The Longest Battle

[Harry Yeide]

My new book, "The Longest Battle," is now shipping. The book explores the campaign between Aachen and the Roer River crossing from both the Allied and German perspectives. As usual, I have included many tactical-level descriptions that might prove usfull to CM gamers, You can get more information at World War II History by Harry Yeide, and I would be happy to address any questions or comments right here. Cheers!

[Michael Emrys]

Hi Harry,

You seem to be writing up a storm. Glad to see you are still at it. I am impressed by the volume of your output. I'll try to pick a couple of your books this year so as to give you a chance to impress me with your quality as well (I've heard good things).

Michael

[longbore]

Hi. I was wondering if you had plans to write a book on german tank destroyers?

[tar]

I found the Films section on Harry's website quite fascinating. Especially the fourth film about the street fighting. Expecially striking was the relatively poor visibility.

Hmmm. Maybe CMx2 should be in black & white instead of color? (Ducking now).

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by tar:

Hmmm. Maybe CMx2 should be in black & white instead of color? (Ducking now).

I find it an interesting and curious comment on people's mindsets that some would want CM to resemble movies more than reality. It may say something about how far we in our time have come to substitute movies and other entertainment media for real experience.

Michael

[Harry Yeide]

My writing storm is more of a steady rain, with the current flood caused by scheduling flukes on the publishing side. "Steel Victory" was in process for nearly two years because Ballantine's purchase of Presidio slowed just about everything down. Casemate produced a beautiful volume with "The Tank Killers," but it hit the streets four months after the target date. Zenith was exactly on schedule with "The Longest Battle." I try to write about one book per year, which is a reasonable speed with holding down a real job at the same time. There is one more in the hopper at Zenith, and another in draft.... Cheers.

[tar]

Hi Michael,

My remark was initially intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but I think you make a valid and interesting point.

For those of us under age 80, the "memories" or views of the WWII time period are all black & white because that is what the majority of the visual media depicting that time show. We don't have any direct experience of the time period but can only experience it vicariously through the books, documentaries and (unfortunately) Hollywood movies -- although the latter are mostly in color. The actual period photographs and most of the newsreel and documentary footage was in black & white, so there is this association between the time period and the visual presentation. It matches our pre-conceived visualization of the time.

-Tom.

Vietnam was the first war fought in color...

[Andreas]

There is actually quite a lot of colour photography, and I believe even some newsreels available on WW2.

[Pzman]

Lots of colour film off WWII. One group put together over three hours worth of it.

[roqf77]

i believe though it was all originaly black and white and re coloured.

[gibsonm]

Well the Germans did a lot of colour filming during the 1936 Olympics (as a vehicle to demonstrate German technological superiority - even though their physical superiority didn’t always triumph on the sports field).

So if it was even “experimental” then I’d suspect it would be fairly common practice 4 - 5 years later.

No doubt the vast majority would be B&W (number of cameramen, ease of process, etc.) but I’m sure a fair bit would be colour.

I’ve seen some of Mr Turner’s efforts to “colourise” films that were originally B&W and the “Colour of War” programmes don’t look the same so I suspect they were colour to begin with.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by roqf77:

i believe though it was all originaly black and white and re coloured.

Nope.

Here are some autochrome photos (i.e. original colour photographs) from WW1.

I believe these are original as well.

Der Spiegel coloured pictures click on the 'Fotostrecke' box (red letters) to start the picture series.

[Harry Yeide]

There is more color film on the American side than photos. There is some excellent color Signal Corps footage from North Africa, and some decent Air Corps stuff, as well. The film crews that worked the battlefield almost always shot black and white, however.

[HeinzBaby]

I had read a tongue in cheek coment years ago that Nazi Germany filmed all their stuff in colour because they thought they could win any conflict in Europe.

Where as the US Navy filmed all their stuff in colour because they knew that they would win in the Pacific

[Pzman]

Originally posted by roqf77:

i believe though it was all originaly black and white and re coloured.

Nope, there were even some German soliders who took 35mm Colour cameras into Russia in 1941.

[PLM]

would be interesting to have an option to turn CM black and white but i wouldnt bother spending a whole lot of effort on something like that and i probably wouldnt use it mroe than to check it out. Mostlikely wouldnt be comparable to WWII footage anyway. would be neat to take screens in black and white. or mimic color photography of the day being less than perfect. would be very interesting. I remember a certain WWII Fps game had a camera you could bring and take photos. Made it sort of neat.

[Harry Yeide]

I've added some photos from the book to my website, including some Royal Tigers from the 506th Schwere Panzer Abteilung lined up before the attack on the 2d Armored Division at Puffendorf. Check 'em out!

[Harry Yeide]

I've added some photos from the book to my website, including some Royal Tigers from the 506th Schwere Panzer Abteilung lined up before the attack on the 2d Armored Division at Puffendorf. Check 'em out!