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FORWARD, APPRECIATION, PREFACE & INTRODUCTION / Re: FORWARD, APPRECIATION, PREFACE & INTRODUCTION 8th May to 12th May 2017
« on: May 13, 2017, 10:42:04 pm »
I am in awe of the huge task that Bill Crooks took on, in writing The Footsoldiers. The extent of his acknowledgements and the data about contacts made and diaries read offer an insight into the herculean nature of the task.
I really appreciated the candour of both Tom Cotton and Bill Crooks. It was reassuring to me that others much better versed than I am, in the ways of the army had also been frustrated by the 'unbelievably bad' early records and the official War Diaries being 'often misleading and virtually uninformative'. (from Cotton's 'APPRECIATION). When Crooks said 'Sufficient to say here that the failures in a few instances in our early days, and to a much lesser degree in late 1942, were the products of a system rather than faults in the individual and would require another book to explain why' I think of the book Jungle Warriors by Adrian Threlfall (2014) which provides great detail on the hierarchy's slowness to modify long held beliefs about tactics, clothing, equipment, etc.
I like that Crooks describes his effort to write 'of the time' and 'at the time' - i.e. an account based on contemporary sources, rather than in light of more recent investigations or reflections or social sensitivities. In writing my blog (myfathersletters.me) I am sharing my father's words exactly as he wrote them, even when at times those words make me cringe. I do also add comments from a current perspective - so I guess I'm having two bob each way. It's also interesting to me that like Bill Crooks, Dad was among the first group to embark for home and discharge from Balikpapan - and that unlike Crooks, Dad did already have a plan to write a Battalion history. Life took him in another direction.
I really appreciated the candour of both Tom Cotton and Bill Crooks. It was reassuring to me that others much better versed than I am, in the ways of the army had also been frustrated by the 'unbelievably bad' early records and the official War Diaries being 'often misleading and virtually uninformative'. (from Cotton's 'APPRECIATION). When Crooks said 'Sufficient to say here that the failures in a few instances in our early days, and to a much lesser degree in late 1942, were the products of a system rather than faults in the individual and would require another book to explain why' I think of the book Jungle Warriors by Adrian Threlfall (2014) which provides great detail on the hierarchy's slowness to modify long held beliefs about tactics, clothing, equipment, etc.
I like that Crooks describes his effort to write 'of the time' and 'at the time' - i.e. an account based on contemporary sources, rather than in light of more recent investigations or reflections or social sensitivities. In writing my blog (myfathersletters.me) I am sharing my father's words exactly as he wrote them, even when at times those words make me cringe. I do also add comments from a current perspective - so I guess I'm having two bob each way. It's also interesting to me that like Bill Crooks, Dad was among the first group to embark for home and discharge from Balikpapan - and that unlike Crooks, Dad did already have a plan to write a Battalion history. Life took him in another direction.