1945: The Dawn Came Up Like Thunder By Tom Pocock


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more documentary than drama

The blurb rather belies this book teeming to be a dramatic account of the end of the war as seen through the eyes of a newly created war correspondent. it is that but also it’s a documentary of attitudes and prevailing influences as well, a bit of journalistic speak as well thrown in. Each chapter begins with some or other dramatic scene before descending in to the above mentioned documentary elements which some readers will, i believe, find utterly tedious if drama is what you’re looking for. alternatively, if you’re looking for a broader aspect of the war’s end then this will suit you very well since it does give perspective so, it really depends on what you expect from this book as to whether you’ll find it enjoyable and informative or just a piece of dry drivel. I find it interesting but, I don’t think I could take it all in at once. not sure if I’ll finish it mind. It’s like having too much for dinner. No room left for dessert if you finish the main course. Kindle Edition

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. But by the end of the year, even by VJ Day, it had become clear that the dawn was coming up like thunder. In 1945 Tom Pocock travelled widely and saw the final collapse of the German armies; the horror of concentration camps and destroyed cities; retribution reaching war criminals; and the unpredictable strangers from the east, the Red Army. In Berlin, he climbed through the ruins of Hitler’s Chancellery. In Vienna, he roistered with the Russians only to be arrested by them on a trip to Budapest. By the end of the year, he had paid his first visit to the El Dorado of that now distant world, New York, the glittering, happy, prosperous, democratic centre of hopes and affections of the Western World. Here indeed is the very form and pressure of the the awful stench of death and wholesale destruction; the casual murders and cruelties where over large tracts of territory law and order had collapsed; worst of all, the concentration camps still peopled by the ghosts of human beings, starved, tortured, terrified and degraded. Tom Pocock’s friends had served and died in the war from which he himself had been invalided, but when Hitler was defeated, he shared their feelings of exultation and relief. He was in London for VE Day and his account of it is not easily forgotten. Praise for 1945: The Dawn Came Up Like ‘Future historians will bless Tom Pocock's name, for other pivotal periods of our world's troubled life were less well served ... one would have given much for Mr. Pocock's presence, accompanied by a Leica, at the Battle of Hastings’ - Sunday Telegraph ‘A picture of that extraordinary year which will be an eye-opener to those (now a large majority) who did not live through it and intensely evocative to those who did. Tom Pocock writes unusually well ... His idealism never inhibits his curiosity or his lively sense of the absurd ... The book conveys to perfection the atmosphere of 1945, in which exhilaration was tinged with doubt and disgust’ - Evening Standard Tom Pocock was the author of eighteen books (and editor of two more), mostly biographies but including two about his experiences as a newspaper war correspondent. Born in London in 1925, he was educated at Westminster School and Cheltenham College, joining the Royal Navy in 1943. He was at sea during the invasion of Normandy and, having suffered from ill health, returned to civilian life and in 1945 became a war correspondent at the age of nineteen, the youngest of the Second World War. He has contributed to many magazines and appeared on television documentaries about Nelson and the subject of another of his biographies, the novelist and imperialist Sir Rider Haggard. 1945: The Dawn Came Up Like Thunder

1945: