Using Goggle Maps as a Military Atlas

One of the most enjoyable discoveries I've made is to use Google Maps in conjunction with my military book reading.

This week, I was reading "The Western Front 1944: Memoirs of a Panzer Lehr Officer". When I came across a line drawn military map, I looked up the modern equivalent on Google Maps (using the "satellite" button to get a visual) to get an idea of what the terrain looked like, the relative position and distance of various landmarks and the geographical profile of the land (using the "terrain" button to see different elevations).

It was a tremendous help to enable me to visualize the battle situation for the German and US forces during Operation Cobra.

I would highly recommend this tool to any military book reader.

Caveat: some of the landmarks would have been changed since WW2 so you have to take that into consideration. For example, in some parts of Normandy, the bocage countryside has been removed.

Google Maps

Colin
Combat Films and Books
Combat-Blog

The Irony of the Nazi Master Race

Hitler had boasted about his vision of a German master race, led by strong shouldered young men with blond hair.

The irony of that was that so many members of the Nazi inner circle were not strong blond men but were dark-haired men like Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Bormann, Speer, Hess...

I don't know if any of these men would have qualified racially to become members of the Nazi's own Waffen SS.

Irony, indeed.

Colin
Combat Films and Books
Combat-Blog