WWII Reading List

odonnell

Inspired by some silly comments in another thread, I thought nothing of posting this to try to have a collated reading list for anyone interested in Second World War.

Unfortunately i cant contribute, since all my knowledge is from BBC dramas....

Real books please - no links unless its to the book itself!

Fratton Fred

odonnell wrote:

Inspired by some silly comments in another thread, I thought nothing of posting this to try to have a collated reading list for anyone interested in Second World War.

Unfortunately i cant contribute, since all my knowledge is from BBC dramas....

Real books please - no links unless its to the book itself!

And obviously nothing by the BBC or a British author for fear of it being called propaganda.:p

Actually, the BBC is a very good source of information and their history section is very good reading, but obviously concentrates on the British effort.

odonnell

Thing about the BBC though - im more of a military hardware / warfare interest as opposed to military history - dates, statistics etc. As was recently pointed out to me on another board (i just caught a brief snip of the news in the morning and posted a paragraph on the military forum for the craic) the bbc when it comes to hardware are very slack. Theyre good at statistics in general but when it comes to the inside story, sometimes they can be found wanting - they quite often misreport on things by way of filling out the paragraph i think.

Fratton Fred

odonnell wrote:

Thing about the BBC though - im more of a military hardware / warfare interest as opposed to military history - dates, statistics etc. As was recently pointed out to me on another board (i just caught a brief snip of the news in the morning and posted a paragraph on the military forum for the craic) the bbc when it comes to hardware are very slack. Theyre good at statistics in general but when it comes to the inside story, sometimes they can be found wanting - they quite often misreport on things by way of filling out the paragraph i think.

I find they concentrate more on the human element, but I would agree on he hardware side of things.

A colleague of mine is reading "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", not sure of the author, but it is by an American Journalist who was present at the Nuremberg trials. It obviously concentrates more on the political situation rather than the actual war, but it is meant to be very good.

Snickers Man

Three good books to learn about the air war are

Bomber Offensive by Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris.

Reveals a lot about his own personality and character. Make up your own mind, Pal.

Bomber Command by Max Hastings

An excellent warts and all history of the bomber offensive and what it did (and didn't) achieve.

The Nuremberg Raid by Martin Middlebrook
An incredibly detailed description of a single raid. A "fly on the wall" documentary in print.

purple'n'gold

Basil Liddell Hart’s “History of the second world war” is by far the best work ever written on the subject. I read it constantly.

Zulu

Stalingrad by Athony Beevor. Awesome. It's a documtary of the batte of...
Berlin also by Athony Beevor. I didn't find it as good a read, but it's nice to "complete" the picture as it were ...to see the equally savage and appaling revenge.

Dr Strange

Zulu wrote:

Stalingrad by Athony Beevor. Awesome. It's a documtary of the batte of...
Berlin also by Athony Beevor. I didn't find it as good a read, but it's nice to "complete" the picture as it were ...to see the equally savage and appaling revenge.

On that note: Anthony Beevor's book on the Fall of Crete is quite good. It is interesting to see the allied side and their experience as I got first hand accounts from my grandfather who was in the German artillery on Crete.

Best,
Preusse

TerrorFirmer

I actually thought Berlin was a far better book then Stalingrad...

Aedh Baclamh

Find that information you were looking for after, HavoK?

TerrorFirmer

What, Stargard? Not really. I found out bits and pieces but it's very hard trying to find anything detailed. Even in 'Berlin' theres only a few lines about it with no details on movements, intentions or really anything other then 'it failed'. Ah well. ...I'll get back into it sometime soon.

Pyr0

Aye Berlin is a good read, didn't get around to Stalingrad though.

Armageddon by Max Hastings is an excellent book.

Tchocky

Blood, Tears and Folly - Len Deighton

Also Fighter, same author.

muletide

Dresden by Fred Taylor is an easy an very interesting read

TerrorFirmer

Just finished reading The Battle of France, 1940 by Philip Warner. Excellent read into a battle traditionally summed up in few paragraphs due to the shortness of the campaign....first time I've read a book dedicated to it.

Aedh Baclamh

Where did you pick that up? On the net?

TerrorFirmer

Aedh Baclamh wrote:

Where did you pick that up? On the net?

France, actually

O'Leprosy

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - fantastic book, definetly a MUST read if your interested in WW2. Really goes into the mindset of Hitler and the Nazi's.

Gives a good account of Hitler's youth, ( the first time he ever drunk was in his teens, he got plastered and was found asleep by the roadway the next morning by a woman sheperding sheep or something !!!!! He had such a hangover that day that he vowed he would never drink again, which he actually kept. How would the world have been different if he had been as found as the sauce as many of the rest of us ? ). Definetly a great book, one of the the best books relating to WW2.

hivizman

O'Leprosy wrote:

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - fantastic book, definetly a MUST read if your interested in WW2. Really goes into the mindset of Hitler and the Nazi's.

This book, by William L. Shirer, is certainly a very good read, but it's now about 50 years old. If you're interested in Hitler, the more recent biography by Ian Kershaw (in two volumes - 1889-1936:Hubris & 1936:1945: Nemesis) is now probably the definitive biography in the English language. Kershaw had a book out last month Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, which I haven't seen yet but was well reviewed.

Snickers Man wrote:

The Nuremberg Raid by Martin Middlebrook
An incredibly detailed description of a single raid. A "fly on the wall" documentary in print.

Martin Middlebrook wrote a series of books on WWII bombing missions (The Schweinfurt-Regensburg Mission, The Battle of Hamburg:The Firestorm Raid, The Peenemunde Raid, The Berlin Missions), as well as a book on Arnhem that is, I think, better than Cornelius Ryan's A Bridge Too Far, that was the basis of a movie some years ago. He tends to discuss the technology as well as the people, and he uses a lot of interview material with the aircrew who flew on the missions and the people on the ground who were bombed.

Important to remember that WWII was a WORLD war - a good book on the Japanese aspects is by Laurence Rees Horror in the East: The Japanese at War 1931-1945 - Rees also wrote The Nazis: A Warning from History and his books have either been the basis of or spin offs from TV documentary series. Finally, a US historian whose work I like is Carlo D'Este. It's worth reading his book Decision in Normandy: The Real Story of Montgomery and the Allied Campaign as a well-argued discussion that concludes that the role of the British in the Normandy landings has been rather exaggerated.

csk

A.J.P Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, has to be, innit?

RadioRetro

Good choices so far, I have most of the air war ones.

Another one I've just finished is Last Great Victory: The End of World War II, July/August 1945 by Stanley Weintraub, a comprehensive, day by day, description of the final month of the war.

There are a few others but I must consult my library, which is mainly made up of books about th eair war, as already mentioned.

SpitfireIV

Any of ye ever come across a book called 'Spitfire Summer' by Peter Haining? Really interesting read, detailed account of the Battle of Britain from the ordinary people on the grounds perspective. Lots of good illustrations too.

TerrorFirmer

Here's an interesting request for you guys. I'm looking for a book about the air war on the Eastern front, given that the Germans had total air superiority at the end of 1942, about 1:1 by mid 1943 and about 1:7 by 1945, it's something I'm immensely interested in how it exactly came about but something equally as hard to find actual books on.