Turns out We're Among the Best There is at what we do

Good Thursday, Stroock's Books reader(s) and associated personnel. We awoke to see World War 1990: Norway has 19 ratings averaging 4.4 stars. As of this writing Norway is #22 in its Amazon category. Not bad. 

Via the Times of Israel the official report of failure and wanton slaughter. 'Investigation into Oct. 7 Hamas invasion of kibbutz, where 101 civilians and 31 security personnel died, finds disastrous response by military amid battle against hundreds of terrorists'. Do click the link to read a fascinating account of that awful day and tales of heroism as Israeli civilians fought off Hamas. We say without reservation, no fate is too bad for Gaza and the Gazans. 

Back in the 80s, you young fellas, a kid could learn a lot about WWII just by watching movies. We did. While writing Ambush at Lingayen Gulf, we recall the movies we saw about the doomed defense of and/or the eventual liberation of the Philippines.  These are Back to Bataan (a John Wayne vehicle about Filipino Guerillas), MacArthur (here's what we wrote about the film in 2017), Air Force (one of our all-time favorites, probably top-10), Bataan, They were Expendable (one of the reasons we like writing about small boats shooting things on water and land). 

We've always been fascinated by the Philippine campaign and the sense of impending doom over American forces in the islands. We even wrote a magazine article about the fall of the Philippines. Ah, searching Amazon we see some new books have been written on the matter. We had to use books that were many decades old. Good. Forty + years on now. That's the same amount of time that passed between the original release of most of those films, and our seeing them as a child. 

Ambush at Lingayen Gulf is going great, just great. In real life the flyers of the Far Eastern Air Force did score some hits on the Japanese navy. But watching Air Force last night, we were reminded that the US Army Air Corps didn't hit jack at the Battle of Midway. Oh well. Speaking of Air Force, check out this old infomercial, The Tanks are Coming, starring Air Force's George Tobias. Gee, why are we researching M3-Stuarts? 

And from the very latest review of Hooves, Tracks and Sabers:

You're goddamn right it is. Yet another reminder, if any were needed, that we are among the best there is at what we do.