Looking for some quality reading material about WWII. Mostly interested in the ground war in Europe but any decent historical account is good.
Looking for good analytical history with a good strategic and especially tactical overview that also gets into the personal experiences of the participants. Stephen Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers" and "Band of Brothers" are decent examples.
Sledge's "With the Old Breed" and George's "Shots Fired In Anger" are good personal accounts (great personal account in the former) but I'd like to get into more big picture type material while trying to avoid books like one about which this reviewer states, "This is a very difficult book to review. Because there is some really good wheat buried in some really uninspiring chaff. I agree with other reviewers that the writing style is dry and reeks of bureaucratic military lifelessness..."
I know there are at least one or two history buffs here so let me know what you recommend.
Added: I'm trying to remember the title of one book mentioned here a while ago - "The Army Learns to Fight" or "An Army Goes to War", something like that, about lessons learned by our inexperienced forces in North Africa and how those were applied later on. That's a general idea of what I'm looking for.
Ghost Soldiers, Code Talkers, and Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. All great reads but in the Pacific, not your chosen area but well worth your time.
Victor Davis Hanson's "The Second World Wars" is a very good overview of the entire WWII era, including the events leading up to the "war" as Americans understand it.
A concise and clear understanding of just exactly what happen in May, June 1940 without all the stereotypical BS. If you are interested in understanding history get the complete story.
I'm not sure if this fills all of your wants, but look up "The Liberation Trilogy" by Rick Atkinson. It covers the war in northern Africa and Europe from 1942-1945. Very informative and interesting in my humble opinion.
Read “The Gathering Storm” by Churchill, or most of it, decades ago. Need to redo that and the other volumes as well. What I mainly recall is the debate over how big the guns should be on the battleships; 14” vs 16”. IRC, they found out the hard way that the correct answer was 16”.
The best book I have read about WW II in Europe is "The Last 100 Days" by John Toland. It was published in 1964, and the author interviewed many of the men involved, including Generals and Field Marshals from both sides of the conflict.
Another favorite of mine is "The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sager. A brutal first-person account of the fighting on the Eastern Front.
If the Battle of Midway interests you, I hear that "Shattered Sword" is the one to read.
It's quite difinitive for sure, but it's a tedious read. That's the nature of taking several hours of combat and covering the subject minute by minute. But the information between those two covers is amazing in breadth.
A book I read a while back and really enjoyed is "Frontsoldaten, The German Soldier in World War II", by Stephen G. Fritz (yes, his name is really Fritz), by University of Kentucky Press. Quick check shows it's cheap at that monopoly bookstore on the interwebs. It's not about specific battles, strategy, or tactics per se, just what it was like to be a German soldier in WWII. If The Forgotten Soldier is the novelization of that experience, this is more of a guidebook, if that makes any sense.
"With the Old Breed' ....I have read the books mentioned above and they are all good but this is the best, IMO
'Iron Coffins"....another good one
My favorites are the primary source, first hand accounts of German "phantom raiders" Disguised surface raiders like the Atlantis and Pinguin (Penguin in German), Orion, etc....if you can find them.
Victor Davis Hanson's "The Second World Wars" is a very good overview of the entire WWII era, including the events leading up to the "war" as Americans understand it.
Originally Posted by Jerseyboy
I like Victor Davis Hanson. Here's a link to one of his books entitled The Second World Wars:
Another vote for the Second World Wars. I'm almost finished with it. Very, very good. But it may be more conceptional than what the OP is seeking.
My favorite book covering all of WWII is “Inferno” by Max Hastings.
Two of the best on the gritty details of the entire European aspect of the war, if that’s what you’re looking for are: “The Storm of War” by Andrew Roberts and “The Second World War” by Anthony Beevor.
A concise and clear understanding of just exactly what happen in May, June 1940 without all the stereotypical BS. If you are interested in understanding history get the complete story.
I haven't read that, but my favorite book covering that, or any other, single WWII campaign is "To Lose A Battle" by Alistair Horne.
The best book I have read about WW II in Europe is "The Last 100 Days" by John Toland. It was published in 1964, and the author interviewed many of the men involved, including Generals and Field Marshals from both sides of the conflict.
I agree. It's very, very good. My favorite Toland book, though, probably is "Battle: The Story of the Bulge." It's right up the OP's alley with incredible and very interesting details of the tactics and operational developments in the BoB.
Another superb one with similarly-excellent tactical detail. is John Keegan's "Six Armies in Normandy"--about D-Day and the rest of the 1944 campaign.
The best WWII book I ever read, in terms of making you feel like you actually were there, is "Islands of the Damned: A Marine at War in the Pacific" by Romus Valton "R.V." Burgin. But, obviously, that's not about Europe.
Two best WWII books (for overall war, rather than specific battles).
The Second World War, John Keegan The Second World War, Martin Gilbert
Two of the UK's finest historian, both give great coverage. Gilbert's book gives a lot more detail and it's about twice as thick.
John Keegan, unlike many other authors, includes the effect of the Allies breaking the Axis codes in his analysis. And Keegan's writing is terrifically readable.
... John Keegan, unlike many other authors, includes the effect of the Allies breaking the Axis codes in his analysis. And Keegan's writing is terrifically readable.
I completely agree wholeheartedly, but I think VDH's "The Second World Wars" may be the most articulate in making the case for how and why the code breaking was so immensely material to the outcome. He spends a fair amount of time on it and gives the accurate picture of how the bad guys were fighting blind, and we weren't. Keegan's books all are awesome though, no doubt.
I second Company Commander by Charles Macdonald and The Second World Wars by Victor Davis Hanson, both excellent books although very different in approach. Company Commander is a description of Macdonalds's personal experiences commanding a rifle company in Europe while Hanson's book is a high level analysis of the war in all aspects.
I would also recommend A War to be Won by Williamson Murray and Allan Millet, another high level analysis of the war.
Perhaps the best personal narratives I have read of the war in Europe are four books by Donald Burgett. Perhaps the best of these is Seven Roads to Hell which deals with his experiences in the Battle of the Bulge as a member of the 101st Airborne. These are great and sometimes hair raising books.
"Quartered Safe Out Here" 2007, George MacDonald Fraser. He wrote the Flashman series. This is about his experience as an enlisted British infantry soldier in Burma fighting the Japanese to the end of the WWII. He thought the old Enfield SMLE was a great rifle and shot some of the enemy with it. A lot of what the people in his squad, England and the world were like then compared to what it was 60 years later.
Looking for some quality reading material about WWII. Mostly interested in the ground war in Europe but any decent historical account is good.
Looking for good analytical history with a good strategic and especially tactical overview that also gets into the personal experiences of the participants. Stephen Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers" and "Band of Brothers" are decent examples.
Sledge's "With the Old Breed" and George's "Shots Fired In Anger" are good personal accounts (great personal account in the former) but I'd like to get into more big picture type material while trying to avoid books like one about which this reviewer states, "This is a very difficult book to review. Because there is some really good wheat buried in some really uninspiring chaff. I agree with other reviewers that the writing style is dry and reeks of bureaucratic military lifelessness..."
I know there are at least one or two history buffs here so let me know what you recommend.
Added: I'm trying to remember the title of one book mentioned here a while ago - "The Army Learns to Fight" or "An Army Goes to War", something like that, about lessons learned by our inexperienced forces in North Africa and how those were applied later on. That's a general idea of what I'm looking for.
An Army at Dawn
Quote
The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is a story of courage and enduring triumph, of calamity and miscalculation. In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson shows why no modern reader can understand the ultimate victory of the Allied powers without a grasp of the great drama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. That first year of the Allied war was a pivotal point in American history, the moment when the United States began to act like a great power.
Beginning with the daring amphibious invasion in November 1942, An Army at Dawn follows the American and British armies as they fight the French in Morocco and Algeria, and then take on the Germans and Italians in Tunisia. Battle by battle, an inexperienced and sometimes poorly led army gradually becomes a superb fighting force. Central to the tale are the extraordinary but fallible commanders who come to dominate the battlefield: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Montgomery, and Rommel.
Brilliantly researched, rich with new material and vivid insights, Atkinson's narrative provides the definitive history of the war in North Africa.
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.
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
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.
Victor Davis Hanson's "The Second World Wars" is a very good overview of the entire WWII era, including the events leading up to the "war" as Americans understand it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
For Europe--anything by Antony Beevor. He puts Ambrose to shame. Ambrose is a good storyteller but not a good historian. Beevor is both a historian and a storyteller. For the Eastern Front--anything by Pritt Buttar, a British doctor. Very long reads but very interesting. For the Pacific--anything by Ian Toll or James Hornfischer.
Just finished "The Guns at Last Light" yesterday, the third in Atkinson's trilogy. Excellent series and thanks for that recommendation. He does a good job of showing the big picture with enough detail and small anecdotes to put a real human side to the war. These books plus Ambrose's "The Supreme Commander" gave me new insights into Eisenhower, both his less than stellar (sometimes) role as a decisive commander but also his near saintly tolerance for Montgomery and the French. I would have been tempted to sack Monty about the third or fourth week of Overlord if not somewhere in Italy.
Going to start Ian Toll's trilogy on the Pacific War next.
I have a dozen or so of dad's "Stars and Stripes" ETO edition, reading those probably gives you a good dose of "how it IS" vs. "how it was". Probably the one trip I've been on that shaped my life was when dad took me through Normandy and he & I retraced his steps through some of France. This was in the late 60's - early 70's when dad was stationed in Heidelberg at USAREUR back then.
Back in 1970 I spent an entire Sunday afternoon going through the stacks at the U of FL, reading US News and World Report magazines from 1942 through 1945. Didn't read every word but skimmed through each of them, looking at article headlines and such.
It was about as close to watching the war in real time as you could get. History was being made daily, no one knew the outcome so you'd see it unfold as the folks did at the time, from the tenuous landings on Guadalcanal and North Africa through Sicily, Italy, the southern and central Pacific battles, Normandy, etc., right up to VE and VJ days. Obviously, the stories were cleaned up and full of rah rah jingoism, nothing about having two entire Ranger battalions wiped out trying to cross the Rapido River, the slaughter on Omaha beach or an entire division wiped out of existence at the start of the Bulge ("heavy resistance" or "heavy casualties" was about as bad as they'd describe it) but the mood of grim determination turning to wary optimism and finally one of inevitable victory was pretty neat to read.
The best book I have read about WW II in Europe is "The Last 100 Days" by John Toland. It was published in 1964, and the author interviewed many of the men involved, including Generals and Field Marshals from both sides of the conflict.
Another favorite of mine is "The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sager. A brutal first-person account of the fighting on the Eastern Front.
I've read The Forgotten Soldier, too. Excellent book. A mostly forgotten book by many WWII historians.
Already mentioned here by several others; Rick Atkinsons' trilogy, An Army At Dawn, The Day Of Battle and The Guns At Last Light about the US army and Allies from North Africa to the end of the war is outstanding IMO. I read somewhere that it's relatively recent publishing starting in 2002 provided some information that had not been released until quite a while after the war.
It describes the overall scope of our participation with a lot of personal accounts as well as interesting side notes. One good example covered the allied saturation bombing of Germany beginning in early 1944. At one point in six days we lost "226 bombers, 28 fighters and 2,600 crewmen". Any member of a bomber crews chances of not being killed, wounded, missing or captured before completing 25 and later 35 missions weren't good. The casualties were so bad that 88 bombers left formations and landed in neutral countries.
Many- The Bridgebusters by Cleeve The dead and those about to Die jy John McManus Tigers of Bastogne by Collind & King Shifty's War by Brotherton Smashing Hitler's Panzers by Zaloga Pursuit by Ludovic Kennedy Black May by Michael Gannon The Longest Battle by Richard Hough Attack of the Airacobras by Dmitry Loza Forgotten Fiftenth by Barrett Tillman The Naval War Against Hitler by Macintyre Alamo in the Ardennes by John McManus Ardennes 1944 by Beevor With Wings like Eagles by Korda The Battle of Britain by James holland Operation Drumbeat by Michael Gannon Big Week by James Holland
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