Recommended WW2 reads

I've read countless books on WWII. And by far my 4 favorites to read were:

"With the Old Breed" by Eugene Sledge- Pacific War memoir. Inspiration for miniseries "The Pacific"
"The Last Battle" by Cornelius Ryan - Fantastic telling of the fall of Berlin
"Band of Brothers" by Stephen Ambrose - By now everyone knows what this is...
"The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer - Eastern Front memoir from a German perspective. Fantastic.

i also research maps and study them .

too bad there are not many english translations of soviet soldiers' memoirs, because there are many interesting ones like "Winged Guards", a memoir of a Zachar Sorokin who rammed into german fighter plane, survived and had to go through many kilometers of snow , got his both feet frozen and amputated, and then returned to service and destroyed 16 german planes during the war flying with leg protheses. I wish to see a movie about this guy someday instead of crap like Fury or shitty fictional russian war movies.

too bad there are not many english translations of soviet soldiers' memoirs, because there are many interesting ones like "Winged Guards", a memoir of a Zachar Sorokin who rammed into german fighter plane, survived and had to go through many kilometers of snow , got his both feet frozen and amputated, and then returned to service and destroyed 16 german planes during the war flying with leg protheses. I wish to see a movie about this guy someday instead of crap like Fury or shitty fictional russian war movies.

Currently, 2 autobiographies by British infantry officers, who went through most of the North West European campaign:

Peter White: With the Jocks - the memoirs of a reluctant artist, who served as a platoon commander

Sydney Jary - 18 platoon - unorthodox rejection of Battle School diktats

Hi every one. I got a nice tank story from ww2. well its about Alexander Oskin a hero of soviet union who destroyed 3 tger B (king tiger) with his T-34 on a reconnaissance mission near Poland. This obviously show how powerful the T-34 is.

here's my reading list : one or two its not about ww2

I live less than 15 minutes away from the naval war collage!
Also this is a really good book to read, it is about Luftwaffe ace Franz Stigler with his experiences during the war, including risking his own life to escort a wounded B-17 home and joining the extraordinary well known JG44 flying ME-262's with them.



Also near the Naval War collage is the grave of an unknown German sailor that was brought up from the wreak of U-853 in 1960. He was buried with full miltary honors. U-853 also has the distinction of being the last U-boat to sink an Allied ship, and was the second to last U-boat sunk (May 6, 1945) During the battle of Point Judith, right off the coast in Rhode Isand's water's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Point_Judith

https://www.usnwc.edu/About/News/November-2014/Naval-War-College-Honors-Fallen-German-Sailors.aspx

^^ ^^

Rogers' vid

I've read countless books on WWII. <snip> "The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer - Eastern Front memoir from a German perspective. Fantastic.

Ditto & ditto.

This is THE best personal account by a footsloggger of any army by far. Although its authenticity has been challenged as spurious -for the usual deplorable reason, anyone who has served recognises it is a legit account.

Mandatory reading for anyone interested in this type of first hand eyewitness account by an ordinary Heer soldier.

Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze
The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire 1936-1945 by John Toland

too bad there are not many english translations of soviet soldiers' memoirs

I agree. But, isnt there always a but?

Unfortunately, by the time the USSR first first opened its doors 44 years later, many of the actual participants who survived the actual war to tell their tale were by then quite old or dead. And not to be disparaging given the tone of political correctness and censorship required to be published required even in our own society, formerly the Soviet regime didn't encourage other than a tightly controlled and approved recollection of events with dire consequences for those who dared attempt otherwise.

Virtually impossible during the 'cold war', it was always difficult to get hold of any autobiograpical material. I bought the first published (1984) English translation of Zhukov's memoirs (2 hard cover volumes) in 1985 just after they were first published in the still then U.S.S.R. Even as memoirs containing detailed information must go, e.g. comparing them to "Panzer Leader", they were a difficult, dry read having been first published in Russian in 1974 and no doubt, at the time they were written necessarily acceding to Soviet state authority.

Now another quarter of a century has passed, we are seeing more information from the former Soviet Union states, but generally it is too late for either eyewitness accurate or honest retelling. Even acknowledged alleged historians generally have their own agendas, the more contemporary the more compliant and worse they are as a generalisation. Few source original material but are instead academic drones expert in plagiary.

As for the recent WWII movies coming out from the either the Ukraine or Russia such as "White Tiger" and "Stalingrad" with dubbed voiceover with lines like "stop behaving like a college girl" and pretty actors with the contemporarily manicured 'after five' unshaven look depriving them of any engaging suspense of disbelief, beyond utterly pathetic would be understatement. Even "Sevastapol" (western title) based around the courageous Lyudmila Pavilcheko just didn't engage -respect and kudos to the real Lyudmila.

A good read, but WWI rather than WWII and yet again from the British perspective accessible by commonality of language, is "Winged Victory" by Yeates, now republished and available inexpensively as a Kindle edition. Recommended *****

On second note, anybody know any decent WWI read? Most war mermoirs on the internet focus on WWII, if there is any WWI mermoir, especially from the colonial perspective, I will greatly appreciate.

Not really. It showed them as forced and unwilling, and thus as either suckers or victims. It was both ridiculous and spiteful.

I played the CoH1 campaign something like 5 times, but CoH2's was just too vile to get through even once.

Blame Relic's marketing department, vCOH campaign is clearly based on Band of Brother and Saving Private Ryan which is awesome war movie, while COH2 campaign is clearly based on Enemy at the Gate which is a 2-bit action flick. Regarding campaign, if they can't make a good story with the campaign, they should just scrap it and focus on ToW like Nival did with Blitzkrieg: no story there but every mission is a welcoming challenge. (Anybody here remember the mission from Rolling Thunder when you have to rush your troop to capture the Karl Gustav before the Kraut scuttle them?)

I don't see how a marketing department can so deeply influence animated cut-scenes that appear regularly. This is a content decision that must have been made rather higher up, I think.

A more cogent case can be made that a strategic decision was made to avoid any potential accusations of communist sympathies or discounting of the Western allies contribution in order to appease an American market. But that's just speculation on my part.

Nor do I care how it cam about, really. Relic can bask in the glory of having produced one of the nastiest pieces of bigotry to have been published in computer gaming.

IMHO it is not anywhere as bad as you paint; In fact west front 44' books are long since due for an increase in quality. "Caen:Anvil of victory" popcorn is still being read for Caen..

The main problem with the east now is less quality and more in terms of gaps in coverage- this has to do with the gigantic size.

Helion has translated a lot of good Russian books. (eg. Stuart Britton). Stackpole also publishes quite a few russian books and war memoirs. JJF publishing for the axis pov.

And of course, western authors. There's also Glantz's many books. Jason Mark, etc.

I can recommend at least 60 east front books worth reading cover to cover and far more for reference purposes.

I agree. But, isnt there always a but?

The main problem with the east now is less quality and more in terms of gaps in coverage- this has to do with the gigantic size.

100% True and cannot be stressed enough. I think I've read about the war in the East since I was old enough to read. Still to this day there are major operations, processes and functions I have no clue about.

Currently reading "Воиска НКВД на Фронтe и в тылу" (Troops of the NKVD at the front and in the rear) Its made by Nikolai Starikov so I won't be using it for any great historical merit. Just trying to get a somewhat good understanding of the internal mechanisms of the NKVD and the political repression within the USSR.
There is a gap I didn't think I had but apparently do.

If you haven't read Band of Brothers yet, I definitely recommend it!

The HBO series was based upon Stephen Abrose's great book, yet the book gets a better grip on you than the series can.

I wish there were more highly detailed material on the 44/45 soviet offensives. In english, mid 41- mid 43 (South and to a lesser extent, center) is where most of the good material is at.

100% True and cannot be stressed enough. I think I've read about the war in the East since I was old enough to read. Still to this day there are major operations, processes and functions I have no clue about.