Military Model Scene

Title: Battles for the Channel Ports
Editor: Daniel Taylor
Publisher: After the Battle
ISBN: 978-1-39903-111-0

Le Havre and Boulogne, Then & Now, a new book in the classic After the Battle style. A 136-page hard-cover book. This is a compilation of two features that previously appeared in After the Battle magazine. The first, by author Ian Galbraith, was published in issue 86, back in 1994 and covers the story of Boulogne, while the second, by Karel Margry, looks at the story of Le Havre, published a little later, in 2008. These 2 features have been combined in the hands of editor Daniel Taylor.
Along with other channel ports, Hitler had declared them to be treated as 'Festungen', or fortresses, to hold out after the allied advance had passed by and prevent the ports being used by the allies to bring in their supplies. The task of taking Le Havre was given the code name Operation Astonia. The job was assigned to the 1st Canadian Army though actually done by 2 British units, the 51st (Highland) and the 49th (West Riding) Division plus support elements from the 79th Armoured Division, supplying vehicles such as the Sherman Crab (mine flail) and Crocodile (Churchill Flamethrowers). For better or worse, the assault also involved the heavy bombers of the RAF, which unfortunately resulted in many French civilian deaths. In the end, despite some elements of the assault plan not quite working as intended, the assault was successful thanks in part to many of the defenders deciding they preferred to surrender rather than fight to the death for their Fuhrer. The port was taken in just 48 hours, and the detail of the battle is well explained, as well as illustrated with plenty of Then and Now photos.
The second part of the book covers Operation Wellhit, the assault on Boulogne, was undertaken by the Canadian 3rd Division. Again, the attack is explained in detail, along with the defences they had to deal with, all accompanied with Then & Now photos which also have detailed captions which explain what we are seeing. This took a few days longer than the attack on Le Havre but it was successful. In both cases however the docks and their equipment had been comprehensively demolished, requiring a lot of work to get them back into operation.
If you have copies of the original After the Battle magazines with these articles in then you might choose to give this a miss, but if you missed them first time around then I will certainly recommend adding this one to your bookcase. As well as plenty of inspiration for modellers, it can also give inspiration to those wishing to visit either of these French ports and to be able to visit some of these key sites for themselves.
Thanks to Pen & Sword for the review copy.

Robin