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by Antonio Luis Sapienza.
Softcover (8.3×11.7 inches). 108 pages. 2025.
I didn’t know much about Che Guevara other than he was some sort of South American communist revolutionary who somehow became famous for his face on T-shirts. After reading this, it’s a wonder he became famous at all.
Born into an Anti-American family nonetheless owning tea farms and a shipyard, he grew up relatively well off. He became a medical doctor and went to Guatemala to join a guerrilla movement. When that didn’t work out, he escaped and traveled the South American ports as ship’s doctor on a cargo ship.
He soon joined Fidel Castro in Cuba as a doctor, and showed leadership skills that landed him as prison warden and head of the National Bank. He soon drove the bank into the ground, executed a considerable number of former Batista soldiers and officials, and headed off to Bolivia to foment Communist insurrection.
Most of this book concerns Che’s relative incompetence, even given the limitations of the Bolivian Army. In 1967, he led a small band of less than 50 guerrillas that did little except ambush Army patrols. Eventually, so many Army patrols, aided by peasants who reported guerrilla sightings, ran him and his divided band to ground. Che was executed.
That said, a number of skirmish scenarios can be created. Indeed, the last few pages are an OOB of sorts by individual name. Of note are the number of Bolivian enlisted soldiers that surrendered after the platoon leader was killed. That probably needs a rule in a scenario.
The book contains 345 black and white photos (a considerable number of them postage-stamp sized), eight black and white illustrations, three black and white maps, six color maps, 14 color camouflage profiles of aircraft, two color camouflage profiles of trucks, one color camouflage profile of a riverine patrol boat, and three color uniform illustrations.
If you want a good concise biography of Che and his Bolivian guerrilla movements and skirmishes, here’s your book. T-shirt not included.
Enjoyed it.
— Reviewed by Russ Lockwood
