James Sidney Lucas

Background

James Lucas was born on December 4, 1923, in Stuttgart, Germany.

Career

Most of James Lucas's professional life was associated with war. First, he served in the Queen's Own Royal Army as a British soldier in World War II in 1943-1944, stationed in Africa in 1942, Italy, and later in Austria in 1945. He served at the Foreign Office in Germany, and in 1960 joined the staff of the Imperial War Museum in London, eventually becoming the deputy head of the department of photographs. After retiring from this position, Lucas took up a third career, that of an author and historian. His favorite topic was World War II, a subject about which he became a respected authority, not only among scholars but, through his work as an adviser on film and television productions about the war, among the general public as well.

Lucas's writing style was not considered typical of war histories. He was a prolific writer upon his topic of choice, and he covered many different aspects of the war, often concentrating on the German side of the conflicts. His Battle Group! German Kampfgruppen Action of World War Two describes the actions of various specially trained German groups - kampfgruppen - such as the infantry divisions or the so-called assault engineers. Lucas's account provides readers with a gripping narrative that details the actions by individual German platoons and companies forced to hold out against overwhelming odds in this particular front of the war.

Lucas's book, The Battle of Normandy: The Falaise Gap, recounted one battle in which the German Army did not farewell. This particular battle was very costly to Germany, which lost twice as many soldiers there than on the Russian front. Lucas's book explains why the Germans suffered so many losses. Had their strategies called for a temporary retreat, they might have halted the advances of the United States 3rd Army toward the Seine.

Lucas provides a more personal perspective in his War on the Eastern Front, 1941-1945: The German Soldier in Russia. In this book, he conveys the war through the eyes of the German soldiers, who had to endure, not only the fighting but also the bitter cold of the Russian steppes, and alternately frozen or burning plain stretching into Siberia. Lucas, in his research for this book, discovered that many German soldiers were more fearful in Russia than in other locations; not only was the landscape harsh, but the Russian soldier was a stubborn fighter, and the Russian army was fierce.

War in the Desert: The Eighth Army at El Alamein presents the story of a crucial World War II battle in North Africa. Here the territory also played a significant role, with heat and sand plaguing the armies. Lucas again relies on oral accounts to tell the story.

Lucas once commented that just because he went to war against the Germans was no reason for him not to make friends with them. He was once taken prisoner during the war but talked his way out using his very basic, at that time, command of the German language. He convinced his captors, according to his obituary, that they were mistaken about the lines of battle and were, in fact, themselves in enemy territory. The German soldiers eventually not only let Lucas and his fellow soldiers go, they turned their weapons over to Lucas and surrendered. Lucas eventually married an Austrian woman whose father was a captain in the German army.

James Lucas finished his last book just before his death. Hitler's Commanders: German Bravery in the Field, 1939-1945 examines the German masterminds of the war, people like Eduard Dietl, Werner Kempf, Kurt Meyer, and Theodor Scherer. Lucas died on June 19, 2002, at the age of seventy-eight.

Achievements

• James Lucas was widely known as a writer. He has written several excellent books dealing with various aspects of the purely military prowess of some of World War II Germany's best formations. Additionally, Lucas was the holder of the Radetzky Orden der Verdienstklasse Ehrenkreuz in 1996, in recognition of his work on behalf of Austrian war veterans.

Works

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  • The German Army Handbook, 1939-1945

    (This text takes a look at the German Army, has its origin...)

    1998
  • Storming Eagles

    (Through interviews with many of the leading members of th...)

    1988
  • Hitler’s Commanders

    (As absolute as Hitler's control over the German war machi...)

    2001
  • Battle of Normandy

    (German war records, diaries, and eyewitness accounts comb...)

    1978
  • Last Days of the Third Reich

    (Based on hundreds of interviews, this book is an eyewitne...)

    1986
  • SS-Kampfgruppe Peiper

    (This long unobtainable novel, based on an actual episode ...)

    1997
  • Das Reich

    (Though remembered by the world for the alleged atrocities...)

    1991
  • Rommel's Year of Victory

    (Rommel had been sent to Libya in February 1941 to bail ou...)

    1998
  • Hitler's Enforcers

    (This is a study of Hitler's inner circle of commanders wh...)

    1996
  • Death in Normandy

    (Machine gun bullets could not harm the tiger, now arrogan...)

    1999
  • Battle Group!

    (Battlegroups were key men taken from their units and thro...)

    1993
  • War on the Eastern Front

    (Lucas details the experiences of the average German soldi...)

    1980
  • Last Year of the German Army, May 1944-May 1945

    (This book charts the "progress" of the German army from M...)

    1994
  • Hitler's Mountain Troops

    (An account of the Alpine divisions of the German army in ...)

    1992
  • Austro-Hungarian Infantry 1973
  • Hitler's Elite 1975
  • Panzer 1976
  • Panzer Army Africa 1977
  • Panzer Grenadiers 1977
  • Germany's Elite Panzer Force 1978
  • Killing Ground 1978
  • Alpine Elite 1980
  • Kommando 1985
  • World War Two Through German Eyes 1987
  • Command 1988
  • The British Soldier 1988
  • The Third Reich 1990

Interests

• Gourmet cooking

Connections

James Lucas married Edeltraude Lucas in 1946. They had a daughter, Barbara Lucas.

Wife:

Edeltraude Lucas

Daughter:

Barbara Lucas