Very best books

What are a few (no more than 3) of the best books you have read about WW2, WW2 memoirs, etc?

I'm not sure about the other two at this instant, but one for me has to be With The Jocks. Partly I hadn't read anything much about the infantry experience, and it brought home the reality of cold and wet and mud. But also it has a lot of detail (long book, covering only six months) and is I think well written.

 

This could change on any given day, but three that I'd recommend to anybody are:

Quartered Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser (enjoyed listening to him read it on the radio, too).
Prisoners of Hope by Michael Calvert.
The Road Past Mandalay by John Masters.

Above all, all three are very well-written and evoke atmosphere. I've waded through a number of non-edited, scarcely literate self-published memoirs and the difference between those and these is night and day. Fraser and Masters were professional writers and Calvert was an extremely intelligent man (I listened to days' worth of his IWM interview); the result is that their tales carry you to the places they hold in their memories.

Edit: there are some great RAF memoirs.

 

Fields of Fire - The Canadians in Normandy - Terry Copp
A Thousand Shall Fall - Murray Peden
The Guns of Normandy: A Soldier's Eye View - George Blackburn

 

D-Day to Victory - The Diaries of a British Tank Commander - Sgt Trevor Greenwood
A Higher Call - Adam Makos
The Battle for the Rhineland - R.W. Thompson

 

Crusade in Europe - Dwight Eisenhower
Guadalcanal Diary - Richard Tregaskis
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - William Shirer

 

The Forgotten Soldier - Guy Sajer
With The Old Breed - Eugene Sledge
The Guns of War: A Soldiers Eye view; France, Belgium, Holland and Germany, 1944-45 - George Blackburn

 

1. Company Commander by Charles B. Mac Donald
(his auto-biography of his experiences as an captain CO in a US infantry Coy in the 2nd US Infantry Division - absolutely my no. 1).

I'm a great fan of MacDonald's books: The Battle of the Hurtgen forest and his A Time for Trumpets: the untold story of the battle of the Bulge are among my favourites.

2. So few got through by Martin Lindsay

shares the second place with

"The Guns of Normandy: A Soldier's Eye View" - George Blackburn - I read vol II. The Guns of Normandy and Vol III. The guns of Victory. (courtesy to 17th DYRCH who tipped me on these books).

3. US Army in WW2: the European Theater of Operations or the Green Series ... I've all of them and think they are unsurpassed.

Cross Channel Attack
Breakout and Pursuit
The Lorraine Campaign
The Siegfriedline Campaign
The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge
The Last Offensive
Riviera to the Rhine
The Supreme Command
Three Battles: Arnaville, Altuzzo, Schmidt

BTW The Green Series is accessible online: U.S. Army in World War II Series - U.S. Army Center of Military History

 

To Lose a Battle,France 1940 :Alistair Horne

 

British Armour in the Normandy Campaign, John Buckley
Stout Hearts, Ben Kite
and either
Tank !, Ken Tout
or
The Collapse of the Third Republic, William Shirer, which, I think, is unjustly over-shadowed by his Third Reich book.

 

Fighter Pilot - Paul Richey
Night Fighter - Rawnsley/Wright
Stolen Journey - Oliver Philpott

I went for my favourites of the RAF big sellers.

 

Very difficult to name only three, even if I think about air war
Francis H. Dean, America's Hundred-Thousand U.S. Production Fighters of World War Two
John B. Lundstrom, The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway
Yefim Gordon, Soviet Air Power in World War 2

 

Haven't read Calvert, but Fraser and Masters are wonderful.

 

Alanbrooke Diaries
Quartered Safe Out Here - Fraser
The Struggle for Europe - Chester Wilmot

 

Any book by Martin Middlebrook.

 

OK, just don't do this to me....lol

Just ordered: British Armour in the Normandy Campaign, John Buckley

Personally, anything from Mark Zuehlke, Koskimaki or Nordyke are great.

 

Pieter,

Based on your recommendation I picked up Company Commander by Charles B. Mac Donald.
Good choice. It's excellent.

If I were to name a 4th book it would have to be With The Old Breed - Eugene Sledge.

 

Along with the Blackburn trilogy, "Because We Are Canadians"; memoir of Sgt. Charles Kipp of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment.

 

All quite old books. Ones that stick in my mind.
1. Assault in Norway Thomas Gallagher the story of the Telemark Raid
2. The Little Men KW Cooper Infantry in Burma
3. Air Raid the bombing of Coventry 1940 Norman Longmate

 

Three books.

Some old, some new, none borrowed, some blue.

And, with your permission (and indulgence) one letter. Optimism after the tragedy (identifying names respectfully removed as requested by the elderly relatives of the writer).

Kind regards, always,

Jim.