Books: Help Me!

[Wildcatdad]

Ok, so I recently had a birthday and with the 3 day weekend here, I was hoping to use up some of my Barnes & Noble gift cards. I was wondering if anyone had some good WW2 & WW1 book suggestions. I'm looking for some stuff mainly from a ground perspective. I'm really interested in soldiers thoughts and feelings while on the ground. Any and all suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

[XxDaSTaRxx]

A quite popular one out there and I'm sure all of us know it but....

A Higher Call

[Wayout]

Rick Atkinson:  The Liberation Trilogy.
 Book 1:  An Army At Dawn
 Book 2: The Day Of Battle
 Book 3: The Guns At Last Light

These are WWII narratives.  There is a lot of input from the people who were there.

Website.  http://liberationtrilogy.com/books/

[pembquist]

"Matterhorn" by Karl Marlantes
"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
"Chickenhawk" by Robert Mason, its about helicopters though.
"In Pharaoh's Army" by Tobias Wolfe
"The Coldest Winter" by David Halberstam
"The Thin Red Line" by James Jones

[Oldman731]

Rick Atkinson:  The Liberation Trilogy.

Agreed, closest thing to Bruce Catton's Army of the Potomac trilogy I've ever seen.

From POV of individual soldier, try "The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer, very powerful.

"Twelve O'Clock High," by Beirne Lay, Jr. and Sy Bartlett.  My very favorite book of all time.  I read it at least once a year.  For 50 years.

"Helmet for My Pillow," by Robert Leckie.

Good lord, the list could go on forever.  One last:

"The Might Eighth," by Roger Freeman.  The go-to book on ETO 8th AF operations.

- oldman

[Masherbrum]

Rick Atkinson:  The Liberation Trilogy.
 Book 1:  An Army At Dawn
 Book 2: The Day Of Battle
 Book 3: The Guns At Last Light

These are WWII narratives.  There is a lot of input from the people who were there.

Website.  http://liberationtrilogy.com/books/

These along with:

Given Up for Dead - Bill Sloan
Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors -  James Hornfischer
A Question of Honor - Lynn Olson and Stanley Cloud
Mission at Nuremberg - Tim Townsend
Ghost Soldiers - Hampton Sides
Monuments Men - Robert Edsel

[mbailey]

Last stand of the Tin Can Soldiers is a must read if you have any interest in WWII naval battles. Along with Neptunes Inferno (both James Hornfisher). He's the kind of writer that get you so engrossed in the book that you swear you smell the fuel oil in the salt water and the smoke from the burning ships. By far my favorite writer of naval literature

You can't go wrong with anything written by Barrett Tillman (Whirlwind was excellent....it's about the bombing of Japan), Donald Miller (Masters of the Air which if I'm not mistaken is the next in the series of movies that Hanks/Spielberg  are doing for HBO)

Max Hastings....anything

Thomas j Cutler and C Vann Woodward both wrote books about The Battle of Leyte Gulf that were excellent

Alex Kershaw. The Few   Great read about American airmen that fought in the Battle of Britain

Flyboys by James Bradley. Although after reading it my thoughts on the Japanese soldiers/military during the war were less than positive.

Guy Sajer Forgotten Soldier.  I agree with Oldman.  Extremely powerful book!  (Description copied from amazon)  

This book recountsthe horror of World War II on the eastern front, as seen through the eyes of a teenaged German soldier. At first an exciting adventure, young Guy Sajer’s war becomes, as the German invasion falters in the icy vastness of the Ukraine, a simple, desperate struggle for survival against cold, hunger, and above all the terrifying Soviet artillery. As a member of the elite Gross Deutschland Division, he fought in all the great battles from Kursk to Kharkov.

[MiloMorai]

I had a hard time putting the books down.



The first comprehensive history of Canadians in WWI in forty years, and already hailed as the definitive work on Canadians in the Great War, At the Sharp End covers the harrowing early battles of 1914—16. Tens of thousands, and then hundreds of thousands, died before the generals and soldiers found a way to break the terrible stalemate of the front. Based on eyewitness accounts detailed in the letters of ordinary soldiers, Cook describes the horrible struggle, first to survive in battle, and then to drive the Germans back. At the Sharp End provides both an intimate look at the Canadian men in the trenches and an authoritative account of the slow evolution in tactics, weapons, and advancement. Featuring never-before-published photographs, letters, diaries, and maps, this recounting of the Great War through the soldiers' eyes is moving, engaging, and thoroughly engrossing.



Shock Troops follows the Canadian fighting forces during the titanic battles of Vimy Ridge, Hill 70, Passchendaele, and the Hundred Days campaign. Through the eyes of the soldiers who fought and died in the trenches on the Western Front, and based on newly uncovered Canadian, British, and German archival sources, Cook builds on Volume I of his national bestseller, At the Sharp End. The Canadian fighting forces never lost a battle during the final 2 years of the war, and although they paid a terrible price in the killing fields of the Great War, they were indeed, as British Prime Minister David Lloyd George exclaimed, the shock troops of the Empire.

[branch37]

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors and Neptune's Inferno by Hornfischer.  If you are interested in the Navy at all, both are a must read. 

[Brooke]

Good WWII aviation books:

The Few, by Kershaw (The first Americans in the Battle of Britain)
Masters of the Air, by Miller (8th AF, stories from strategic to tactical, awesome)
Unbroken, by Hillenbrand (B-24 crewman, incredible tale of survival)
Fighter Pilot, by Olds (autobiography of Robin Olds)
JG26:  Top Guns of the Luftwaffe, by Caldwell (daily history of JG 26)
The First and the Last, by Galland (Galland's tale)
Zemke's Wolfpack, by Freeman (P-47's, Zemke, Johnson, Gabreski)
Top Guns, by Foss and Brennan (excellent collection from pilots)
Samurai, by Sakai (Saburo Sakai's story)
Midway, by Fuchida and Okumiya (Midway and a lot more by guys who were in the action)
Intrepid, by White and Gandt (detailed stories of USS Intrepid)
FLAK, by Veitch (stories from RAF, RAAF, RNZAF pilots)
Baa, Baa Black Sheep, by Boyington (Pappy's tales)
Aces High, by Yenne (about Bong and McGuire)
A Dawn Like Thunder, by Mrazek (detailed stories of VT-8)
America's Hundred Thousand, by Dean (nonfiction detailed info on all US WWII fighters)
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning, by Bodie (awesome nonfiction book on the P-38)
The Wild Blue, by Ambrose (B-24 stories)
Flying Through Midnight, by Halliday (interesting tales of a C-123 special-ops pilot)

Good WWII books (not mainly aviation):

With the Old Breed, by Sledge (if a person reads only one book on war, this should be it)
Neptune's Inferno, by Hornfischer (awesome account of the Guadalcanal campaign)
A Measureless Peril, by Snow (awesome story of US battle in Atlantic)
One Man's War, by LaMore (awesome story of fighting and survival)
To Hell and Back, by Murphy (Audie Murphy's story)
Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, by Hornfischer (awesome account of Battle of Leyte Gulf)
The Bravest Man, by Tuohy (WWII submarine combat)
Band of Brothers, by Ambrose (famous)
No Simple Victory, by Davies (excellent academic history of WWII from angles not usually presented in the West)
Army at Dawn, by Atkinson (North Africa)
The Day of Battle, by Atkinson (Italy)

[Patches1]

For World War One I recommend the following:

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

The Arms of Krupp by William Manchester

The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
 

[Soulyss]

I really enjoyed "Helmet For My Pillow". I read it a few years back after watching The Pacific on HBO.  Leckie really had good command of language, his descriptions really drew me into his experiences and had a pretty vivid impact on me.

At last all crept to their holes.  The naval battle awoke us. The voice of the imperturbable Scar-Chin came roaring out of the black, "Kee-ripes! It's a naval battle! You can see it! C'mon ya jerks, c'mon up here."

I think of Judgement Day. I think of Gotterdammerung; I think of the stars exploding, of the planets going off like fireworks; I think of a volcano; I think of a roaring and an energy unbelievable; I think, of a holocaust; and again I think of night reeling from a thousand scarlet slashes and I see the red eye of hell winking in her wounds - I think of all these, and I cannot tell you what I have seen, the terrible spectacle I witnessed from that hillside.

The star shells rose, terrible and red.  Giant tracers flashed across the night in orange arches. Sometimes we would duck, thinking there were coming at us, though they were miles away.

The sea seem a sheet of polished obsidian on which the warships seemed to have been dropped and been immobilized, centered amid concentric circles like shock waves that form around a stone dropped in mud.

Our island trembled to the sound of their might voices. A pinpoint of light appears in the middle of the blackness; it grows and grows until it illuminates the entire world and we are bathed in pale and yellow light, there comes a terrible, terrible rocking roar and there is a momentary clutching fear to feel Guadalcanal shift beneath us, to feel our Ridge quiver as through the great whale had been harpooned, as though the iron had smacked into the wet flesh.

Some great ship had exploded.

[Brooke]

I really enjoyed "Helmet For My Pillow". I read it a few years back after watching The Pacific on HBO.  Leckie really had good command of language, his descriptions really drew me into his experiences and had a pretty vivid impact on me.

 

If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend "With the Old Breed," by E. B. Sledge, another book they drew from for The Pacific.  It is an amazing story, and expertly written, too.

[Blinder]

I just finished The Battle of the Tanks: Kursk, 1943 by Lloyd Clark. I highly recommend this one.



I just bought Tigers in the Mud: The Combat Career of German Panzer Commander Otto Carius I haven't started it yet but I have flipped through it. It looks absolutely delightful! I can't wait to dive in!