Shelford Bidwell – författare

This is, without doubt, the finest book about the crucial role that artillery played in the two World Wars of the Twentieth century. The authors, both former artillery officers who saw action in Word War Two, describe the development of their neglected, inadequate and class-ridden arm through the battles of the First World War and the eventual war-winning role that artillery played, to the culmination of professional military deployment in the Second World War.

When the Allies invaded mainland Italy in 1943 they intended only a clearing-up operation to knock Italy out of the war, but Hitler ordered the German armies to defend every foot of the country. The 'Tug of War' was the mysterious force which caused a war to race out of control, and attract vast numbers of men, tanks, guns and aircraft. The book analyses the main battles of Salerno, Cassino, Anzio and the march on Rome.

When the history of the Twentieth Century is written let us hope that the few nobel ideals of our era are not entirely submerged by the scientific miracles and horrors which increasingly dominate our lives. High among such ideas must rank the recognition of women in more and more walks of life as equal partners with men, and in no area was the battle for recognition fought with greater determination then or more evident ultimate justification in the righteousness of their course then in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, later to become the WRAC. As Brigadier Bidwell puts it: “At the heart of the question was not so much doubt about the ability or reliability of women, but an unformulated but powerful fear of the consequences of their intrusion in strength into an entity so exclusively and aggressively male as an army in the field'. He goes on to demonstrate how they managed not only to dispel that fear but but to replace it with admiration and respect which few could have dared to envisage at the outset. The Corps must be warmly congratulated upon their decision to ask Brigadier Bidwell to write their history. As an experienced military historian but nevertheless a detached observer, he brings to his task an objectivity and balance of judgement which exonerates his book from any taints of hagiography but nevertheless constitutes a record of which even the oldest regiments would be proud.