Introduction
In this review we take a look at a Peko publishing release titled The Tank Battles of Marshal Rokossovski 1943-1945. This release tells to story of Marshal Rokossovski from hero to zero to hero. A man who served courageously prior to World War II, was arrested, imprisoned and beaten during the Stalin purges, only to be released and returned to his previous rank and unit where during the Great Patriotic War he proved himself to be a skilled adversary and Commander.
Review
This offering from Peko Publishing is authored by Kamen Nevenkin. The book is published in a landscape format and contains 124 glossy pages that cover the story of Marshal Rokossovski. This particular title is written in English only and the story is told over eight chapters which are:
Chapter 1 The Making of the Commander
Chapter 2 The Debacle at Sevsk
Chapter 3 The Kursk Battle
Chapter 4 The Bobruisk
Chapter 5 Pursuit to the West
Chapter 6 The Battle at the Gates of Warsaw
Chapter 7 The Offensives in East Prussia and Pomerania
Chapter 8 From the Oder to the Elbe
Unlike the photo book series from Peko Publishing, this book does tell the story in both words and images, rather than just images. The text itself is well written, despite my belief that the authors first language is not English. The presentation of the text is well dispersed among the photographs and maps and so provides the viewer with a book that is both pleasing and relaxing to read. In some ways the book also tells the story of an unbeaten Germany going from successor and victor to defeated and loser over the course of the war in the East.
The photographs in this release are a mix of images that are approximately the size of a photographs of the period to full page offerings. A large number of these images cover destroyed or damaged vehicles and equipment serving with the German forces, most of which appears to have been caused by aircraft and artillery. It should be noted that there are a number of corpses, many of which are heavily charred due to the method of destruction of the vehicles on which they served. The images in the book are provided with English captions, the information provided covers what, where and when in most cases and also does a far job of covering the units displayed in the photographs. With that said I have noted a couple of photographs that have not been provided with captions, but these are few and far between, and do not detract from the quality of the publication.
Conclusion
This offering from Peko Publishing covering Marshal Rokossovski is a pleasing read, telling the story of an Officer of the Soviet army who oh so easily could have been killed or died in a Russian prison due to the Stalin purges. The photographs included in the book, are mostly of German vehicles, most of which are damaged or destroyed. It is worth looking for a Tiger tank of Panzer Battalion 505 that looks like it has been used for target practice, with a very large number of hits to the left hand side, and despite what looks like perfectly angled hits, how few of these managed to penetrate the vehicle. Well worth a read, if you are looking for a title that covers a specific aspect of the World War 2.