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Books similar to "with the old breed" by Eugene Sledge

Posted on 12/9/22 at 7:32 am
Posted by tigers9898
tha ridge
Member since Feb 2009
1127 posts
Posted on 12/9/22 at 7:32 am
I'm looking for a book with real everyday life in war, not just a re-telling of the broad history of the battle.
Posted by Lawyered
The Sip
Member since Oct 2016
29303 posts
Posted on 12/9/22 at 7:37 am to
The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

By Alex Kershaw

Look into this one as it’s not quite like diary entries but intertwined this soldier who quickly rises up the ranks due to so many deaths and the progression of the Allies from Italy to Germany
Posted by rebelrouser
Columbia, SC
Member since Feb 2013
10621 posts
Posted on 12/9/22 at 8:07 am to
Helmet For My Pillow is very good and very similar.
Posted by Tigris
Mexican Home
Member since Jul 2005
12358 posts
Posted on 12/9/22 at 8:47 am to
I enjoyed this one. It's not from a single person perspective but it does have a lot of information about the everyday lives of the fliers and the things they had to endure. If you read it be prepared to be thoroughly pissed at the Swiss.

quote:

Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler's doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes readers on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people.
Posted by Htowntiger90
Houston
Member since Dec 2018
939 posts
Posted on 12/9/22 at 8:49 am to
I'll second Helmet for my Pillow.
Citizen Soldiers is also very good if you're looking for something on the ETO. Not an individual diary, but good accounts of GI life on the Western Front after D-Day. By Stephen Ambrose.
Posted by boxcarbarney
Above all things, be a man
Member since Jul 2007
22739 posts
Posted on 12/9/22 at 8:49 am to
quote:

I'm looking for a book with real everyday life in war, not just a re-telling of the broad history of the battle.



Only WWII, or any war in general?

Vietnam has some good ones - The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, and Dispatches by Michael Herr come to mind.
Posted by beachdude
FL
Member since Nov 2008
5642 posts
Posted on 12/9/22 at 6:43 pm to
From the other side:

WW1 - Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger

WW2 - The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer
Posted by Methuselah
On da Riva
Member since Jan 2005
23350 posts
Posted on 12/9/22 at 7:23 pm to
quote:

Helmet For My Pillow is very good and very similar.




This. With the Old Breed by Sledge and Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leicke were two of the main sources for the mini series The Pacific. (I'm not sure if the Basilone stuff came from a book or different sources).

Both are very good books. Two Marines which in some ways were polar opposites - Sledge from southern gentility and Leicke, a north eastern working class guy who was an admitted "brig rat". Good reading both times.
Posted by sledgehammer
SWLA
Member since Oct 2020
3371 posts
Posted on 12/9/22 at 8:51 pm to
Sledge’s book China Marine isn’t in the same zip code as WTOB, but it’s still worth the read to find out what happens to Eugene after Okinawa.
Posted by whichyalnoaboutseven
Metairie
Member since Dec 2009
2027 posts
Posted on 12/9/22 at 11:32 pm to
Goodbye Darkness by William Manchester.
Posted by Ace Midnight
Between sanity and madness
Member since Dec 2006
89542 posts
Posted on 12/10/22 at 7:48 am to
quote:

From the other side:



No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War, Hiroo Onoda
Posted by PJinAtl
Atlanta
Member since Nov 2007
12748 posts
Posted on 12/10/22 at 7:52 am to
Code Talker by Chester Nez is pretty good. It's been a couple of years since I read it, so I don't remember how detailed it gets about the battles, but it's an amazing first person account of the Native American Code Talkers.
Posted by sledgehammer
SWLA
Member since Oct 2020
3371 posts
Posted on 12/10/22 at 10:05 am to
Speaking of Eugene Sledge, I just finished listening to the podcast “We have ways of making them talk” and James Holland has Sledge’s son on talking a little about the book, the miniseries, and how it was growing up with his father. Give it a listen.

TIL the first draft of WTOB was 500+ pages so it was edited down by 200 pages or so. What I’d do to read those extra pages.
Posted by TheJunction
Mississippi
Member since Oct 2014
955 posts
Posted on 12/13/22 at 7:33 am to
Will second Citizen Soldiers and the Ernst Jungers Storm of Steel (if not strictly WWII related) and also China Marine if you’re interested in Sledge post war.

Absolutely loved WTOB and might be the book I’ve reread the most. Planning to check out some of the other books mentioned in this thread that I haven’t read.

Also going to check out the podcast!
Posted by Old0331
EBR
Member since Feb 2022
19 posts
Posted on 12/13/22 at 8:59 am to
If you aren't tied to WW2 era history, try One Bullet Away by Nathanial Fick, and Generation Kill by Evan Wright. It's the same story from the perspectives of a Platoon Commander and an embedded journalist from Rolling Stone.
Posted by FightinTigersDammit
Louisiana North
Member since Mar 2006
34674 posts
Posted on 12/13/22 at 11:30 am to
The GI Journal of Sgt Giles

Journal and letters of an engineer Sgt in the ETO
Posted by Northshore Aggie
Mandeville, LA
Member since Sep 2022
4699 posts
Posted on 12/13/22 at 11:37 am to
quote:

If you aren't tied to WW2 era history, try One Bullet Away by Nathanial Fick, and Generation Kill by Evan Wright. It's the same story from the perspectives of a Platoon Commander and an embedded journalist from Rolling Stone.

oof. disagree on both of these.
Posted by MintBerry Crunch
Member since Nov 2010
4854 posts
Posted on 12/27/22 at 7:32 pm to
The Liberator is great and Netflix should never be forgiven for their adaptation.
Posted by LSUbacchus
Portland, Oregon
Member since Jul 2012
1662 posts
Posted on 12/27/22 at 9:53 pm to
Brothers in battle; best of friends— first hand account of the band of brothers soldiers bill garnere and babe heffron. It is written basically as if they’re narrating their war experiences. Highly recommend.
Posted by Mr. Misanthrope
Cloud 8
Member since Nov 2012
5490 posts
Posted on 12/30/22 at 11:59 pm to
Robert Leckie’s Helmet For My Pillow.
William Manchester’s Goodby, Darkness.
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