The Bulge...One Divisions Story and some reflection

[Childress]

Re: Revenge of the Nerds

There is an awesome book called "Engineers of Victory" that is exactly all about the nerds who won World War Two.  Highly recommended.

.......

And here I was thinking you were going to bring up Bletchley Park.

Or this:

Edited March 13, 2016 by Childress

[Michael Emrys]

Re: Revenge of the Nerds

There is an awesome book called "Engineers of Victory" that is exactly all about the nerds who won World War Two.  Highly recommended.

I read that a couple of years ago, and while I think describing it as awesome is a tad over the top, it was of some interest. There is another book written by one of the premier British scientists in the war, and if I can think of its title and the name of the author I'll pass it along. It had quite a bit more information with the added frisson of being a first person narrative.

Michael

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

Awesome for me covers the range of "worth reading" through "life changing."

It's a bit dry, but it serves as a good starting point if you're starting at a greater void of knowledge in terms of the engineering-organizational efforts of the allies.  

[Wicky]

I read that a couple of years ago, and while I think describing it as awesome is a tad over the top, it was of some interest. There is another book written by one of the premier British scientists in the war, and if I can think of its title and the name of the author I'll pass it along. It had quite a bit more information with the added frisson of being a first person narrative.

Michael

R.V. Jones  Most Secret War ?

[Michael Emrys]

R.V. Jones  Most Secret War ?

Thank you, Wicky, that is the very one! Excellent book. Prior to last summer I could have gone into my library and put my hands on my copy, but I had to give all that up and now have to rely on a less than reliable memory.

Michael

[JonS]

There is an awesome book called "Engineers of Victory" that is exactly all about the nerds who won World War Two.  Highly recommended.

Highly recommended by some.

I thought Kennedy's book was easily the worst I read last year, and the worst book I've read since "Unflinching Zeal" (which was utterly execrable). I found Engineers to be repetitive, derivative, weakly researched, and riddled with factual and analytical errors. But worse than all of that, it didn't even do what the author set out to attempt, which was to explain how problems were solved. Instead he wrote many pages about the problem, the poof the problem is solved and the Allies win. A thoroughly unsatisfactory book, and I regret purchasing it and reading it.

Edited March 14, 2016 by JonS

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

Highly recommended by some.

I thought Kennedy's book was easily the worst I read last year, and the worst book I've read since "Unflinching Zeal" (which was utterly execrable). I found Engineers to be repetitive, derivative, weakly researched, and riddled with factual and analytical errors. But worse than all of that, it didn't even do what the author set out to attempt, which was to explain how problems were solved. Instead he wrote many pages about the problem, the poof the problem is solved and the Allies win. A thoroughly unsatisfactory book, and I regret purchasing it and reading it.

I think if that's the worst book you've read in a year or so you've been pretty lucky.  

From a process based perspective, or having had to work/been around similar problem solving complexes, it seemed pretty good to me.  Perhaps my overuse of the word "awesome" is to blame but you can't really separate the problem from the solutions process as they're intertwined.

Greatest book ever?  Not really it is pretty dry at times.  It is however at the least a bunch of topics that usually are glossed over to a much higher degree, or simply taken for granted that suddenly there's P-51s everywhere.