Any books?

NONE | 8/29/2002 | Me

[erikm88]

Hey Freepers,

I figured this would be the best place to post this inquiry. I've always been interested in WWII history, and military history in general, and I've been scouring the web for good books to read, however, I don't want to run into "revisionist" books, and basically search-engine inquiries have led me to those kinds of books. So.....

The criteria for book recommendations are:

• Unbiased
• True, historical accounts
• Interesting, and not dry!!!
• easily accessible, online, or offline..

The subjects I'm interested in are...

• Attack on Pearl Harbor
• Dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, and Nagasaki
• Most if not anything pertaining to WWII
• Any Military History you would recommend for a self-proclaimed military history nut, whether you think i'd be interested or not :)

thanks in advance, and keep up the good work freepers!

--erik

[Ford Fairlane]

Thirty seconds over tokyo by capt. Ted W. Lawson.

If I remember right, it covers everything from the start of training for the Doolittle raid to when he finally gets out of china.

[riley1992]

If you can find them, there is a four volume set titled, "Eyewitness History of World War II" that is very good. I also started on Churchill's "Triumph and Tragedy" from his Second World War series but I had to put it down for a bit, it was requiring more concentration than I could seem to muster up at that point and I wanted to actually take in what I was reading. However, of what I have read of it so far, I would definitely recommend it. The correspondence from Churchill to Stalin alone is fascinating.

[ArrogantBustard]

Try:
Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan, the Japanese Navy's Story, by Mitsuo Fuchida, Masatake Okumiya, Thomas B. Buell

Submarine!, by Edward L. Beach

Thunder Below!: The Uss Barb Revolutionizes Submarine Warfare in World War II , by Eugene B. Fluckey

[uncbob]

For Marine history

GOODBYE DARKNESS by Manchester

And

SEMPER FI MAC by I don't remember

[CatoRenasci]

I will second the recommendation for The Washing of the Spears. An absolute must read, along with Churchill's book on his experiences in the Boer War, if you want to understand anything about the history of South Africa. There is an excellent description of the defense of Rourke's Drift, popularized in the film Zulu, which I also recommend.

Despite the disaster at Ishandalwana, it all comes right in the end at Ulundi, where the Zulus unsuccessfully attack Lord Chelmsford's square anchored with artillery and gatling guns, and at the right moment, the Zulus are broken and ridden down by a charge of the 17th Lancers.

If you like 19th century stuff, there is also a wonderful little book on the Crimean War (remember, charge of the light brigade), The Reason Why, by the famous English historian (primarily 17th century) Cecil Woodham-Smith. It is every bit as good, if not better, than Douglas Southall Freeman's Lee's Lieutenants and Bruce Catton's Army of the Potomac trilogy (Mr. Lincoln's Army, Glory Road (covers Gettysburg), and A Stillness at Appomatox.

The only better and more important things to read on the American civil war are Grant's Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant and Sherman's Memoirs of General William T. Sherman.

[nina0113]

My favorite is Delivered from Evil, by Robert Leckie. He served with the Marines in the South Pacific, & appears in his own book as the private Lucky. There are short (10 page or so) bios of all the major leaders & generals, coverage of major battles on both fronts, good index. I think it's about 1000 pages.

[Blue Screen of Death]

You have to read several sources and develop your perception from all of them. One great way is to go to a library and find text books written back in the days before PC and rampant liberalism. Go look at college history texts from the 1950's and sociology texts from the same time. Remember these too carry a bias, but you will get a different point of view than you will from the current texts.

[mrjeff]

Incredible book on the Eastern front from the German perspective: Forgotten Soldier, Guy Sajer.

[widowithfoursons]

Red Storm Rising, Tom Clancy (before Jack Ryan).

[CatoRenasci]

It's tough, but someone's got to do it! You should also get ahold of Winston Churchill's The River War on his experiences in the Sudan, esp. his description taking part in the cavalry charge at the battle of Omdurman which broke the Dervishes. The Mahdi, who killed Gen. Gordon and established his Moslem empire in the Sudan, can be thought of a relatively effective Islamic version of the Ghost Dance uprisings among the American Indians. But Kitchener didn't become Lord Kitchener of Khartoum by being nice to little brown brother-in-arms.

[Ford Fairlane]

Thought of another one

Hitler's high Seas Fleet by Richard Humble - an in depth look at the ships, how they were lost, and the stupid decisions hitler made that made his fleet useless

[Poohbah]

First suggestion: the US Army's official military histories. They did outstanding work. And their work on the Eastern Front was truly groundbreaking.

Anything by a German commander is worth a read, but do take it with a grain of salt--there is a tendency to blame everything on Hitler, including their own misjudgements.

Charles B. MacDonald: Company Commander and A Time For Trumpets. The former is a personal memoir of commanding a rifle company in Europe; the latter is an outstanding account of the Battle of the Bulge. He was part of the Army's Center for Military History after the war.

Charles Whiting: Death of a Division. Focuses on the US 106th Infantry Division ("The Golden Lions"), which was put on a quiet sector in Belgium in December, 1944. Turns out that they were directly in the path of the 6th SS Panzer Army during the Battle of the Bulge. The book examines issues of leadership, training, and esprit de corps.

For an assessment of the naval war, I'd recommend Samuel Eliot Morison's The Two-Ocean War. It has aged surprisingly well, considering that it was published in 1960, well before ULTRA was publicly acknowledged. Morison was already a distinguished history professor and took a commission in the US Navy to act as an official historian. He was present at some of the events he discusses, including some of the night actions in the Solomons and in several amphibious landings.

Morison's book is a single-volume distillation of his History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, which is a mammoth 15-volume work.

Clay Blair's Silent Victory is an excellent account of the US submarine campaign against Japan. His last work was The U-Boat Wars, published immediately after his death. Both are two-volume works.

For a detailed discussion of intelligence in the Pacific Theater, no one was topped John Prados' Combined Fleet Decoded.

Another good book on intelligence is Ultra at Sea, by John Winton. He also wrote The Forgotten Fleet, an excellent history of the British Pacific Fleet in 1944-45.

[onedoug]

Re, Submarine!, by Edward L. Beach...also Clay Blair Jr, Silent Victory: The US Submarine War Against Japan, featuring Beach in a supporting role.

[onedoug]

Gosh, you beat me on Blair....

[onedoug]

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo...not a bad movie, either.

[onedoug]

"Reminiscences" General Douglas MacArthur....Also contains the text of McArthur's great Duty Honor Country speech.

[onedoug]

Wonderful list thus far. Thank you for a swell post.

[ArrogantBustard]

CAPT Beach also wrote the novel Run Silent, Run Deep, and if my flaky memory serves correctly, at least one other novel. Not all of his books are currently in print.

[Publius6961]

That's WWII???