Customer Reviews

Tank Commander

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Ronald Welch may be categorised as a children's author, but don't underestimate him because of that. Tank Commander is a riveting read. It captures the utter horror of WWI, the horrendous casualties, and pig headed incompetence. At the same time it is exciting and moving. The title is a bit misleading, as the hero of the story spends of good deal of his time in the trenches as an infantry officer, and only latter recognises the importance of tanks, and transfers. I read and re-read this book as a child, (along with the author's other books) and every few years I still go back and read it, and enjoy it just as much... The new movie "Saving Private Ryan" trumpets itself as the first movie to really show the horrors of war, while still telling a great story - but this book beat it by a generation. Publishers - reprint any and all books by this author - PLEASE! Amazon.com - why haven't you listed all the books by Ronald Welch?

This is one of the series of children's books written by Ronald Welch on the noble Carey family. They are all semi-historical fiction and based on historical events of British/English history. These books have been out of print and all very hard to find. As a whole, they are all very easy to read and wonderfully entertaining. They are each based on a war as they are historical military fiction, but even as children's books, Mr. Welch describes the terrible on conditions that the combatants faced and not just the heroics. Conditions such as poor food, poor hygiene, death, disease and the horror of war are all described. But to balance that are also heroism, friendship, gentleness and kindness. I only read one of them as a child, but through the wonders of the internet I was able to buy them all many years after they went out of print. My reviews on each book in the series is just a bare bones description on Amazon so that fans of the series are able to place them chronologically. I feel that all the books are uniformly excellent and I love them all so I won't gush how good they are each time.

Tank Commander: John Carey. Despite the name of the book, John Carey is an infantry officer for 2/3 of the book from the innocent beginnings of WWI to the horror and death in the trenches until he gets involved in the formation of the tanks corps. He is then a tank commander with the novelty of exploring tank tactics. The last in chronology of the Careys. Illustrated by Victor Ambrus. My only used paperback and a rare personal copy (most are ex-libraries). Since I bought this book many hardbacks have come into the used market. The hardback is worth the price as the paperback is falling apart.

I agree with reviewer 1. I borrowed this book from Dhaka (Bangladesh) British Council when I was a high school student, and absolutely loved this book. It epitomizes the elegance of soldiering, hints at the humor of army-life, and depicts the mindlessness of war. I searched the book for a long time since, but could not find it.

Finally, I found the book again when I relocated to Calgary some 12 years after reading it the first time. This time, the sense of adventure was less appealing and some of the heroics of LJ seemed downright ridiculous (taking up a whole company of Germans single-handedly with two guns blazing). But the details of early tamk-warfare was still interesting. Also, this being a later book of Welch, he somewhat muted his unreserved awe for the King and the Country, which made this book more palatable.