Good reads while we wait

[Simoleum]

Hello! While we await for approved beta, I wonder if you guys have some good reads connected to WWII?

Currently I'm reading Panzer Commander by Hans von Luck; I recommend it highly for anyone who has an interest in WW2, which... Is everyone here I imagine

EDIT: I've also bought "Berlin Dance of Death" by Helmuth Altner, a soldier who was fighting in Berlin to the end

 

[Sanny]

I've bought myself these the other day, not sure how good they are yet but they seem quite readable for history.

 

[Snaggleooo]

Currently I'm reading Panzer Commander by Hans von Luck; I recommend it highly for anyone who has an interest in WW2, which... Is everyone here I imagine

I love that book; it's one of my absolute favourites. So, so much little detail on the war and the part after capture is fascinating.

I'm also partial to Robert Kershaw's 'Tank Men' as a look at what it was like to actually fight in a tank, rather than just about the machines themselves.

 

[CV10]

The Burma Campaign: Disaster into Triumph by Frank McLynn: An excellent account of the war in Southeast Asia. I've re-read this book a couple of times now and I enjoy it more every time.

The British Pacific Fleet: The Royal Navy's Most Powerful Strike Force by David Hobbs. Great book on the most overlooked naval fleet of the war, as well as a insight into british carrier tactics.

Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight over World War II 1939-1941 by Lynne Olson: Worth it for the description of the fistfight on the floor of the US House of Representatives.

 

[cacra]

Stalingrad by Beevor is an absolute classic.

 

[Axe99]

It's relatively light and relaxing, but for something a bit more 'flavour' than OOB, Flak, by Michael Veitch, tells a lot of short stories about individual Australian airmen's experiences during WW2. I really enjoyed reading it, and it's the kind of thing you can pick up and put down pretty easily.

 

[adam_grif]

The Forever War

 

[legionare117]

I'm going down the Alien Space Bats route, I just started the Worldwar series by Turtledove. Not a historical read by any means, but entertaining nonetheless.

 

[JoshieSays]

A World At Arms: A Global History of WW2

 

[Mabs]

The pair of books i rather like are ;

Defeat into Victory - viscount Slim
Quartered Safe Out Here - George MacDonald Fraser
both cover (some) of the same stuff, but from very different view points
Burma, the longest war - louis allen

otherwise :

The Battle for Spain - Beevor

Dark sky, deep water - Norman Franks ; coastal command Uboat war


and while they are certainly to be taken with a pinch of salt .. Spike Milligans war memoirs, all 5 volumes are brilliant.
for those who dont know, milligan was shell shocked in Italy, and that plus his depression etc arguably gave the world The Goon Show

the first of which is actually on youtube

 

[No idea]

"Tank Warfare in the Eastern Front 1941-1942", by Robert Forczyk. It covers all the major (and not so major) armoured operations in the East Front during 1941-1942. Great reading, imho.

The so called "Liberation Trilogy", by Rick Atkinson (who won a Pulitzer Prize) is the most entertaining account of the War in the West Front I have ever read. It goes from the foxhole point of view to the highest strategy. All told in a very easy to read and enjoyable way. There are no great theories in the books, but it is GREAT reading. It relates the events going from Operation Torch and the NA campaign (first book) to Italy (second book) and Overlord to the very end of the war in Europe (third book).

"Berlin: The downfall, 1945" by Anthony Beevor. I think it is a must read. Dramatic and, to a certain extent, epic book. Especially since it relates some aspects of whta happened in East Prussia in 1945 which werent well known in west europe (except Germany) until two or three decades.

PS. Oh, I almost forgot: "D Day Through german eyes" (there are two short books). Each book contains 12 interviews of german soldiers which were in Normandy in 6th June and what happened to them. Each interview takes around 30/45 minutes to read. I have to say that they seem to be real histories, not some of the half fantastic stuff you find in other books. The interviews were made by the granfather of the "author" of the book, who was a journalist for a werhmatch magazine and was in Normandy one month before Overlord making interviews to soldiers. After the war, he decided to record (interview) what had happened to those same soldiers (the ones still alive and the ones he could find). However, he never published the material, but his grandson has done it.

These two books give a very interesting point of view (the german soldier one) especially regarding two things: One is why the germans fought by that point and what they thought about the war, even with the retrospective they had when the interviews in the book were made (they were done in 1954). The other thing is the german soldiers who were captured and taken to the beaches and their wonder due to NOT seeing on the beaches a particular piece of "equipment" they used a lot and which has provoked lots of heated arguments in these forums. I will let you to guess what it is.

By the way, both books are really cheap. Just 4 euros, each, at Amazon, iirc.

 

[No idea]

Sorry, double post

 

[paranoidsteve]

Iron Coffins by Herbert Werner, the battle of the atlantic by a U boat captain

 

[Fulmen]

Stuka Pilot by Hans-Ulrich Rudel

 

[MarcoRossolini]

Those dreaming of Naval Warfare on an epic scale should check out Castles of Steel by Robert K Massie. World War 1, but it really makes you excited for the big battleships going at it in round 2 (the second world war).

Closer to home, David Glantz has written some excellent books on the Eastern Front - Kursk is a good one and for die hards his book on Stalingrad which details every individual movement by units is superb.

Kind of outside of the game (for the moment) but the Secret War by Max Hastings is what I'm reading at the moment. Thoroughly excellent popular history of spies, codebreaking and espionage up to and (so far) during the war.

A lesser known area is "Where Iron Crosses grow" another Robert Forczyk, less dense than Glantz, but certainly harder than Hastings or Beevor. It's all about the fighting around the Crimea, fascinating information on naval operations and fighting in the black sea.

Some interesting recommendations here, I'll certainly check out a few.

 

[Damiani]

Japan 1941 by Eri Hotta. It's not about the war per se, but it is about the often neglected background to the Japanese decision to go to war with the US.

 

[Housies]

Several people mentioned Anthony Beevor. I would like to add my earlier thread to that:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-excellent-book-on-wwii.874986/#post-19748113

 

[mdw1985]

I really enjoy the "Atlas of World War II", published by "The Times". It shows most of the Campaigns/Operations of World War II as battleplans on the map! I replayed several plans in HOI 3 with its battleplanner and had quite some fun. The book also contains lot's of statistics and summarizes the most important aspects of the war very good!

 

[CocoCincinnati]

"Frozen Hell" by William Trotter is an excellent read on the Winter War.
"Operation Barbarossa" by Alan Clark is a pretty good read on the Eastern Front.
"The Liberation Trilogy" by Rick Atkinson covers Africa, Italy and the Western front respectively in its three volumes.

I just started reading a biography of Omar Bradley by Jim DeFelice.

 

[BassHarmonica]

I read Ian Kershaw's book To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 in December. It's a fantastic overview of all of the forces that caused both world wars. It focuses on the confluence of a number of themes (the rise of ethnic nationalism, a long-term crisis of capitalism, irredentism, and class conflict that reached a fever pitch after the Soviet Union was formed) that led to the rise of the dictators and the Second World War. It's easy to read and very, very good.

I also recommend another Kershaw book: Fateful Choices. This book was published in around 2006 (I think) and it focuses on a number of decisions that were made by the major powers in 1940 and 1941 that decided the course of the War. Some examples are Britain's decision to fight on after the Fall of France, two decisions by the US to take a more active role in fighting Germany, two decisions made by Japan (which I find very interesting), Mussolini's decision to enter the war, Stalin's decision to trust Hitler and not prepare for invasion, and Germany's decisions to invade the USSR, declare war on the US, and to commit horrific genocide with the "Final Solution." I highly recommend it.