[Mike Cecil]

Gents,

Don't know if this is quite the right place, but 'WW2 History' didn't seem to be, so I'm placing the thread here.

A new book on Australian Tank Operations in South Vietnam has been released. Called 'Canister! On! Fire!' it was written by Bruce Cameron (a decorated vet) and published by Bigsky Publishing under the auspices of the Army History Unit. Cost in Australia is a very very modest $66, but overseas buyers will get the slightly cheaper non-GST rate if they ask for it. The killer to overseas will be the postage: mine cost $70 to the USA.

I've just received it (had to purchase mine from the publisher - there's a story there!): two volume box set, covering the lead-up and deployment to Vietnam, and follows the deployment almost day by day until the departure of the tank Sqn in Sept 1971. At just under 1,000 pages, it is a massive compilation of information. Anyone interested in armoured warfare will be interested in this book. Generally well written, and with a Nominal Roll at the end of the second volume.

It is not error free, however, and a few howlers have slipped through, including the mis-identification of a Unit, plus a bunch of typos. But the big let down was the standard of the image reproduction. All are B&W (many originally shot in colour), and far too many are dark, or fuzzy/'soft', so don't expect to examine them for details! Captions are, well, 'spartan ' to say the least. The abbreviations list is quite unbelievable: many used in the text are not included, and several of those that are are out of alphabetical order (and the RAEME definition is just plain wrong). The index is not a whole lot better: many military units referred to are simply not referenced, and the footnotes (the author uses them prodigiously and they contain a lot of info), are not included in the index at all.

The narrative, however, is excellent: every reader will learn much about operating Centurions in a tropical environment against a highly resourceful enemy.Cameron was a Troop Leader for several months during 1971, and fought in some pretty vicious actions, so his text comes 'from the heart', so to speak.

Great book, some surprising let-downs as noted, but highly recommended.

Mike C

PS: I should confess that I had much to do with the author during the research and drafting of the manuscript. He drew upon a number of my interviews with former crew, and on my research into Centurions of the Australian Army (1951-1989), and I commented on many of the drafts.