Book Recommendation: WW2

Ok, so a small update:
-I picked up A Higher Call back when this was a newer thread, Im a little over half done and really enjoy it.

-For Christmas I received the book by Kareem Abdul Jabar as well as the Guy Sajer book.
So I have those waiting for me once I finish A Higher Call.

Now, one thing that is slowing it down some is that Im also re-reading another book too
 
nbkky71 said:
I know the OP didn't have much interest in WW2 Pacific theare, but I'll throw in a vote for "Semper Fi, Max" by Henry Berry. It's an older book from the 80's but spans Marines in WW2 from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima. A good read

https://books.google.com/books/about/Semper_Fi_Mac.html?id=00tNU3Oj4TYC&source=kp_book_description
Click to expand...


I appreciate it, and my interests might change/expand at some point and I'll look into all of these suggestions.
I do thank you, and the others, for any/all help in this thread!
 
Higher Call is excellent. Masters of The Air is about european bombing campaign. Very Band of Brothers type read. Im about half way through. Not a fast read like Higher Call but still very good. A lot of things in Masters that most people didnt know unless they were there. Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Walter Cronkite and Andy Rooney all flew in B-17's. Their stories are in the book.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HMP
There are a lot of goood looking suggestions in this thread! I'm by no means an expert on this subject, but I had a friend (RIP Sterling) who was very well read on this. He loaned me German Sniper on the Eastern Front that I liked a lot. It took a while for me to read it because it got heavy at times and I had to step away.
 
jimmyjames8 said:
Higher Call is excellent. Masters of The Air is about european bombing campaign. Very Band of Brothers type read. Im about half way through. Not a fast read like Higher Call but still very good. A lot of things in Masters that most people didnt know unless they were there. Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Walter Cronkite and Andy Rooney all flew in B-17's. Their stories are in the book.
Click to expand...
This is Hanks/Speilberg’s next HBO series, or the basis for it. Supposed to be centered around the Mighty Eighth; the air crews, ground crews, everyone involved. I just hope it leans back toward Band of Brothers and not so much The Pacific. One of the biggest let-downs in recent history.

Rumors are that it’ll film this year and air in 2020.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: HMP
I have a first edition of Guadacanal Diary and Brave Men. Both are really good reads.

Last of the Tin Can Sailors. A little known part of the Leyte Gulf battle. Basically a few destroyers and destroyer escorts held off the bulk of the IJN surface fleet including the Yamato.

Wing and a Prayer. Written by a member of the "Bloody 100th" Bomb Group. B17s in Europe.

There's one I'll have to look up, it's a memoir of a German officer who made it all the way through the war. He was wounded a number of times and finally captured by the Soviets in Berlin.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HMP
I suggest "Iron Coffins" by Herbert Werner. It is an inside account of U-boat warfare on the Atlantic front by a former U-boat captain that made several cruises to the east coast of the US and Gulf of Mexico and even mined the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. It really paints a vivid picture of what life was like on a U-boat from the mundane inconveniences like having nonfunctional toilets and no source of clean air to the sheer horror of being grounded in the sands off Diamond Shoals while taking depth charges all around. Once this book got going, I could not put it down.

Next, I would suggest "Torpedo Junction" by Homer Hickam. This book explores the flip side of the U-boat war along the east coast of the US (mostly off the coast of North Carolina) from the perspective of the Coast Guard destroyers and anti-submarine crews chasing the U-boats and trying to stem the losses being inflicted by the wolf packs prowling the bottlenecks along the shoals off Capes Hatteras and Lookout. It is not as action packed as "Iron Coffins", but then defense is never as sexy as offense. But it makes you realize how badly we were losing the shipping war within sight of our own beaches.

And finally, I just finished "The Lost Airman" by Seth Meyerowitz. This is an account of a bomber crewman's escape from occupied France after his bomber was shot down shortly before D-Day. This book was interesting not only because of the escape story itself, but also because it necessarily delves into the key figures in the regional French resistance cells and their efforts to disrupt the Nazi occupation. As much crap as we give the French generally, the resistance members really took huge personal risks (certain torture and death) to try to help these aircrews, despite the fact that helping them often jeopardized their own ongoing resistance efforts and operations. It was a great read.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HMP
Finished Higher Call yesterday...what a great read!
Opened my eyes to some things that I'd never thought of from a German POV

Left me wanting more.

Today I start the Guy Sajer book
 
tanstaafl72555 said:
This is probably not what you are looking for, and given your profession and your degree of literacy in history, may be one you have already read. For the rest of us, it deals with the political maneuverings that led up to the war, and not merely the stratagems and tactics of the military operations.

Nevertheless, Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World by Patrick Buchanan is an absolute masterpiece. He shows how neither WWI NOR WWII were "good wars." Rather, both were avoidable, and were examples of a phenomenally stupid and cowardly commitment to empire and financial elites which literally ruined the entire West, destroyed our commitment to liberty, and launched us on a downward trajectory to globalism, worldwide tyranny, and bankruptcy.

It was an eye opener to me.
Click to expand...
Not a book.
I’m enjoying Darryl Cooper’s Fear & Loathing detailed podcast on the Jew/Palestinian/British/French conflicts before WW1 (Ottoman Empire) through WW2. I’m 20 hours in. It makes more sense as to how the statistically highly intelligent Germans turned to hate seemingly overnight. Fun fact, the Hitler mustache was something all Germans recognized. A soldier had to have the mini-stache or the gas mask wouldn’t seal.
https://tunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-martyrmade-podcast/id978322714?mt=2&i=1000337979011
 
Last edited:
So another update to this:
Im currently reading THREE WW2 books
- the Guy Sayer book "Forgotten Soldier" or something like that, recommended on here about a German fighting on teh Eastern Front
- Brothers in Arms, about the 761st (or is it 762nd), all black tank batallion. Also recommended here.
- Beyond Band of Brothers

Then I had to get a knob for my dryer and it was either 6.50 or 4.50 if purchased with other items on Amazon. Hell, why not get a few things Ive been eyeing while saving 2 bucks?
So in my order I added The Liberator. ABout a soldier who fought in Italy and ends up at Dachau, if I remember correctly. I'm not starting it yet. In fact, it'll be a while, want to finish two of the three up top before I start this one.
Anyone read it before?
 
Brothers in Arms finished
and I just, in the past four minutes, finished Forgotten Soldier.
Both were recommended here on CFF and I enjoyed both
 
One I enjoyed was Iron Coffins, by Herbert Werner. Its the memoir of a WW2 U-boat captain. A fascinating read!
 
  • Like
Reactions: HMP
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom