Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Good WWII history books

Just finished reading "Supreme Commander" by Ambrose. A bit tedious at times but overall a well researched account of the very high level strategy and tactics of the war and all of the problems - about half management and half just obstinate personalities - that Ike had to put up with. It covers things I never really knew about or at least never thought about, like all of the intrigue going on during the North African campaign, the surrender of Italy or how to treat France once we invaded.

One example of the things he had to worry about was the way De Gaulle was such a prick, although apparently Eisenhower had a grudging respect for him. When he threatened to take his French forces (which we armed and supplied) out from under SHAEF's control late in the war Ike had to consider that if he retaliated by cutting off their supplies he might have been confronted with the possibility of his own logistic train running through a nation with a suddenly hostile government and a fully armed resistance force.


Going to the library in a few minutes to pick up "An Army at Dawn". If that proves readable will get the other two books in that trilogy.

The Ian Toll trilogy about the Pacific war is very good.

To understand the European theatre post D-Day it's great to read about what came first as part of the greater strategy. Africa and Operation Torch and multiple invasions of Italy and the arguments among the allies about how to D Day (and honing all our amphibious tactics) is really well covered in The path to Victory by Douglas Porch

I've mentioned this before, but Ike's 1947 book "Crusade in Europe" probably gives the same information, but directly from Ike's perspective.

I’m currently reading Rick Atkinson.

The Army at Dawn is about the North African Campaign. Good book, Patton didn’t shine there as much as I thought.

I found the Day of Battle about the Italian Campaign to be the most tedious, reflecting the hard drudgery of that theater. An Allied offensive handicapped by the diversion of resources to the upcoming invasion of Normandy.

Currently I’m on The Guns at Last Light, Monty has just bullheaded through the disaster of Market Garden and equally bullheaded American Generals are feeding GI’s into the meat grinder of the Hurtgen Forest and the Siegfried Line.
After sweeping across most of France in four weeks the Allies have been stalled for six weeks.

One thing Atkinson does really well is describe the role of logistics, and also the human cost of war. For example I had no idea that the Germans lobbed literally hundreds of V1’s and V2’s onto the port city of Antwerp after the capture of that city by the Allies.

"The Things our Fathers Saw" and "The Pacific" are good. Anything by Victor Davis Hanson. I'm currently reading "In Harms Way". It's the account of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. Pisses me off. Captain Charles McVay III was set up for failure then crucified.

Yep the man is a genius

Before reading Supreme Commander I never fully knew of what the British were doing in the Low Countries, mostly due to concentrating on books that told the story of American troops. Obviously I knew they were there and even casual students of WWII know of Market Garden but now I understand it was part of Monty's "single big thrust" strategy into the Ruhr and toward Berlin. Ike wanted to bring all of his troops up to the Rhine all along its length, cross it and then sweep through Germany from there with the flexibility to take advantage of any point where the Germans cracked. Plus by then Ike and everyone else believed Monty would never do anything quickly and that had lost them the opportunity to capture and kill a lot of Germans more than once. Once the Allies got across the Rhine and Bradley started advancing rapidly that turned into the "single big thrust", somewhat to Monty's dismay. Plus, Monty and the British wanted desperately to take Berlin while Ike wanted them to secure the Danish peninsula to keep the Soviets from taking it.

Churchill was thinking of British security after the war and worried greatly about how far Soviet troops would advance and those political ends colored his recommendations and requests to Ike, Ike just wanted to win the war militarily by the quickest way possible. The back and forth between Ike, Churchill, Roosevelt, Monty and the American Army group generals was very interesting. Nobody said they wanted to take Berlin for the sheer glory of it but that was definitely part of the reason since by the last months of the war it was not a strategically important target, just a public relations prize.

Anyway, very interesting stuff. This is what I was looking for when I started this thread - not so much the personal accounts from the foxhole view which I've already read, but a comprehensive study of just what it took to win the war from a top level view.

My son met some of those old guys and was invited to one of their reunions. It was to honor them that I picked my handle. Serving US Navy officers were not welcome. The granddaughter of the Japanese sub's commander was an honored guest (she lives in Chicago now).

Captain McVay got scapegoated because, they claimed, he hadn't zig zagged to avoid torpedoes. The Japanese sub commander went to Washington to testify that it would not have mattered if he had zig zagged. Couldn't blame the higher brass for ignoring when the Indy was overdue, could they?

A few years later McVay committed suicide. He was a hero in my opinion.

He was only exonerated, posthumously, after a high school kid used the Indy as a history project and wouldn't let it drop.

The Fleet at High Tide

Well then you’re gonna like Atkinson’s trilogy, from the first blundered landings in North Africa, to the essential role the landings at Sicily, Salerno and Anzio played in the learning curve leading up to Operation Overlord.

One thing that struck me in The Day of Battle, a million servicemen in the Mediterranean Theater by the spring of ‘44 and the author points out that most of the rapidly building US Army hadn’t even left the US yet.

By Overlord the Brits were literally running out of men to send into battle.

Excellent book!!!

When I was a kid in the 1950s I read books written by WWII pilots. Thunderbolt, by Robert S. Johnson, Ba Ba Black Sheep by Greg "Pappy" Boyington, and Zero, by Saburo Sakai. There were others I can't remember.

For a different view on the war, try Red Road from Stalingrad. I forget the author's Russian name. It is the story of a 19 year old Siberian boy who has a safe job working for a general but wants to fight for Russia. He starts fighting at Stalingrad and fights for about a year until he is seriously wounded.

He said that even the Siberian boys who were used to -50 degrees were cold at Stalingrad, where nothing stopped the winter wind on the steppes.

"Walk in the Sun", this is a little book, a novel. Dana Andrews would take the movie made from it and show it to officers in training in their Leadership class at Fort Benning.

Not Europe, S.E. Asia, Burma. A good read: Behind Japanese Lines with the OSS, by Richard Dunlop.

If you liked Eugene Sledge’s, “With The Old Breed” you should read RV Bergin’s, “Islands of the Damned”. Bergin was Sledge’s platoon leader and gives a slightly different perspective of the same events.

I know you are looking for more strategic books so read “Shattered Sword” about Midway great in depth book.

Ghost soldiers, A Spy Among Friends, Samurai, Thunderbolt, The Forgotten 500, American Guerrilla in the Philippines and Odyssey of a Philippine Scout just to name a few. The last two give a picture of two sides, one fighting and the other more escape an evasion. Interesting thing about my copy of the last book. The author died before being published and his daughter got it all together and has it printed. She even signed the book for me. It's interesting to see the trains of thought between two men in the same area of battle.
Paul B.

Blood, Tears and Folly by Len Deighton. Explains many of the major mistakes of the war and the consequences. Very readable.


mike r

Finished "An Army at Dawn" a few days ago and immediately started reading "The Day of Battle", at this point in the book the Allies have just landed on Sicily. Always knew we out produced the Germans but this book and the last leave the impression that the Americans and some extent the British as well just stumbled and bumbled our way to victory helped along by outstanding examples of small unit and individual bravery. So many lives thrown away needlessly through arrogance, egotistical decisions of generals and overall bad planning and execution. SNAFU's, TARFU's, JAAFU's and FUBAR's abounded.

Very good books overall. I like the 30,000 foot view of strategy and tactics mixed with enough anecdotes to show the personal side of the war. It's obvious Atkinson did a huge amount of detailed research.

Also trying to find the tune of "Dirty Gertie from Bizerte" but so far all I've found with the music is a later cleaned up version.