Reviewed in Brief

Secret Servants, by Ronald Seth (Farrar, $4.00). Although written in a style appropriate to a pulp “men’s magazine,” this book contains much worthwhile material concerning the history of Japanese espionage. The author, who has written three earlier works on spying, was himself a British spi (it says here on the jacket). He has drawn from a combination of captured Japanese documents, now in the Library of Congress, and a number of obscure American books on the subject. One suspects that one or two chapters that seem weaker than the rest must have come from the latter source. So, presumably, must the repeated errors in geography and nomenclature. But for all that the book is a tolerably good survey of a fascinating subject. M.M.G.

At Whatever Cost: The Story of the Dieppe Raid, by R. W. Thompson (Coward-McCann, $3.50). Captain Thompson’s book is military history at its best; and his subject is worthy of the writing. The Dieppe raid was a concentrated moment of courage of the order of Pickett’s Charge or the Charge of the Light Brigade. Of the 6,000 men who stormed the beaches at Dieppe in the early morning of August 19, 1942, by noon 4,000 were lost. Captain Thompson tells the story of the countless feats of heroism that filled those nine hours, magnificently, in a low key that never allows flamboyant language to come between the reader and the reality. Of the reasons for the raid, and its justification, the best he can say after a serious examination is that certain negative lessons (such as the need of heavy preliminary bombardment and of fire support during and after landings) were learned, without which the cross-Channel invasion of June 1944 might never have been successful. He barely hints at another reason for the disastrous raid: the political pressure in England and the United States in 1942 for the opening of a second front. F.S.M

Featured Tags

Manage following

Literature

Secret Servants, by Ronald Seth (Farrar, $4.00). Although written in a style appropriate to a pulp “men’s magazine,” this book contains much worthwhile material concerning the history of Japanese espionage. The author, who has written three earlier works on spying, was himself a British spi (it says here on the jacket). He has drawn from a combination of captured Japanese documents, now in the Library of Congress, and a number of obscure American books on the subject. One suspects that one or two chapters that seem weaker than the rest must have come from the latter source. So, presumably, must the repeated errors in geography and nomenclature. But for all that the book is a tolerably good survey of a fascinating subject. M.M.G.

At Whatever Cost: The Story of the Dieppe Raid, by R. W. Thompson (Coward-McCann, $3.50). Captain Thompson’s book is military history at its best; and his subject is worthy of the writing. The Dieppe raid was a concentrated moment of courage of the order of Pickett’s Charge or the Charge of the Light Brigade. Of the 6,000 men who stormed the beaches at Dieppe in the early morning of August 19, 1942, by noon 4,000 were lost. Captain Thompson tells the story of the countless feats of heroism that filled those nine hours, magnificently, in a low key that never allows flamboyant language to come between the reader and the reality. Of the reasons for the raid, and its justification, the best he can say after a serious examination is that certain negative lessons (such as the need of heavy preliminary bombardment and of fire support during and after landings) were learned, without which the cross-Channel invasion of June 1944 might never have been successful. He barely hints at another reason for the disastrous raid: the political pressure in England and the United States in 1942 for the opening of a second front. F.S.M