Odin & Aesop

By the middle of 1942 Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto sought a reckoning with the United States Navy.  The Japanese wanted to neutralize the United States Navy and consolidate their early gains.  Yamamoto’s plan was to draw the United States Navy’s aircraft carriers into a decisive battle by threatening the island of Midway 1,300 miles northwest of Hawaii.  The United States Navy took the bait.  It took the bait armed with intelligence of the Japanese plan.  Mark Stille tells the story of what happened when the two fleets clashed in “Midway: The Pacific War’s Most Famous Battle”.

This Pulitzer Prize winning book traces the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) involvement in Afghanistan.  Starting in 1979, it explains how the CIA funneled arms to the Afghan mujahideen through Pakistan’s intelligence service in conjunction with money from Saudi Arabia.  Next, it provides the details and complexities of how the CIA subsequently attempted to confront the rise in radical Islamic militancy, Osama bin Laden and Al-Queda, and the Taliban.  Steve Coll tells the story in “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden”.

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979.  It was supposed to be a swift operation to install a loyal communist government.  The Soviets were initially successful in gaining control of the cities and major infrastructure but became bogged down and flummoxed fighting against mujahideen guerillas in Afghanistan’s rugged mountains.  The Soviet – Afghan War went on for ten years and cost the Soviet army an estimated 15,000 dead.  After the Soviets withdrew, the government they were backing in Kabul collapsed three years later.  The former British ambassador to Moscow, Rodric Braithwaite, tells the Soviet side of the story in, “Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-89”. 

Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nassar announced Egypt was taking control of the British and French owned Suez Canal Company in July 1956.  He took this action to fund the Aswan Dam he wanted built.  In response to Nassar seizing the canal, Britain, France, and Israel secretly planned a joint invasion.  Israel would advance towards the canal through the Sinai Peninsula while Britain and France would intervene and regain control of the canal under the guise of being peacekeepers.  Barry Turner explains why the plan did not work in, “Suez 1956: The Inside Story of the First Oil War.” 

Bill Richardson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and enlisted in the Army in 1945.  He deployed to Korea when war broke out in 1950 and fought northward up the length of the Korean peninsula as part of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division.  On November 5th, 1950, Richardson was captured by the Chinese during the Battle of Unsan.  He spent roughly the next three years enduring brutal captivity.  So brutal 38% of American prisoners died.  Somehow Richardson survived with his spirit unbroken.  After being freed and returning to the United States, he served the rest of his 40 years in Army service.  He tells the story in “Valleys of Death.”

Among other things, Thomas Edward Lawrence was an author, archeologist, and British Army officer.  During the First World War, he served as a liaison between the British and the Arab tribes fighting Ottoman rule in the western Arabian desert.  Lawrence spent approximately two years and covered hundreds of miles by camel in this role.  His campaign was successful in toppling Ottoman rule yet failed to fully meet the Arab tribes’ aspirations for self-rule.  Lawrence tells the story in “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”.

Within a few short years, drones went from being a niche capability reserved for technically advanced militaries to something ubiquitous on the modern battlefield.  According to the Atlantic Council, Ukraine was producing 200,000 first person view drones per month by early 2025.  The Ukrainians used those drones to inflict up to 80% of Russian battlefield casualties.  That conflict continues and so does its use of drones.  Meanwhile, Hamas used drones to as part of the October 7th attacks.  The Houthis have used drones to attack US Navy ships in the Red Sea and drones are being extensively used by Iran in the ongoing conflict.  Drones are a rapidly changing and rapidly proliferating capability.  In this book, engineer and historian Lars Celander gives an overview of how drones are designed and used – How they fight.

Tameichi Hara descended from Japan’s samurai class.  He graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1921 and began a career at sea.  When war started with the United States in 1941, Hara was serving as the captain of the destroyer Amatsukaze.  He went on to command a destroyer division and participated in major engagements throughout the war.  His last assignment at sea was captain of the light cruiser Yahagi tasked with a suicide mission to attack Allied forces during the Battle of Okinawa.  The Yahagi was sunk but somehow Hara survived.  He was the only Japanese destroyer captain at the start of the war to survive.  This book, Japanese Destroyer Captain, are his memoirs. 

On 30 April 1980 six Iranian Arabs seized the Iranian Embassy in the center of London and took 26 people hostage.  They demanded the release of prisoners in Iran and safe passage out of the United Kingdom.  British authorities managed to get five hostages released in return for minor concessions, but time passed, and tensions rose.  On the sixth day, the hostage takers killed one of their captives.  This killing triggered the British to launch an assault to rescue the remaining hostages.  The roughly seventeen-minute assault was carried out by the British Army’s Special Air Service.  Since all this took place in the center of London, the six-day siege and assault were viewed by the world.  Ben MacIntyre tells the story in, “The Siege: A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World”. 

The A Shau Valley is in the mountainous northwest corner of what used to be South Vietnam.  It is right across the border from Laos.  Because of its location, the A Shau formed a natural hub for the North Vietnamese Army to move their units and supplies into South Vietnam and threaten the more heavily populated coastal plains.  The United States tried multiple times and multiple ways to disrupt what the North Vietnamese were doing.  Some of the Vietnam War's heaviest combat ensued.  Jay Phillips tells the story in "A Shau: Crucible of the Vietnam War"