Content area
Full Text
Commandos from the Sea: Soviet Naval Spetsnaz in World War II. Yuriy F. Strekhnin, James F. Gebhardt, trans. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996) ISBN 1-55750-832-1, 256 pp., $40.50. Available in Canada from Vanwell Publishers Inc.
The Special Forces of the Soviet Union (and now Russia) have been the subject of considerable interest in recent years. As the 1981 hostage incident at Prince's Gate gave everyday language the word "SAS", the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 introduced Spetsnaz to the Western world. Since that time, spetsialnogo naznacheniia and their alleged roles, capabilities and numbers have held a fascination for Western analysts. "Viktor Suvorov", inter alia, has provided us with enough material to fill the space beneath the beds of even the most paranoid of Kremlin-watchers.
In this, his second book about Soviet naval Spetsnaz, Yuriy Strekhnin chronicles the activities of the "reconnaissance detachment" of the Black Sea Fleet, and later the Danube Flotilla, during the Great Patriotic War. The central character of the book is komsomolets Viktor Kalganov (alias Boroda or "The Beard"), a senior lieutenant commanding a platoon within a naval infantry battalion. The author follows Kalganov's platoon through the liberation of the Crimea, up...