The Nafziger Collection, George Nafziger's specialty publishing business, offers hundreds of order-of-battle and tables of organization and equipment documents ranging from 1600 to 1945 plus a growing number of WWII-related OB and TOE books. These are for the most part aimed at wargamers but have also been well-received by individuals seeking to learn more about the armies which fought in the battles and campaigns from 1939 through 1945.

The three newest titles in the Nafziger Collection have recently been made available to us for review.

Underwood Jr., John L. The Japanese Order of Battle in World War II, Volume I. West Chester, OH: The Nafziger Collection, 1999

no ISBN
129 pages

Introduction; Glossary; Bibliography; Index of Units

While not expressly stated in the title, this is an OB for Japanese Army and Navy units used in a ground role, not for air units or naval forces. The first volume covers "an organizational history of the infantry, armored, and depot divisions of the Japanese Army with limited data on the naval ground forces." Although not made available to us for review, the other two volumes of this series have also been published within the past few weeks:

Volume two: Airborne, Raiding, Amphibious, Cavalry, and Independent Brigades

Volume three: Independent Battalions, Army Detachments, and Miscellany

Underwood concentrates on tabular data with relatively limited textual explanation. Detailed organizational diagrams (organigrams) are provided for all the basic unit types and their organic elements with numbers of men and weapons. For each division the author offers a list of its subordinate units and a couple of sentences with date and location of formation, notes about reorganizations and redesignations, and information on where the unit was employed.

37th Infantry Division: The division was activated at Kumamoto, Japan in March 1939 as a Type B "Standard" Division and was transferred into the Chinese Theatre of Operations in Mary 1939. In March 1945 it moved into French Indo-China where it remained.

Upon activation the division was organized as follows:

37th Infantry Division HQ
37th Infantry Group HQ
225th Infantry Regiment
226th Infantry Regiment
227th Infantry Regiment
37th Mountain Artillery Regiment    (36-75mm Mountain Guns)
37th Engineer Regiment
37th Signal Unit
37th Transport Regiment
37th Ordinance Duty Unit
Division Field Hospital (x1)
37th Veterinary Hospital
37th Medical Unit

Despite the title, all the information in this volume is of a unit history and TOE nature; there are no OBs showing overall Japanese Army dispositions and chains of command.

Hughes, David, James Broshot, and Alan Philson. The British Armies in World War Two: An Organisational History, Volume One: British Armoured and Cavalry Divisions. West Chester, OH: The Nafziger Collection, 1999

no ISBN
123 pages

Preface; Bibliography;

Appendices: Units serving in Armoured Divisions; Organisational Tables; Orders of Battle

Hughes, Broshot, and Philson have been well-known and well-respected for years in the wargaming community -- particularly among players of the "Europa" series of detailed World War II games -- as crack OB researchers. This volume and this series bring together in fully-formed fashion many of the threads they've been known to be working on over the years.

Although the series as a whole includes not only units from the UK but also Dominion and Empire formations such as those from Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and India, volume one focuses on actual UK armored divisions, of which twelve are included, and the single UK cavalry division. The first section of the book describes the organization of the units and their organic components in considerable detail with text and tables. The second section offers several pages of unit history, and further organizational tables, for each division. Various notes and charts and "Regimental Trivia" sidebars are scattered throughout.

Regimental Trivia: 3rd Battalion Royal Tank Regiment This unit is an extreme example of the way in which the British happily shifted units from one formation to another -- a practice not found in most armies. Starting the war in 1st Armoured Division, it was the unit sent to Calais. This meant it avoided the debacle of the Somme, but had to be evacuated leaving all its tanks behind. After service in Greece, it then served in the 7th Armoured Division, usually with 4th Armoured Brigade. Its next stint was with the 8th Armoured Brigade, first under the 10th Armoured Division at Alamein, and then as an independent brigade. Its final actions were with the 11th Armoured Division in Europe. One claim to fame was that it contained at one time or another the authors of some of the best books, both fiction and non-fiction, written about tank warfare in the Second World War -- notably Crisp, Elstob and Joly.

The appendices contain a wealth of tabular data covering those regiments serving in the armored divisions, more organizational tables, and OBs.

The authors promise five more volumes in this series, the next of which is tentatively due to be released in February:

Vol 2: Allied and Dominion Armoured Divisions; British Regular Infantry Divisions

Vol 3: British Territorial Infantry Divisions; British Armoured and Tank Brigades

Vol 4: Dominion and Empire Landing Divisions and Tank Brigades

Vol 5: Parachute, Air-Landing, and Mountain Divisions; Non-Divisional Artillery and Engineers

Vol 6: Indian Army Formations

Nafziger, George F. The Growth and Organization of the Chinese Army (1895-1945). West Chester, OH: The Nafziger Collection, 1999

no ISBN
100 pages

Introduction; Bibliography;

Nafziger himself has compiled TOEs for Chinese forces from the end of the Nineteenth Century to the end of World War Two and presents them here in a combination of organigrams, tables, and text. About twenty pages cover the Sino-Japanese War from 1937 through 1945. While the Japanese volume and the British volume include unit history data for specific formations, this volume gives only general information on the theoretical organization of divisions and regiments and their organic components without providing much in the way of unit histories.

In addition to the TOE material there is a three-page OB for the Chinese Army as of "Winter 1944" showing divisions, corps, armies, army groups, and "war zones" as well as their commanders.

These are all very useful books, especially the first two, with strengths and weaknesses very similar to the other OB titles published by the Nafziger Collection.

Underwood's Japanese book is a workmanlike compendium of data from a fairly wide range of sources. However, the author is the first to admit "in numerous cases there is conflicting data and in just as many there is very limited or no data available at all." The bibliography shows that he utilized exclusively English-language sources, in some cases borrowing inexpert reworkings of sketchy wartime intelligence reports. In that sense this is not a piece of ground-breaking original research based on primary documents, but -- in an uncrowded field -- it has the distinction of giving the best English-language overview of Japanese unit histories and TOEs.

The British volume from Hughes, Broshot, and Philson, on the other hand, is much more extensively researched since the authors worked in a field awash with a veritable flood of unit histories, OB compilations, and publicly accessible official records. "...Joslin's [sic] official work...we have happily plundered." The authors have produced a much more thorough product than Underwood, but -- given the plenitude of readily available sources -- they needed to do so in order to make their efforts worthwhile. In this they have succeeded, and their volumes should be welcomed alongside Joslen's and Bellis' works.

Nafziger's Chinese volume is a little more problematic. On the one hand it contains only a minimal number of pages relating to the Sino-Japanese War and World War II. On the other hand, there is so little solid English-language material on the topic of WWII Chinese TOEs and OBs that anything in this area is worth looking into. Thus it is worth noting (but not criticizing) the fact that this volume suffers from the same limitation as some other Nafziger OBs. That is, the content is wholly dependent on what sources are readily available: the bibliography lists only five titles, not all of which, obviously, relate to 1937-1945. Had the author wished to do so, it would have been possible to mine additional titles -- Dorn, Liu, Eastman, and even the official US CBI volumes come immediately to mind -- for more WWII-era OB and TOE material. Of the three titles reviewed here, this will prove to be of least interest for those seeking WWII information, and our Wish List remains unfulfilled.

In any event, all these can be recommended for those interested in TOE, unit history, and order-of-battle material, particularly for wargaming.

Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from the Nafziger Collection.

Thanks to George Nafziger for providing these review copies.