re: WW2 book recommendations

At Dawn We Slept
With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
Unbroken
Voices of the Pacific
Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission
Miracle at Midway
The Star of Africa: The Story of Hans Marseille
Black Sheep One: The Life of Pappy Boyington
Once They Were Eagles: The Men of the Black Sheep
The Jolly Rogers: The Story of Tom Blackburn and VF-17
That's just off the top of my head. Have many more at home.

Speaking of the Eastern Front - Alan Clark's book Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict, 1941-45 is really good. It's hefty and detailed, but compelling.

Now it was written prior to the opening of the Soviet archives, so the book is a little dated now, but extremely well read and most of us in the West have to go out of our way to get a good narrative of the Eastern front.

quote:

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With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

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Great book.

Memoirs:
Forgotten soldier - Sajer
Sniper on the Eastern front - Albrecht Wacker
Blood red snow - Gunter Koschorrek
With the old breed - Sledge
Helmet for my pillow - Leckie

Regular books:
Killing the rising sun
Killing Patton
In the garden of beast

Like others have said
"Killing the Rising Sun"- Bill O Reilly
"Band Of Brothers"
"Unbroken"

I don't read many war books but read this one based on a recommendation I saw around here: All the Way to Berlin- A Paratrooper at War in Europe, by James "Maggie" Megellas. It's a first-hand account by the most decorated officer in 82nd Airborne history. As opposed to books that focus on the big picture, war strategies, etc., this one is a personal account from a guy on the front lines - and behind enemy lines - at major clashes like the Battle of the Bulge, Operation Market Garden, etc. The guy is still alive (tuns 100 in a couple months) and narrates some of the stuff at the WWII Museum. And he doesn't always look kindly on the higher ups who give orders from far behind the front line. There's also a DVD called Maggie's War that was filmed a few years ago with his recounting of his experiences at the original sites.

ETA: read the wiki page on the guy - a real American hero.
James "Maggie" Megellas

I read "With the Old Breed" last week and thought it was bad assed. No fluff, Sledge just tells it like he experienced it.

I read Unbroken a few years ago and it is really good, too.

I bought it and haven't read it yet, but one of my friend's dad wrote a book called "Intrepid Aviators" about his own father. He was a torpedo pilot who was shot down in the Pacific and swam to the Philippines and joined up with a group of Filipino guerillas fighting in the jungle with them. It's supposed to be a pretty good book, and is of interest to me because my granddad was also a torpedo pilot hit by a kamikaze and was a POW in Japan for two years

I really enjoyed: The Retreat: Hitler's First Defeat by Michael Jones

"Michael Jones draws upon a wealth of new eyewitness testimonies from both sides of the conflict to vividly chronicle this pivotal chapter in the Second World War as he takes us from the German invasion of the Soviet Union on the morning of June 22 through the counteroffensive that carried into the spring of 1942."

LINK to book on Amazon