Turning first to FUBAR (Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition – actually replace “Fouled” with a four letter word beginning with “F”!), this is a great collection of the slang used by soldiers during the Second World War, brought to us by Gordon L Rottman.  You think “text speak” nowadays is impenetrable, well translate this: 

The scuttlebutt was that the Old Man had a red ass. Everything was TARFU. The Seabees weren’t where they were supposed to be and he thought they had been on the jungle juice. He wanted them to give it the gas or their CO would be his pots and pans man for ever.

Roughly translated (from US military slang):

The rumour was that the commanding officer was very unhappy.  Things are really fouled up.  The construction battalion weren’t where they were supposed to be and he suspected they had been drinking illicit homemade liquor.  He would like them to speed things up or their commanding officer would be on fatigue duty for the foreseeable future!

Basically the book covers British/Commonwealth (including Australian, New Zealand and Canadian), US Army/Marine and German military slang in 3 main chapters and then briefly in two appendices Russian and Japanese slang.  Each chapter of slang is divided alphabetically and as Mr Rottman uses the phonetic alphabet of each nation you can also learn those as well.  The actual meaning of each word or phrase is succinctly described mostly in no more than one or two sentences, along with any emphasis or hidden subtlety lost to a modern audience.  Some are simple eg “Bivvy – one or two man tent or shelter. Derived from bivouac”, some are more complex “Frog Suit – Four colour camouflage uniform, or ‘frog skin’, that was too heavy and hot for wear in the Pacific. It was also withdrawn from European wear as it was mistaken for Waffen SS camouflage uniforms” and some are downright odd eg “Poke the Bronx – poking fun at someone (Australian/New Zealand”. 

There are several longer explanatory boxes on some key topics such as the Thousand Mile or Yard Stare or Lili Marlene (famous Second World War song beloved of all sides) and these help break up the text, which though fascinating as it is can get a bit “listy”.  Finally in Appendix 3 there is a list of British, US and German AFV names/nicknames.  I suspect most of these will be familiar to most students of the Second World War but they all add to the richness of the book.  Finally there are numerous cartoons, some modern I think, some contemporary which relate to various items of slang.

Whilst you may think this book has mere novelty value I suspect that it should prove extremely useful to those studying first hand accounts of the war in dealing with those odd sayings or phrases that crop up from time to time in such works.   If you are a student of the Second World War I think this should be on your bookcase!    

Onto the next offering: The Osprey Military History Quiz Book. The Military History Quiz Book is a spin off from the regular monthly military history quiz that appears on the Osprey Publishing website and is concocted by the infamous and devilishly clever Quiz Master!  In this book you get 103 separate quizzes.  They are divided into various means of answering - multiple choice, true or false or short answer and are either general in nature or relate to a specific subject eg Horatio Nelson, Vietnam or The Cold War.  Now as a wise man once said, there is no such thing as a difficult question, just ones you don’t know the answer to!  So it is difficult to say how hard these quizzes are.  So a few sample questions for you to decide (and no I am not giving you the answers!)

• The Term Gourmier refers to a soldier from which nation; a. Tunisia, b. Algeria, c. Morocco or d. Libya
• Which of these Viking leaders was born first; a. Gorm, b. Harald Bluetooth, c. Swyen Forkbeard or d. Canute
• As a young soldier, Winfield Scott was court-martialled and suspended from the army.  True or False? 

As well as the various quizzes the book is pretty well illustrated with military cartoons – a large number of them are by the excellent Bill Maudlin (US cartoonist whose two characters Willie and Joe show the black humour so evident on the battlefield).  Also there are numerous “Did You Know?” text boxes with slightly quirky military anecdotes and stories and a number of quotable quote text boxes as well.  I think these are all a nice touch making the book a fascinating one to flick through.

Again I wouldn’t call this a novelty book. With a high production value as well as the large amount of non quiz material within it this book deserves your attention.  And if you run a quiz at a Wargames Club or Wargames event (such as the one we have on the Saturday night at Britcon in the UK) then you may find all the hard work done for you!  

Both available now in paperback from Osprey Publishing both normally priced £6.99; FUBAR ISBN 9781849081375 and the Quiz Book ISBN 9781849081726.

Review written by: Paul Robinson, Staff Writer