Ex Libris

If you can find any of the above, as originals, in good condition, by all means get them.

But if you can't, Amazon has a publisher who has them all as brand new reprints. ( I get $0, ever, for recommendations.) Unlike a lot of frankly half-ass-made reprints of military manuals by any number of Fly-By-Night publishers, the photos and line drawings in this bunch are almost all uniformly crisp, clean, and legible.

The Animal Transport FM is quite simply the bible for all use of horses and mules, including riding, packing, equipment, care and feeding, and basic veterinary first aid. The packing information also applies to goats, camels, elephants, llamas, tauntons, bantas, or anything else conceivable. If such animals are in your toolkit, or might ever be, the book alone is priceless.

If you think you might ever need to undertake feeding people in groups larger than family at Thanksgiving, the reprint of the WWII Army Recipe book is equally valuable. It includes making items from scratch, including sauces and such, and was the guidebook for feeding an army that had, at the time of original printing, recently amounted to more than 12,000,000 men and women, and providing them the best grub anywhere, and sufficient to win a world war on three continents and as many oceans.

And as the world's biggest user of tentage, from 1917-1975, inclusive, the Tents and Tent Repair manuals are once again an excellent resource for both every Army tent of the period (still available as surplus, and many still in standard US service well into the 1990s), as well as generic hand repair of any piece of canvas or webbing anywhere, to include flys, tarps, and truck canvas, which is used to this day.

Recently received, added to my own library, and all unreservedly recommended for purchase, whether for historical reference, or for regular use and familiarization, for everything from temporary church retreats and scout-type occasions, all the way to the zombie apocalypse.

About $65 for the lot, plus shipping. (They're $15@, and $20 for the Recipe volume.)

There are numerous other books in the series, but these are the hardest to obtain new; the others are found about everywhere, as originals, in good condition, with a little looking. YMMV.