Book suggestions for WWII buff

[kgtest]

My FIL is one of the, if not the smartest men I know. He immerses himself in reading and has an extensive library. I would like to get him a WWII history book (his favorite genre) for Christmas, and would entertain any options you all have.

 

[steelyman]

I really enjoyed Franklin and Winston by Jon Meacham. It recounts the relationship between FDR and Churchill during the war years.

 

[mystang52]

If he hasn't read it already, Flags of Our Fathers. I found it riveting.

 

[REWahoo]

If he hasn't read it already, Flags of Our Fathers. I found it riveting.

+1

 

[RunningBum]

How about the Band of Brothers book by Stephen Ambrose?

 

[gamboolman]

With The Old Breed By Eugene Sledge

Brave Men by Ernie Pyle

Blood Red Snow by Günter Koschorrek

Black Edelweiss by Johann Voss

The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer

 

[kgtest]

Ohhh these all look incredible!

 

[kgtest]

Any from an aviator's perspective??

 

[Music Lover]

It might not be quite what you're looking for but I'm currently reading "Shadow Divers". It's about a group of deep sea divers that located a sunken WW2 U-Boat. It's well written and very interesting. Until now I didn't realize just how dangerous wreck diving was.

 

[kgtest]

It might not be quite what you're looking for but I'm currently reading "Shadow Divers". It's about a group of deep sea divers that located a sunken WW2 U-Boat. It's well written and very interesting. Until now I didn't realize just how dangerous wreck diving was.

Great find!

 

[DrRoy]

Any from an aviator's perspective??

An Ace of the Eighth, Fortier

Also:
Battle - The Story of the Bulge, Toland
The Ultimate Battle - Okinawa 1945, Sloan
Panzer Commander - von Luck

One of the best war books I have ever read, on Korea:
The Last Stand of Fox Company, Drury

 

[samclem]

Any from an aviator's perspective??

I enjoyed "The Blond Knight of Germany," written by Eric Hartmann, the top air ace of WWII (or of any war). He shot down 352 Allied aircraft (almost all were Soviet). Hartmann was most proud not of his kill count, but that he'd never lost a wingman. He had two tactics he credited with his success:
1) Never get into a dogfight. On the Eastern front, there were plenty of easy targets, and he took almost all of his shots as unobserved "pounces" on them, with a high-speed pass on his part, then off he'd go. He figured that in a dogfight the odds get a lot closer to even--that's not a smart bet when he could easily get much better results with unobserved pounces.
2) When closing on a target, wait until the very last possible moment and open up at incredibly close range. He thought long-range shots were dumb (inaccurate, wasted ammunition that could be used to attack another target, gave away your presence/position to the target). He didn't shoot until the target aircaft filled his windscreen, and the parts flying off the target plane were the biggest threat he faced (his plane was crippled/forced down approx 8 times by debris from planes he'd destroyed.)

The book is not without controversy, Hartmann has been accused of sanitizing his account of Wehrmacht actions on the eastern front. But I found it interesting including his discussion of his time in Soviet captivity (approx 10 years-as you might guess, this is not light reading) and of the politics of the German Cold War Luftwaffe. As it turns out, Eric was a little too outspoken for his own good.

It's not a new book, and your FIL may already have it/may have read it.

 

[Lewis Clark]

I recommend any of the books written by James D. Hornfischer. One in particular that I have read is called "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors". The author does an incredible job of research and presenting the events in exquisite detail.

For someone interested in the submarine war in the Pacific, I recommend the two books written by Richard O'Kane, "Clear the Bridge" and "Wahoo". He was one of the top submarine Captains during the war, and earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions. Wahoo is about his time as executive officer (second-in-command) of the USS Wahoo. Clear the Bridge is about his time as commanding officer of USS Tang, and if you have to choose this is the one I would recommend first.

A very good book written by a German submarine officer is "Iron Coffins: A Personal Account Of The German U-boat Battles Of World War II" by Herbert A. Werner.

"The Great Escape" by Paul Brickhill documents the true story of a mass escape by Allied prisoners of war from a German POW camp. This is a small paperback. It was made into a TV movie years ago with an all-star cast including Richard Attenborough, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and James Garner.

"Incredible Victory: the Battle of Midway" by Walter Lord.

Good Luck!

 

[Gumby]

Berlin Dance of Death by Helmut Altner -- The memoir of a 17 year old drafted into the Wermacht in March 1945, who survived the Battle of Berlin.

 

[davebarnes]

A novel.
https://www.alibris.com/The-Night-of-the-Generals-Hans-H-Kirst/book/4684884
The famous novel about three Nazi generals and a brutal wartime sex crime.
I think I read in one sitting.

 

[GoBears]

D-Day by Stephen Ambrose

The three volume set covering the Africa, Italy and Western European campaigns by Rick Atkinson. Titles are An Army at Dawn (Africa), The Day of Battle (Sicily & Italy), and The Guns at Last Light (Western Europe). The books can also be purchased individually.

Run Silent, Run Deep is a novel about submarine warfare against the Japanese. Written by a former US sub commander, Edward L. Beach. There’s also a sequel.

Unbroken by Laura Hildebrandt. Story of survival in a Japanese POW camp.

 

[footenote]

I've read many WWII books; the most exciting was "Shattered Sword."

Researchers scoured Japanese sources and completely re-wrote the history of the Battle of Midway. Fascinating that we can still glean new facts and insights so many decades later.

 

[Mdlerth]

Memoir of a Luftwaffe ace

"I Flew for the Fuhrer" by Heinz Knoke. A brilliant pilot, just happened to play for the other team.

 

[candrew]

Operation Mincemeat

During World War II, British intelligence officers managed to pull off one of the most successful wartime deceptions ever achieved: Operation Mincemeat. In April 1943, a decomposing corpse was discovered floating off the coast of Huelva, in southern Spain. Personal documents identified him as Major William Martin of Britain’s Royal Marines, and he had a black attaché case chained to his wrist. When Nazi intelligence learned of the downed officer’s briefcase (as well as concerted efforts made by the British to retrieve the case), they did all they could to gain access.

This intelligence coup for the Nazi spy network allowed Adolf Hitler to transfer German troops from France to Greece ahead of what was believed to be a massive enemy invasion. The only problem? It was all a hoax.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/105472/operation-mincemeat-by-ben-macintyre/

 

[MuirWannabe]

Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan. Story of a young Italian man who accomplished some amazing things resisting the Nazi occupiers of northern Italy.

 

[Proteus126]

Hornfischer has been mentioned. For me, Neptune's Inferno is by far his best book, and one of the best history books I've read, and I have read alot. It covers the naval side of the Guadalcanal campaign. Never knew a 6-inch gun light cruiser could be such a stud. We owe a debt to those surface ship men.


Shattered Sword by Parshall and Tully is the best book on Midway I've read. Clears up some bogus conventional wisdom. Goes back to some primary sources. Good discussion of how Japanese doctrine was flawed.


For me the best WWII novel is definitely Herman Wouk's two books. Winds of War, and War and Remembrance. Yes, I know they made a cheesy mini-series from these books back in the early 80's. The books are treasures.



Bonus book: Moscow 1812 by Zamoyski. Yes, different war but what a read! Nappy's march on Moscow was one tough campaign.

 

[folivier]

My dad was in the Aleutians during the war as a bombardier. There is very little information or books written about the Aleutians. I did find a small private museum in Anchorage this summer and bought a book "The Forgotten War" by Stan Cohen. He arrived there after we took back the eastern islands and flew (whenever they could due to weather) to bomb Japan.

 

[SumDay]

Love Stories of WW II by Larry King. I still grab it from time to time and read a chapter. NOT strictly a chick book.

https://smile.amazon.com/Love-Stori...s+of+wwII+by+larry+king&qid=1576419570&sr=8-3

"Both poignant and inspiring, these are the moving stories of men and women who met amid the chaos of the most devastating war in history and became the loves of one another’s lives. Many are now enjoying their seventies and eighties together after more than fifty happy years of marriage.

They met in many remarkable ways, some in the briefest of chance encounters, and their love endured heart-rending ordeals of long separation and the constant threat that a husband or lover might not return. As these couples reflect on the profound experience of the war, the stories they most like to tell are of the deep bonds they forged during that tumultuous time, bonds so strong that they lasted a lifetime."

 

[6miths]

I enjoyed "The Blond Knight of Germany," written by Eric Hartmann, the top air ace of WWII (or of any war). He shot down 352 Allied aircraft (almost all were Soviet). Hartmann was most proud not of his kill count, but that he'd never lost a wingman. He had two tactics he credited with his success:
1) Never get into a dogfight. On the Eastern front, there were plenty of easy targets, and he took almost all of his shots as unobserved "pounces" on them, with a high-speed pass on his part, then off he'd go. He figured that in a dogfight the odds get a lot closer to even--that's not a smart bet when he could easily get much better results with unobserved pounces.
2) When closing on a target, wait until the very last possible moment and open up at incredibly close range. He thought long-range shots were dumb (inaccurate, wasted ammunition that could be used to attack another target, gave away your presence/position to the target). He didn't shoot until the target aircaft filled his windscreen, and the parts flying off the target plane were the biggest threat he faced (his plane was crippled/forced down approx 8 times by debris from planes he'd destroyed.)

The book is not without controversy, Hartmann has been accused of sanitizing his account of Wehrmacht actions on the eastern front. But I found it interesting including his discussion of his time in Soviet captivity (approx 10 years-as you might guess, this is not light reading) and of the politics of the German Cold War Luftwaffe. As it turns out, Eric was a little too outspoken for his own good.

It's not a new book, and your FIL may already have it/may have read it.

If you interested in the German perspective then 'Stuka Pilot' (1948) by Hans Ulrich Rudel or 'The First and the Last' (1953) by Adolph Galland are also recommended. Rudel is more from the pilot's perspective while Galland's work includes more regarding his time as General of the Luftwaffe.

 

[gamboolman]

With The Old Breed By Eugene Sledge

Brave Men by Ernie Pyle

Blood Red Snow by Günter Koschorrek

Black Edelweiss by Johann Voss

The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer

Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger, WW1 but a very good book and I imagine your FIL would enjoy it