What are some really good WWII books?

Question

Fiction and Non-Fiction both works. I don't really need the information, as long as its interesting and a good read. Books on the ETO are preferable, but any aspect of the war is OK.

Answer 1

Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley

Citizen Soldiers: The U. S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany by Stephen E. Ambrose

Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich by William L. Shirer

Band of Brothers : E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest by Stephen E. Ambrose

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (Aviation Classics) by Ted W. Lawson

The Longest Day: The Classic Epic of D-Day by Cornelius Ryan

Pegasus Bridge by Stephen E. Ambrose

In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors by Doug Stanton

A Bridge Too Far: The Classic History of the Greatest Battle of World War II by Cornelius Ryan

Flights of Angels by Doug James

Answer 2

I've been reading WW2 history for A LONG time now......and a lot of the other posters answers are excellent.......but if you want to boil it down to only two books;

"The Cruel Sea" Nicholas Montserrat.....on the Second Battle of the Atlantic ( 1939-1945); completely accurate and spellbinding fiction based on the authors years on a corvette fighting the U-Boats......my latest copy is the 27th printing!

"Goodbye Darkness" by William Manchester; he has now passed on; he was America's greatest historian, a member , nay the definition of New England gentility and Eastern Intellectual Establishment; as a 25 year old he was a Sergeant, United States Marine Raiders; when he hit 60 he realized he had to go back to the Pacific and see what it all meant to him and his generation; to those islands which are such a part of the Greatest Generations life..Tarawa, Iwo, Okinawa and Guadalcanal; and he tells a brilliant and moving story of those years, those men, those battles, a book which is now on the Naval Academy's reading list and sums up the Marines war like nothing else ever has or probably ever will

Answer 3

Of course, this is a somewhat blind question in that I don't know your particular tastes in fiction or what you're really seeking. So, here goes.

FICTION:

The Rhinemann Exchange, The Scarlatti Inheritance, and more ...Robert Ludlum (very fast thrillers)
The Naked and the Dead ... Norman Mailer (war story)
The Winds of War ... Herman Wouk (drama-type story)
Eye of the Needle ...Ken Follett (thriller)
From Here to Eternity ...James Jones (Pearl Harbor theatre)
Schindler's Ark ...Thomas Keneally (made into Spielberg movie, Schindler's List)
A Princess in Berlin ...Arthur R.G. Solmssen (This is not technically a WWII book but takes place in the years between the wars and helps explain how Germany was falling apart and so susceptable to the rise of a dictator)
Suite Francaise ...Irene Nemirovsky (day to day life in Nazi-occupied France, a heartbreaker)
Catch 22 ... Joseph Heller ( hilarious but, at the same time, serious commentary about what being a soldier was like in the Second World War, a great book)
Secret Honor ...W. E. B. Griffin (A Nazi general plans to kill Hitler)
Enigma ...Robert Harris (about a codebreaker who was working on cracking the Nazi codes, see also anything about Alan Turing, the mathematician who devised a machine for code breaking; also a not great movie)
The Day After Tomorrow ... Allan Folsom (has zero to do with the recent ice age movie, this is a thriller that once you start to read it you will do nothing else until you finish it)
ALL BOOKS by Alan Furst ... (These are very atmospheric
spy novels, not real thrillers but very evocative of what Europe was like in those days)
The Diary of Anne Frank....(obviously)
Army of Shadows ...Joseph Kessel (about the French Resistance)
A Gathering of Spies ...John Altman (starts a bit slow, but hang on, it's worth it)


NON FICTION :

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich ...William Shirer (essential history for any understanding of the war)
Inside the Third Reich ...Albert Speer (recollections of Hitler's architect and constant "helper")
The Origins of the Second World War ...A.J.P. Taylor ( a Cambridge don and expert on the war with terrific insights into the war)
To Hell and Back ... Audie Murphy (also a movie, written by the actor who experienced everything in the book. He was a major hero of WWII)
Is Paris Burning? ...Collin & Lapierre (Read the book NEVER see the {dreadful} movie; about the liberation of Paris)

I'm sure there are many, many others I could suggest but this is all I can recall right now.
Also, rent some DVDs on the war, such as The Great Escape, you'll soon be hooked.

Answer 4

History of the Second World War by Basil Henry Liddell Hart

The Longest Day - Cornelius Ryan

The Bridge Over the River Kwai - Pierre Boulle

Answer 5

Lost Victories, Hans Guderian
Memoirs, Erwin Rommel
The Thin Red Line, James Jones
Defeat in the East, Jurgen Thurwald
The Great Sea War, Adm. Chester Nimitz

Answer 6

I'm a huge WWII history buff, and I've read a lot of really good ones. Stephen Ambrose is great, I espcially liked Band of Brothers, and D-Day was really good too. Also good was Foot Soldier, by Roscoe Blunt, which is about his experience with the 84th ID through the Battle of the Bulge. A Blood Dimmed Tide about the battle of the Bulge is also excellent. There are a lot of great ones about the ETO, but my favorites about the PTO are Combat Officer by Charles Walker and Ghost Soldiers, about the Cabantuan Prison Raid, by Hampton Sides. I reccomend all of them. Email me if you find anything exceptional! Happy readings!

Answer 7

Guderian in fact wrote "Panzer Leader".

But I will put in a third vote for Basil Liddell-Hart. Manstein's "Lost Victories" is good history, especially for those who think the war began on June 6 1944. Liddell-Hart's "Other Side of the Hill" is a classic account of the war as seen by the German generals. Paul Adair's "Hitler's Greatest Defeat" is a readable and interesting account of Operation Bagration, the annihilation of Army Group Centre in June 1944. John Erickson's "Road to Stalingrad" and "Road to Berlin" are definitive accounts of the war in Russia- incredible scholarship.

There are many equally excellent books on the Battle of Singapore in 1941-2, a little-known and very interesting campaign, full of lessons for today. "Horror on the East" by Laurence Rees is a good and readable account of the Japanese leadership and their role in war crimes in WW2.

Max Hastings' "Bomber Command" is one of many excellent books by this author, and you can't go wrong with Martin Middlebrook's books on bombing and other issues.

The "Battlefield Europe" series of illustrated books is superb and deceptively simple- their series on operation Market Garden is very good. Cornelius Ryan also wrote the classic "Bridge too Far" on which the movie of the same name is based- and several others which are all good, readable, if a little "popular" in their style.

Answer 8

B.H. Liddell Hart's book on WWII is very good. His idea of the indirect approach is very relevant for modern military doctrines. I think you can start with that one.

"Lost Victories" by ERICH VON MANSTEIN (not Heinz Guderian - Guderian wrote "Panzer General") is also a good book. Von Manstein was the best German general of WWII by far and his book is very interesting. Of course, he is somewhat of an apologist and blames the loss on Hitler.

Maybe Ambroses semibiographical nonfiction would suit you: "Band of Brothers" and "D-Day" books are very entertaining too.

Answer 9

Excellent list by the earlier respondants.

However, one omission is the seminal overview of naval strategy in World War II, "Two Ocean War" by Samual Eliot Morison.

Answer 10

" Babi - Yar " by Anatoly Kuznetsov. Hard to find, but it's the amazing true story of life under German occupation, 1941 to 1944, in the Ukraine.

" Panzer Leader " by General Heinz Guderian , excellent book written by the man who lead the German attack on Moscow.