Customer Reviews

Operation Mercury: The Battle for Crete, 1941 (Stackpole Military History Series)

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I had been doing some light reading about the WWII German invasion of Crete prior to reading this. This book really brought the battle to life for me, as well as giving some good background as to why the battle occured. I cannot vouch for its historical accuracy, because I'm not a subject matter expert. But, it was easy to read, not overly verbose and seemed to give some excellent insight into what a fierce fight this was for both sides and a fair representation of the errors in planning and execution that occured.

This is the same review I gave this book previously published by Pen and Sword in 2007.

I ordered this book based on the publisher's description (and cover artwork), expecting it to detail Operation Mercury from a balanced point of view, albeit with an emphasis on the German side of the operation and with sources from the various sides of the battle, i.e. German, British, Cretan, etc.
Unfortunately it is not at all like that, rather the author's listed sources are largely previously published English secondary sources, very little use of in-text citations and when he does it is mostly to the same few sources. Not that I was expecting every photo to be a previously unpublished photo, but the photos were disappointing also and mostly of/from the Allied soldiers perspective. The style of writing is more appropriate for a book written by a print journalist rather than a serious historical study of the battle and its participants.
I don't doubt that the author put hard work into this volume, but it is NOT as advertised by the publisher.