Looking for a good book?

[ChuckW]

If you are looking for a good book to read on these long winter days, try "Andrew Jackson Higgins and The Boats that won World War II" by Jerry Strahan. I found this to be an excellent history of the Higgins boat, but mostly a story of the man...AJ Higgins was a man of exceptional vision and determination......his battles with the Navy over the Higgins boat design are great. Highly recommend it. May have problems finding it, though. Printed by LSU Press and available from the National D-Day Museum gift shop: http://www.ddaymuseum.org/store/index.php?cPath=3_20

[ChuckW]

Guess it's my day for book reviews!
Here's another good one, "Death Traps: Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II", by Belton Y. Cooper.
Cooper was a maintenance liaison officer in the 3rd Armored Division and describes the American efforts to support the M4 Shermans during the drive across Europe. With losses well over 100% at times, the American Maintenance Battalions who recovered damaged Shermans and returned them to service are some of the unknown heros of WW-II. Cooper's technical descriptions were very interesting to me, as a person who enjoys MV restoration. Read how they "threw the book out the window" as losses piled up and applied good old American know-how and the "can-do" attitude of the Greatest Generation to keep our armored units operating in the field. Great reading!!

[Ryan_Miller]

Chuck,

There is a show on the History channel that once talked a lot about the sherman/armored recovery and had a couple of guys from those recovery/repair units talk about thier experiences.

I think I will have to check out some of your books.

[ChuckW]

Ryan, That may have been Belton Cooper. I saw him being interviewed on the History Channel a while back. It's interesting, he's an Alabama boy, too. He said most of the tank drivers were Southern farm boys, who were already use to operating machinery.