| | | | | | | | shermanologue de garde | | (presque) tout est dans le pseudo ! | | dangereux beutemaniaque |  | | 5808 messages postés |
|  Posté le 11-06-2005 à 10:18:48   
| Le livre porte sur les Sherman GB (  ), donc le texte ci-dessous est en anglais puisque les principaux intéressés doivent être capables de le lire. Donc inutile de rouspéter 
You may have heard of this book, I have bought a copy and my comments follow.
Note that they are my own opinion and not those of G104 or its owners.
Overall I like the book, photos are good but captions let it down.
Images of War - Sherman Tank by Gavin Birch
Published by Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England www.pen-and-sword.co.uk Soft cover, 176 pages. ISBN 1-84415-187-5 UK price £14.99
As it was built in large numbers and widely used, it is not surprising that many photos of Sherman tanks were taken by official photographers during the Second World War. Though some of these have appeared in print, they tend to be only a small proportion of those taken and the same few appear again and again. This book aims to change that. The author has gone through the photo collection at the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth to select Sherman photos with the emphasis on publishing many which have not been used before. The end result is that while some have appeared in print before, the claim that four out of five are "new" is probably correct as an old grey-head like your reviewer who has been collecting books and magazines for their photographic content for maybe thirty-five years is happy to testify.
As would be expected this is basically a photo book. There is an introductory text giving background to the Army Film and Photographic Unit whose work forms the bulk of the IWM's photographic collection, then a short history of the development of the Sherman tank. The photos are arranged into chapters corresponding to the different theatres of war each with a short introduction. This starts with the United Kingdom and a short survey of Shermans in training with some photos of 79th Armoured Division "Funnies", then the later stages of the North African campaign, Sicily and Italy, the North-West Europe campaign in two sections covering 1944 and 1945 separately and Shermans in Burma. The photos are mostly of British units, with a few shots showing Canadian and Polish service, a final section drawn from American Embassy sources showing American use mostly in the ETO. As excellent coverage of American tanks is already available, this neatly redresses the balance for British armour enthusiasts.
The photos are very good, and as stated above are mostly ones not published before. All are black and white as few colour photos from that period are available. Negative numbers are given which will be a bonus for researchers who can locate the specific photos and also look for others in the same sequence. Captions give details of location and in many cases dates, though they can be vague as to the units involved and in some cases are not correct. These are mostly in-action photos, so do not expect detailed close-ups or specific details on changes between marks but they are ideal for modelling as they show the tanks as they appeared in the field.
While the selection is very good, there are some curious omissions. No photos of the first use of the Sherman at El Alamein are included, while these are not numerous and many have been used before even a small number would have completed the overall picture. The section in the United Kingdom is short and while there is one photo of the first Sherman to come to the UK - the M4A1 Sherman II named MICHAEL which is the oldest Sherman still in existence and part of the Tank Museum collection - it shows the tank after it had been fitted with a new gun when there are several very good photos of it as delivered being inspected by Winston Churchill. Against that we have things which are not often seen, such as the 2" bomb thrower mounted on the commander's cupola in Sicily and good photos of Shermans in Burma.
Biggest drawback of the book is that many vehicles are wrongly identified. Sherman sub-types can be hard to pin down as the author states, and he does provide a summary of the different marks including a cross-reference list of American and British designations. Reading these does show that there are things he has assumed were specific to one type or another which he uses in identifying the tanks in the photos. Sadly, several tanks which are clearly M4A2 Sherman III or M4A4 Sherman V are described as M4. While old hands will spot these, those who do not know the small details which are used to tell one type from another will be easily mislead. This does mean that some less than common types such as a Sherman Ib 105mm howitzer tank in Italy is missed, while the one-off Crusader ARV in the background in one photo is described as something which never existed. There are also some mistakes in the text, for example Fireflies were used in Normandy before they appeared in Italy, no M4A6 were supplied under Lend-Lease, the designations of Sherman IIc, IIb and VIIc are not correct while IVb and IVc though theoretically correct were only used in American service.
There are also some non-Sherman mistakes. A 6pdr anti-tank gun is listed as a 17pdr while one photo is described as a Challenger/Cromwell hybrid with a CDL type turret when in reality it is what may be the only Crusader ARV built with an ancient Vickers Medium tank behind it.
These criticisms may well be read as detracting from all the hard work which has gone into producing this book. They are not intended to do that, those efforts can only be praised. What they are intended to do is to point out pitfalls which could trap the unwary which do mean that the value of the book is diminished. If the captions have been checked over before publication many of these errors could have been eliminated and what is by any standards a good book would have become a very good or even a great one.
What we do have is a large collection of well-selected and clearly printed photos. As a resource they should be welcomed by those interested in Shermans. As an attempt to put something other than the same well-used photos into print it is a success. It is let down by errors, none of them major in themselves but taken together they do reduce the value and they will lead to others taking things as correct and repeating them which will only confuse more readers.
I still recommend this book even though it has faults. The author and publisher have tried to produce a good selection of Sherman photos and that is what they have done. Add this to your collection and you will have a good source of many photos at a very reasonable price but please check the details of what is shown.
Peter Brown for G104 9 June 2005
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Claude
Le maquettisme plastique, c'est tenir l'histoire dans ses mains |
| | Lionel | | Tracks leader |  | | 2060 messages postés |
| Posté le 12-06-2005 à 16:26:53
| Salut!
Il sera dispo sur Amazon.fr pour le 30 juin. Mon exemplaire est déjà commandé!
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| | shermanologue de garde | | (presque) tout est dans le pseudo ! | | dangereux beutemaniaque | | | 5808 messages postés |
| Posté le 12-06-2005 à 16:29:15
| Lionel MArco a écrit :
Salut!
Il sera dispo sur Amazon.fr pour le 30 juin. Mon exemplaire est déjà commandé ! |
Moi je l'ai précommandé sur Amazon.uk.
Etonnant, non ?
|
| | Lionel | | Tracks leader | | | 2060 messages postés |
| Posté le 12-06-2005 à 20:51:20
| shermanologue de garde a écrit :
[citation=Lionel MArco]Salut!
Il sera dispo sur Amazon.fr pour le 30 juin. Mon exemplaire est déjà commandé ! |
Moi je l'ai précommandé sur Amazon.uk.
Etonnant, non ?[/citation]
C'est bizarre ça me surprend pas...
Mais au fait, tu ne te fais pas assassiner par les frais de port en commandant sur amazon.UK? les frais de port gratuits ont l'air de se limiter au pays d'origine..
A+
Lionel
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| | shermanologue de garde | | (presque) tout est dans le pseudo ! | | dangereux beutemaniaque | | | 5808 messages postés |
| Posté le 12-06-2005 à 20:56:59
| Lionel MArco a écrit :
C'est bizarre ça me surprend pas...
Mais au fait, tu ne te fais pas assassiner par les frais de port en commandant sur amazon.UK? les frais de port gratuits ont l'air de se limiter au pays d'origine..
A+
Lionel |
Pour être franc, j'ai tellement peu l'habitude d'acheter en France ce type de livre (que j'aime bien avoir vite !) que je cherche d'abord sur Amazon UK voire USA...
Mais il faut reconnaître que les prix s'alignent et ils commencent à m'ouvrir la porte et dérouler le tapis rouge chez Armes et Collections quand ils me voient arriver (enfin surtout ma carte bleue  ).
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| | shermanologue de garde | | (presque) tout est dans le pseudo ! | | dangereux beutemaniaque | | | 5808 messages postés |
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