last WWII book read?

[brian brian]

ahh but then one must know what S&T stands for --- now that would be a great web archive to have! actually one gets the impression that the Dirty Little Secrets books are just that, somewhat.

S&T = Strategy & Tactics magazine, which contained an SPI wargame in each issue. I sure miss it sometimes.

[ezzler]

Just read most of The Decisive Duel: Spitfire vs 109.
Quite good but for such a long book a big flaw.

Spitfires didn't really fight 109's much after 1940. So becomes a bit pointless as it goes along.

The Max Hastings book Inferno was very good.
As was To Lose a Battle: France, 1940.

The Bitter Sea: The Brutal World War II Fight for the Mediterranean: 5/10. Good for unusual info on Vichy France, Syria, Greece politics and SOE operations. Not much for anything else though. A difficult read.

[SLAAKMAN]

KURSK

[brian brian]

I finished a WWII book recently, though it felt like it took nearly as long to read as the title: "The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad" by Harrison E. Salisbury, which also felt like it was 900 pages long.

It was an informative read for me, but I can't totally recommend the experience to others. Published in 1969, I'm sure there is much better history on this subject available now, and I note that David Glantz has written a book on this topic, that I hope to track down some day.

Of course, the 1960s were well before Glasnost/Perestroika/end-of-USSR significantly changed the research materials available to WWII historians of the Eastern Front, and this is a telling problem in this particular book, which is written 98% from the Soviet point-of-view, with just an occasional passing reference to German thinking, generally from Halder's diary.

So the book relies on extensive survivor interviews, which works well for depicting the utter horror of the siege, but not well at all for the military details that war-gamers would be interested in. There are some of those, but too many from the wrong subjects. I don't really need to read a blow-by-blow reminiscence of the Soviet naval evacuation of the minor Latvian port of Libau, nor do I need to know the name of an Engineer Lieutenant who wired a bridge for demolition during the German advance.

As for the civilian stories, there are simply too many of them. Concentrating the narrative on just a half-dozen survivors would have worked much better than a seemingly endless amount of people who one can't recall from their previous appearance, 50 densely packed pages previously.

The author does an interesting job of shining a light on the sad idiosyncrasies of Stalinist military command, as the author was indeed a New York Times reporter / Kremlinologist well versed in the byzantine nature of Soviet politics. That topic would be well worth it's own volume, or several actually.

So I look forward to reading on this subject in another, newer book. I picked up my copy at random at a thrift store, and I learned a lot. But only enough to want to learn it again, which isn't what I want out of investing a serious amount of time in a book. In this one, I eventually found myself simply skimming page after page to try and reach the end - even that took far too much time for the information obtained.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Last month I finished "Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East" by David Stahel.

I recommend it unreservedly. I've read a half dozen (or more) other books on Barbarossa and the Nazi-Soviet war but this was by far the most knowledgeable/informed of the group.

[warspite1]

The Soviets as Naval Opponents 1941-45 (Ruge)

A truly excellent book that describes the little written about fighting between the Kriegsmarine and the Soviet Navy. Its written from the German perspective by Vice-Admiral Friedrich Ruge and its clear that there is no love lost between the author and the Soviets (the cold war was still going strong when written) but is a great read nonetheless. Interested in naval warfare generally? or the Eastern Front? or both? This book is a must.

[paulderynck]

An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson. Excellent. Pulitzer Prize winner.

The Anglo American campaign in North Africa from Torch to Tunis. First of a trilogy, followed by a book on Sicily-Italy and then one from Overlord to the end of the war in Europe.

I can't recall a book on WWII I've enjoyed as thoroughly.

[Jagdtiger14]

Reread: "Dunkirk: The Patriotic Myth" by Nicholas Harmon.

Awesome book dispelling the patriotic myths about the "spirit of Dunkirk". The book was written from info released after Britain's Secrets Act expired on the info.

I'll mention quickly here that it reveals war crimes and deception of her allies worse than you could imagine than what happened at Mers-el-Kebir.

In addition I'll also mention that Harmon has gotten things wrong when he didn't stick to the subject of Dunkirk: Hitler working with Stalin concerning Finland.

[Centuur]

I think my last book that I've read about the World War was the book: "Die Deutschen Panzer", which has technical descriptions and the history of the German tanks and Self Propelled Guns. The main part of the book is about the second World War, but also the modern German tanks (such as the Leopard series) are in it.

Very interesting was the fact that the German army trained officers in the use of tanks in the Soviet Union during the mid 1930's...

[brian brian]

ORIGINAL: Jagdtiger14

In addition I'll also mention that Harmon has gotten things wrong when he didn't stick to the subject of Dunkirk: Hitler working with Stalin concerning Finland.

ahh don't tease us, give up the details on that...







I read the 2nd Atkinson book, quite good. Want to track down the 1st and 3rd, will eventually.

[rkr1958]

In the last two weeks I read these four books, all on the 1st USA Marine Division in WW2. Interesting reading about the 1st Marine Division from four firsthand perspectives. All four authors survived the war. Sledge and Leckie both died in early 2000. Burgin and Phillips are both still alive and I've seen them on a number WW2 documentaries.

[juntoalmar]

The book on the WWII that I have enjoyed the most is "Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942". Book by H.P. Willmott.

I really liked the details of political, social and economical pre-war Japan. Willmott has a very structured style of writing with lots of analysis. I strongly recommend it.

[juntoalmar]

Btw, on the fiction side, anyone has a recommendation about a book about "what-if Sealion had happened"?

[rkr1958]

A little humor on the cover of "You'll Be SOR-REE!". The insert picture is of Sid Phillips. The bigger picture is of the 1st marines coming ashore on Guadalcanal. Sid has his back to the camera and is the marine just above the two "LL" in "SID PHILLIPS". He was taking a leak and didn't know someone was taking their picture. It's only when he got back to his buddies who told him that he would be forever immortalized in the picture as the marine taking a leak.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: juntoalmar

Btw, on the fiction side, anyone has a recommendation about a book about "what-if Sealion had happened"?

warspite1

I've read two

Operation Sealion Leo Mckinstry
Operation Sealion Richard Cox

Both worth a read, although neither goes into any great detail on the planning on German side of things which is a shame.

[warspite1]

.

[Jagdtiger14]

warspite1 Depending on what it is that he has "got wrong", it hardly bodes well for the factual accuracy of rest of the book does it? However, until we know what the author states and what the poster thinks is "wrong" I would reserve judgement on whether he has even got anything wrong. So in what way does he say that Hitler worked with Stalin?

Since I am sure anything I write will not satisfy Warspite, I'll leave it up to him to read the book and report on it. You can get the book extremely cheap on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.ca/Dunkirk-Patriotic ... 0671253891

[warspite1]

.

[Jagdtiger14]

I wonder why it's going extremely cheap?......

Its an old book...1980 (81?). Maybe you have some other reason why you think its going cheap? I wont guess.

[warspite1]

.