of the Second Unpleasantness, at which point I realised they are present on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNDhswF1GKk

     There's a link for the first one quoted.  They are long, which is because Ol' Rob' puts a lot into them, and required watching for anyone like Jim or Al, who is interested in the Second Unpleasantness.  Also -

TIK likes

     "A fantastic book for any WW2 enthusiast" is the quote, and if TIK recommends it then it really is something special; he's a very fussy reader.



*  Only in a safe and controlled environtment, of course.