This book covers the life of the author from his home in Canada, to Germany in 1939, his adventures as a young man in wartime Germany, into combat and life postwar. It is a fascinating story that contains the sorts of insights into life in Germany and the German Army that you just don't get with other books.

As you can imagine, the bulk of the book covers his wartime experiences, for that is what brings the biggest interest. Those of us who have served in the military will notice that there are many things that are universal about service. There are the hardships and the humor and the heat of battle. In fact, I have to say that I was somewhat surprised at how few days the author spent in actual combat during the war. One thinks of combat as being a continual time of intense action. Yet, even for the mechanized army that is not really the case. It is often days of inactivity interspersed with intense times of combat.

In the course of his combat experience (much of which was in Lithuania and eastern Germany), the author's panzer was quite successful against a variety of Soviet armor. It really was a case of Soviet numbers overcoming German equipment.

Of course, it doesn't help that panzer crews often had to abandon and destroy disabled vehicles instead of being able to recover them for repair. When this happened the crews were basically on their own in terms of getting back to their lines and getting back to their home base in order to get another tank.

The author's experiences in both the panzer IV and the jagdpanzer IV make for fascinating reading and provide an insight that you will not get anywhere else. An excellent read that I can highly recommend.

May 2008

Review book courtesy of  Casemate Publishing, where you can order your copy of this and many other superb books.

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