Hells Gate

[Jan-Hendrik]

Please keep us informed regarding Kowel, I am much interested



Jan-Hendrik

[panzermahn]

I know it's a tad late but I just got my copy of Hell's Gate and I would say it's superb (the book is quite huge). The account of the battles inside and outside of the Tcherkassy pocket were the best so far I had read (the account of Battles of Tcherkassy I read pre-Hell's Gate were from Paul Carell's classic, Scorched Earth).

The stories about how the German forces at Lysanka managed to hold out despite repeated pressures of Soviet forces knowing that the Tcherkassy pocket survivors would depend on them for the breakout were superb as well as the individual accounts of the survivors

I'll give it 5 stars out of 5

Apart from this, I only had a small comment regarding the photos. I found that the photos were somewhat "imbalance". For example we have huge size of portrait photos of the individuals involved in the Battles of Tcherkassy but those dramatic photos of the actual breakout were made "smaller". I understood that the author may not used all the photos taken by Adolf Salie (the SS kriegsberichter who participated in the breakout) as well as from Alois Jarolim (the Wiking kriegsberichter who was with the division when it breakout from the pocket) but it would be nice if we could get all those photos but of course this is only my personal preference and I may not be privy to other factors that author may have faced such as cost concerns, lack of space etc.

Notwithstanding, I think this is the best account of Tcherkassy I had read and the best "live-action" book I got so far :)

One more last question. Does the author speaks German? Because at the epilogue section where he mentioned that he travelled with several Tcherkassy veterans back to Ukraine for a visit and to what I have known, Fernand Kaisergruber, the Walloon veteran of the breakout does not speak English

[Ritterkreuz]

only two words: great and useful, and good selection of photo, congratulations Doug!

[Charles Trang]

Adolf Salie was not a Kriegsberichter but a NCO within SS-Nachr.Abt. "Wiking". I suppose Doug Nash could not print his photos in greater size because the original ones are very small indeed !

[Doug Nash]

I know that Salie was in the Nachrichtungs Abteilung - also, the photos came to me directly from Willi Hein and they were the best that RZM could reproduce.
Thanks Charlie!

[Charles Trang]

If the book was to be edited again, then better prints could be available. I can get good scans from the Adolf Salie's collection (which is now in my possession) thanks to a much improved scanner. Of course, if Remy wanted to make a new edition of "Hell's gate", I would provide these scans with great pleasure.

[Doug Nash]

I'm sure he would, but he just sent it in to the printers for the 4th reprint - perhaps the next one. I think if you can find Salie's photo of the crossing of the Gniloy Tickich, that would be most interesting. All the copies I have seen have been very bad and if you have a clear one, that would be very nice indeed.
Thanks -
Cheers,
Doug

[Rotanhäntäpistin]

How will the 4th printing differ from the 1st printing?

[Doug Nash]

Just some minor edits - it's not being marketed as a 2nd edition, just a reprint. When we catch enough errors to justify changing the original proof, then we make the changes. It's not economical to do that whenever an error is found, just too expensive because you have to pay someone to do the word processing using the publishing software used for text. There will soon be a Kindle version or IPad version of the book coming out within the next year, with a few more minor edits.

[Rotanhäntäpistin]

Perhaps an errata sheet would be a convenient way to address those lesser errors? Luckily there are so many proper books available that I will never have to sink so low as to view then on the abomination called e-book.

[Doug Nash]

Will have to leave the decision for an errata sheet up to my publisher, those are a pain in the backside too, I imagine. But I agree about Ebooks too - I'm no big fan, would much rather sit down with a musty old tome than an IPad or Kindle - but let's face it, we may be the last generation that has to have a book in front of them in order to enjoy the reading experience. Me, I like to take out a pencil and scribble in the margins when I find something particularly noteworthy and that's hard to do with an Ebook, but that's the wave of the future, I suppose.

[B Hellqvist]

Me, I like to take out a pencil and scribble in the margins when I find something particularly noteworthy and that's hard to do with an Ebook

Just use a magic marker!

[Doug Nash]

That's what the blonde girl said!...

[Rotanhäntäpistin]

Aargh! I greatly dislike any markings on books. Especially when spotted in a library book. Once I loaned a book to a fellow enthusiast and he added a pencil marking on a page and I was pretty close in demanding him to buy me a new copy.

[Doug Nash]

Well, obviously I scribble only in my own books - to scribble in someone else's would be gauche, not to say impolite! But whoever gets my book collection after I kick the proverbial bucket will have to put up with all my random scribbling and margin notes!