in the second world war
Hungarian Armoured Fighting Vehicles in the Second World War (Paperback)
Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives
Recently I have been reading books about topics that are a little outside my ‘regular interest’, and this little book is one of them.
This book by a Spanish(?) author is about one such lesser known parts of World War 2, Hungary. Since my wife originates from Romania I already had some knowledge about the region and its challenges, but if you have not much knowledge about the Eastern front and Hungary and Romania, this is a very interesting book.
Not many people know that Hungary occupied part of Romania even before WW2 ‘officially’ started, but they did. So Hungary and Romania were antagonists when they both joined the Axis forces to fight against the Russians. Very weird situation. Later on in the war the Romanians changed their minds, like the Italians, and joined the Russians instead.
This book tells you all about that too, in addition to the main subject, Hungary’s (poorly) armoured forces.
It is a surprise to see that Hungary started to build its armoured forces based on acquisition of large numbers of Italian light tanks.
Compared to what the Germans and Russians already had developed by this time (1934-35) these were obsolete and underpowered right from the start.
But during the war the Hungarians started developing their own armour and in the end were the only Axis country that was relatively self-supporting in this.
The book has many photos by Karoly Nemeth, a Hungarian writer on WW2 topics and armour specifically, and most of the text is in the form of captions to these photos.
That said, there is plenty of text as well, although sometimes I lost track of the story because there were lots of pages with just photos in between.
The only main complaint from me is (as usual?) the lack of maps, showing at least roughly where the actions described took place. Especially for lesser known areas this is a must in my humble opinion.
Other than that a very interesting read!
Oh, here are some websites that add some additional info on the subject.
https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/category/ww2-hungarian-prototypes/
https://www.vox.com/2014/11/13/7148855/40-maps-that-explain-world-war-ii
The book is available from Pen & Sword’s on-line shop here !
By Eduardo Manuel Gil MartÃnez
Imprint: Pen & Sword Military
Series: Images of War
Pages: 112
Illustrations: 150
ISBN: 9781526753816
Published: 2nd October 2019
