Patton and models

*** A former OSS agent claims in a new book that there was an assassination plot that lead to the death of General George S. Patton. Patton, as you know, was killed in a car wreck before 1945 was over. While stationed in Europe with the army of occupation he had been making noises about the dangers of the Soviet Union, and felt that a war with the USSR was inevitable and we might as well get on with it while the military forces were in place.

In Target Patton author Robert Wilcox makes his case, based on the diaries of an OSS assassin. Most of you know that your friendly neighborhood bookseller leads a double life, with his alter-ego being that of writer. And yes, he has been paid for his work on World War II, a modest bit, but still. So BBG has at least some street cred when it comes to matters of WW2. And he thinks this whole this is entirely possible.

The actions of the US leadership in World War II, both civilian and military, were, at times, scandalous. Taken overall American generalship, that is, high ranking American military leaders, could be considered as mediocre. For every George Patton there was a Mark Clark, or Dwight Eisenhower. The best thing that can be said for the American leadership was that Sir Bernard Law Montgomery was not one of them.

Anyway, I will read this book. It comes on the heel's of the recent spate of post-war books I've read, including the massively influential The Wages of Destruction and my current read, After the Reich. It also ties in with the book I am currently researching. Here's a couple of links for you to decide for yourself.

Target Patton

http://www.robertkwilcox.com/

*** This isn't book related, it's mopey nostalgia. Sorry. When I was a kid, not long ago, I built model airplanes. Like, all the time. Every day I would ride my bike to the store (back when that wasn't considered a suicidal tendency) for a new model and/or paint, come home, build it, then whoosh it around. I hung them from the ceiling, I cut out the box tops and wall-papered my bedroom with them. Great stuff.

So when I saw this article about German models outselling British ones in the UK, it brought back pleasant memories and I wanted to share them. By the way, I get why the kids are buying more German models. The Luftwaffe might have lost, but their planes just looked cooler.

You mean people still build model airplanes?

*** Julius Fast has died. He won the very first Edgar Award in 1946 for first novel Watchful at Night, wrote several other mysteries and then branched out into pop psychology. He was 89.