Charles Lutton

CHARLES LUTTON, Ph.D., was a specialist in diplomatic and military history. An occasional contributor to the Journal of Historical Review, he used to reside outside of Seattle.


Bomber Command: The Myths and Reality of the Strategic Bombing Offensive 1939–45 by Max Hastings. New York, The Dial Press/James Wade, 1979. 469 pp with Notes, Appendices, Illustrations, Bibliography, Index. ISBN: 0-8037-0154-X. One of the most controversial campaigns of the Second World War was the bombing offensive against Germany. British, …

Paris in the Third Reich: A History of the German Occupation, 1940-1944 by David Pryce-Jones. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1981, x + 294 pages, 116 photographs, $25.00, ISBN 0-03-045621-5. The claim that thousands of Parisians were members of the anti-Nazi "Resistance"[*] is an aspect of the Second …

Stalin's Secret War by Nikolai Tolstoy. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1981, 463pp, $18.50, ISBN 0-03-047266-0. Pawns of Yalta: Soviet Refugees and America's Role in Their Repatriation by Mark R. Elliott. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982, 287pp, $17.95, ISBN 0-252-00897-9. Our "present" has to a large degree been …

“Good words are a mask for evil deeds.”– attributed to Joseph Stalin During both the First and Second World Wars, the nations warring against Germany and her allies portrayed their fight as a “world war for humanity.” Despite the opening of hitherto closed government archives and the testimony of political …

Uprising! One Nation’s Nightmare: Hungary 1956, by David Irving. London, Sydney, Auckland, Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1981. 628pp, $13.50, ISBN 0-340-18313-6 No less a figure than A. J. P. Taylor has described British historian David Irving as “a patient researcher of unrivalled industry and success.” Since the publication of his …

The War Between The Generals, by David Irving. New York: Congdon and Weed (distributed by St. Martin’s Press), 1981, 446pp, $9.95 Pb, ISBN 0-312-92921-8. Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy, by Max Hastings. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984, 368pp, $17.95, ISBN 0-671-46029-3. David Irving first gained the attention …

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley “Bomber” Harris died on 5 April of this year, at the age of 91. As Air Officer Commanding in Chief Bomber Command from February 1942 until the end of the Second World War, he was in charge of Britain’s massive “area bombing” campaign directed against German …

The Eastern Front: The Soviet-German War, 1941-45 by J.N. Westwood. New York: The Military Press, with maps, photographs, index, 1984, 192pp, $12.95, ISBN 0-517-42314-6. This Spring marked the 40th Anniversary of VE-Day. In the United States, Britain, and other Western countries, there has been much self congratulation about how "we" …

Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox by Alexander McKee. New York: E.P. Duffon, Inc., 1982, 1984, with maps, photographs, index, $18.95, ISBN 0-525-24262-7. The destruction of the virtually undefended German city of Dresden by bombers of the Royal Air Force and U.S. Army Air Force, in mid-February, 1945, remains one of …

The Might That Was Assyria by H.W.F. Saggs. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, with maps, photographs, index, xii + 340 pp. 1984, ISBN 0-283-98961 (hardcover), 0-283-98962 (paperback), (available in the United States through the History Book Club). For approximately two-and-a-half centuries, the Assyrian empire exerted tremendous influence upon developments in what …

At 7:49 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941, 183 Japanese dive- and torpedo-bombers, accompanied by Zero escorts, launched the first of two attacks against the American base at Pearl Harbor. A second wave of 168 Japanese aircraft arrived at 9 a.m. Eighteen operational warships, including four battleships, were sunk or …

The Secret Betrayal, Nikolai Tolstoy, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1978, 503pp, hardback, available from IHR at $16.00. ISBN: 0-684-15635-0. From 1943 until early 1947 Western countries, led by Britain and the United States, returned nearly two and a half million prisoners of war and refugees to the Soviet Union, regardless of …

Dunkirk: The Patriotic Myth by Nicholas Harmon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980. 271 pp. with appendices, maps, photographs, annotated bibliography, index. $12.95 ISBN: 0-671-25389-1 Forty one years ago nearly 340,000 British and French troops were evacuated from the besieged port of Dunkirk. At the time the event was portrayed …

Defeat in the East: Russia Conquers – January to May 1945, by Jürgen Thorwald, edited and translated by Fred Wieck, Bantam Books, Pb, 292pp with maps and drawings, $2.50, ISBN 0-553-13469-8. Most of the actual fighting during the Second World War took place on the Eastern Front between the Soviet …