Red Inferno 1945 [Paperback]

Robert Conroy has dicovered a alternate-history formula and by God he's sticking to it; Date in the title (check), USA v. whoever (check), USA faces defeat before last minute turnaround (check), USA wins and the world is better for it than in our timeline (all present and correct). Its not that he's a bad writer, and if you don't mind the formula or haven't read his other books, its not a bad read, but it would be nice to see something more original from him.

I'd also reccomend Niles & Dobson's Fox On The Rhine as a slightly better alternative to this if its "USA v. Soviet Union in 1945" you're looking for

Fox on the Rhine

This novel is set in an alternate 1945 in which the Soviets attack the Western Allies after the Amercans make a drive for Berlin. It tells the story from various perspectives, most are American but a few are German and Russian. I found the story readable but followed a formula progressing to the envitable US victory.

All through the story the Americans are brave and determined, they face overwhelming odds against a brutal and savage foe, oh you get the idea... The French are portrayed poorly and De Gaulle becomes an American stereotype of a typical Frenchman. The same is true for the British who only get mentioned when they collapse under Soviet onslaught. In such stories it's always the allies who fold, never the US heroes!

This is a book written for the American market and so the US forces are at the centre of it which is fair enough, the Soviets as baddies and everybody else as bit parts. Like I said, it all works to a bit of a formula. The The love angle between half German-half Canadian refugee and the all American hero is a bit tiresome and some of the sections, such as the heroine taking a shower were irrelevant to the main body of the story and slowed it down somewhat. It needed a good editing.

Having said that it was easy reading and I knocked it out in just a few days, so it couldn't have been that bad.

Most of the reviews here remind me of the hostile comments "Band of Brothers" or "Saving Private Ryan" received. With the exception of some Royal Navy personnel manning the landing craft Omaha beach was a purely American affair. Do you seriously want Royal Marines depicted winning it? The movie was made by Americans primarily for a US audience. Likewise with "Red Inferno" its written by an American, about Americans primarily for Americans. If this is going to offend you save your money & buy something written by a Brit (I'd recommend 'Seelöwe Nord: The Germans Are Coming or Fatherland in fact both are far superior to Red Inferno]

The book is fairly compact at approx 350 pages long so the battle focuses in just two locations: Potsdam where the remains of two US divisions who initially attempted to reach Berlin (which initiated the war in the first place) are surrounded by a second & third echelon Soviet force & some US units in the Rhur taking on the main Soviet thrust west. In the real WW2 the Americans had their sectors, campaigns & invasion beaches and we had ours. It was relatively rare that US & British soldiers ever fought side by side so its entirely reasonable that there's no Brits/French/Poles etc caught up in these two battle zones.

Likewise many of the claims that 'the book is historical nonsense' are themselves nonsense. We generally revere General Montgomery. My grandfather who served under him won't have a word said against him. However the fact remains that the majority of high ranking US officers and politicians hated his guts, In the book after 3 weeks solid fighting against the Russians he's outflanked & replaced by General Alexander its no surprise Eisenhower Patton Bradley etc are delighted. Equally the real Harry Truman disliked and distrusted Churchill. The real Eisenhower didn't bother to inform Churchill or Monty when he suddenly changed his thrust towards Berlin south into Bavaria and onto Hitlers 'Eagles nest'. This US hostility to the Brits may not win many British fans but its 100% accurate and fair play to Robert Conroy for not trying to make Truman more 'Brit friendly' than he really was. Likewise the depiction of De Gaulle is criticised by one reviewer as being 'a sterotypical frenchman'. This is the same De Gaulle who blocked Britains entry to the EU, pardoned most French collaborators & withdrew French forces from NATO command. Damn right he wouldn't have rushed French troops into battle with Soviet Forces to help out the Americans!

The idea that British & French communists would riot in support of the USSR isn't far fetched either. Allegedly Stalin threatened to unleash the French communist resistance against us if we made trouble over Poland. The Greek communist resistance DID have a nasty little war with British troops (including a serious attempt to blow up Churchill in Athens) and between Sept 1939 & Germany's invasion of Russia in May 1941 (when the USSR & nazi Germany were allies) the British communist party organised strikes and campaigned against the war. Only when Hitler attacked Russia did they change tone & suddenly backed the war.

Its probably not spoiling it too much to suggest nuclear weapons are important at one point. Its historical fact that Stalin knew more about the US bomb development than Truman did (courtesy of spy Klaus Fuchs). During the Potsdam conference Truman was surprised when after telling Stalin about the successful 'Trinity' bomb test Stalins only reply was 'thats lucky'. The reason Stalin wasn't surprised is that he knew before Truman that the test worked.

Where I will fault it is Conroy's assessment of US weaponry vs German & Soviet. He's far too inclined to downplay allied equipment and exaggerate the effectiveness of German & Russian tanks. The T34 in this book is almost unstoppable and apparently 'is impervious to US bazookas and anti-tank guns'. A T34 weighed barely 30 tons. A bazooka or US 57mm AT gun could effortlessly penetrate the side armour of the much heavier Panther and did so on many occasions. In this book US troops throw away their bazookas and use German panzerfausts against the T34's with great success. The real panzerfaust was mass produced by slave labourers and was often so badly made it didn't detonate. Real T34 crews protected their tanks against them quite effectively by welding bits of bedstead and mattresses to the tank as the Panzerfaust warhead needed a hard strike to detonate. Likewise at one point Gen. Adolf Galland (one of the few senior German characters I rather liked in real life) shows up with a flight of Me262 jets which he uses with great success against the Russians. In real life the jet engines on the Me262 were so badly made (again, slave labour, inadequate supplies of special alloys) that they had a lifespan of just 15 hours in the air. Realistically Galland's jets aren't going to be much use for long. In a particularly stupid comment General Patton (who in real life refused to supplement his 30 ton Shermans with 45 ton M26 pershings because they were too slow and heavy) adds 100 55 ton Panthers & 50 60 ton Tigers to his tank force. The Germans only had 36 Tigers in Normandy for the whole D-Day campaign and made a total of 1600. Production ended in June 1944. Where exactly did this 50 come from in May 1945?

Some other faults are that characterisation is 2D at best and there's rather too much made of a romance between a US officer & a German/Canadian refugee. The fate of the civilians caught up in the fighting and seige of Potsdam would obviously be meaningful in real life and does give the book a bit more depth but the relatively short length of it doesn't allow for this sort of change in pace and is a bit messy.

All in all its not a bad book at all & has some clever touches. Historically its pretty good, but not perfect but all in all is a bit too hollywood mini-series in style. Its enjoyable enough but is 2nd class alternative history.