FirstRead  

The Red Ball express was one of nine major trucking operations that was a crucial, but unheralded part of the massive drive of allied arms, men and machines that, by its shear weight of numbers overwhelmed the German army during World War 2. Following the successful landings in Normandy, the Allies had planned that the advancing forces would be kept supplied by both rail and road with an over land pipeline carrying fuel. For a number of reasons one of which was the total destruction of the French rail network, this proved impossible.

The book presented for review is hard backed with one hundred and ninety-two pages on high quality art paper. It has six chapters with one hundred and fifty-six colour and black and white photos. Almost all of the colour photos are from re-inactments, while the black and white photos are all original war-time shots. The book covers all of the nine trucking operations carried out during the course of the war. The photos were of great interest to me, as they covered most of the major trucks used in the campaign. On page ninety-three, for example, is a particularly good variation of the G.M.C. ‘Jimmy’ truck with a metal beam magnet attached to the front bumper to clear of all things discarded ration cans that became a hazard along the various routes. This would make a wonderful conversion for the Tamiya G.M.C. ‘Jimmy’ in either 48th or 35th scale.

The book also covers why the majority of drivers were of African-American descent and it is quite enlightening to why they were chosen and how little training they were given. Chapter five gives an excellent run down of all the trucks used in the campaign, and to be perfectly honest, was of great interest to me as I have never seen so many photographs in one place of all of the variations of the trucks used in this campaign. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone with even the remotest interest in Allied trucks of the Second World War as it has fantastic photo coverage and is backed up by a very readable text.

Highly Recommended.

Thanks to DLS Books for the review sample