Operation Chowhound (Stephen Dando-Collins)

In early 1945, occupied Holland was in a bad shape. The occupiers stopped providing food for the civilians in the occupied territories and cut off electricity to them as well. The people were pretty much left on their own. Many of the most vulnerable, the old and the very young, would die of starvation. Prince Bernhard, the consort of Princess Juliana desperately lobbied the Allies to do something about it. Three important generals, Eisenhower, Bedell Smith, and Geddes would eventually be responsible for launching Operation Chowhound, perhaps the first humanitarian airlift to provide relief for the suffering Dutch civilians. This book is about this operation carried out by the American 8th Air Force. (The British had started the operation a few days earlier under Operation Manna.)

This operation is full of risks. The war was not over, there was no reason to believe that the Germans would not fire on the bombers carrying food in their bomb bays instead of food. Since they had to fly as long as 500 feet, if the Germans decided to shoot, the bombers were almost sitting ducks. But an agreement was hastily agreed with the Reichskommissar of Holland, Arthur Seyss-Inquart and a group of German officers. An air corridor would be open through which the bombers would fly to the designated drop zones. The operation lasted two weeks through Germany's surrender and is a success, probably saving the lives of many Dutch civilians then almost on the edge.

This book is a short one at 220 pages written in a fairly readable style. For a book of this size, the reader cannot expect a deep coverage on any issue and can only treat it as an introduction to the operation. This operation is definitely complex but little was said about the planning. Even less was said about what was happening on the German side. It was quite incredulous for me to imagine that the Germans would appear suddenly (pg. 114) to even consider allow the Allies to carry out such an operation when they were under instructions to blow the dykes in Holland to destroy the country. Clearly the author did not research enough into the other side. Yet precious chapters were spent on the exploits of Major Ken Cottam and Captain Farley Mowat that though were in the same theatre had no relation to the operation. The author purposely kept that thread alive and appear to forget about it in the second half of the book.

Given the little that was written about this important operation, this book is an important addition to the literature. It is not a defining book though. Too little detail was provided to any aspect of the operation and some of the distractions like Farley Mowat and Ian Flemming were just unnecessary. Read this book to learn about the operation, but go somewhere else if you want to have a better discussion on the operation.


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张学良口述历史 (唐德刚)

This book carries great promise, if not responsibilities. Alas, it did not deliver on either. It was not that the author did a bad job, it was a project that failed because the object of the book, Young Marshal Zhang Xueliang (张学良) did not understand the nature of oral history and was therefore uncooperative. In the end, the author published the verbatim interview scripts, responsibly allowing future scholars access to the raw data for their own analysis and hopefully be able to come to an informed conclusion about Zhang, his life and times.

Zhang was an important person. His life was a colourful one, not only was he intimately involved in the many important events in the modern history of China (for example the Manchurian Incident), he was the co-mastermind of the Xi'an Incident (the other was Yang Hucheng 杨虎城). Much controversy still surrounds the event, with China (mainland) and Taiwan having different narratives about the incident and interpretations of the man's motivation and therefore his attitudes.What better way then to hear from the man himself?

It was with this expectation that I started the book. But what I read in the preface dampened my enthusiasm considerably. This book that was supposed to answer questions would not. If you watch the video of the interview, you would understand why. Zhang, in his old age, was no unlike many others; he has the tendency to boast about his achievements and his extra-marital affairs, he suffers from lapses in memory, and at times kept repeating the same thing over and over again. What I find most amusing are the occasions when he would say "I can't tell you who this person is", and almost as sure as the sun will rise, he would follow his next sentence with the name of the person whom he could not tell.

Yet despite its failure to live up to its expectations, the book is not without value. He did help to clarify a few things if only through one's own analysis. For example, when he told the author that there were people who asked him why he bothered to come to Wang's help after a failed attempt at Wang's life (pg. 236), the reader could immediately tell that many preferred Wang dead. He was also the best person to give insights into the workings of the Northeastern Army (奉军) and also some of the personalities (pg. 362). But personally, I think the most valuable part of the book is the epilogue provided by the author. This is a good piece of analytical work that is persuasively argued and engagingly written. This book would have been worth the read just for that part.

Like the author, my impression of the Young Marshal was deeply discounted after reading the book and watching the video mentioned above. He had a colourful life that is only available to people who were born in his times. He was involved in some of the most defining events of modern Chinese history. Yet as an old man, he was like many others, and his failure to maintain respectability during these interviews washes off the mystic that has accompanied him throughout his life, even and especially in detention. Perhaps like what the author said, if not for the  Xi'an Incident, Zhang Xueliang is nothing.

PS. The book came with a few pictures of Zhang and also his calligraphy. I wonder why he wrote his own name in simplified Chinese. I cannot explain that.