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dimitribelgium's review
3.0
Ken Ford writes Ospreys the way his namesake made cars: they come in one colour only, but affordability and satisfaction are guaranteed. The first commando raid of W WII on the Norvegian town of Vaagso (whose fish oil plants produced an ingredient for explosives manufacture) fits snugly within this 80 page format. The artwork is not overly energetic, but the photo selection makes up for this.
The text sucks you into the middle of the house-to-house fighting between the commandoes, appearing battle-ready out of a smoke screen, and the German defenders, battered into despair by a hail of naval shells but reinforced by 50 veterans of the 1940 campaign, who happened to be on leave in the town and proceeded to give the British a harsch lesson in urban fighting.
The contribution of the raid to the war effort is neatly summed up: while the wholesale devastation of a single Norvegian town was little comfort to the Royal Navy, who had planned to linger among the protection of the fjords for week to disrupt the ore trade to the Reich, it did provide some valuable experience in amphibious operations prior to the large-scale bloodbath of Dieppe the next year. It also drew the Sauron eye of Hitler to the north of the Atlantic: the Norvegian garrison would swell to 300.000 much-needed troops who'd surrender there long after operation Fortitude North had served its purpose to keep Normandy clear.
The text sucks you into the middle of the house-to-house fighting between the commandoes, appearing battle-ready out of a smoke screen, and the German defenders, battered into despair by a hail of naval shells but reinforced by 50 veterans of the 1940 campaign, who happened to be on leave in the town and proceeded to give the British a harsch lesson in urban fighting.
The contribution of the raid to the war effort is neatly summed up: while the wholesale devastation of a single Norvegian town was little comfort to the Royal Navy, who had planned to linger among the protection of the fjords for week to disrupt the ore trade to the Reich, it did provide some valuable experience in amphibious operations prior to the large-scale bloodbath of Dieppe the next year. It also drew the Sauron eye of Hitler to the north of the Atlantic: the Norvegian garrison would swell to 300.000 much-needed troops who'd surrender there long after operation Fortitude North had served its purpose to keep Normandy clear.