Ordered Some Books

[Sweper]

War In a Stringbag. By Charles Lamb who flew the Fairey Swordfish. Description on Amazone

Eagles Of The Third Reich. By Samuel W. Mitcham. More on this here.

The Most Dangerous Enemy. Written by Stephen Bungay. Some of you already know the book.

Samurai! By the outstanding Japanese ace Saburo Sakai. Looks good!

I think they will keep me on readyness for a couple of months!

Other I have read recently (some more than once) and highly recommend:

Jungle Ace. By John R. Bruning. Gerald "Jerry" Johnson flying P-39s, P-40s, P-47s and P-38s in the Pacific. Jerry

First Light. Dont think it needs any further explanation. Geoffrey Wellum.

The Big Show. Same here, like First Light it is a must read! Closterman.

Helmet For My Pillow. By Robert Leckie. All of you that watched The Pacific, here is the original story from Leckies point of view. Helmet For My Pillow

D-Day. By Antony Beevor. From Normandy to Paris. One of his best, equal to Stalingrad, I think. D-Day

Band Of Brothers. Stephen Ambrose. The book they made the series from. Not top notch, but still recommended. Band Of Brothers

Bogeys And Bandits. By Robert Gandt. A story about the training of F-18 hornet pilots, from flight school to their final destination on a Carrier. Me liked a lot. BoB

Ghost Force SAS. By Ken Connors. Follow the operations of the Special Air Force from WW2 to the Gulf war. Intresting reading. SAS

Hunters From The Sky. By Charles Whiting. About the German Elite Paratroupers in the WW2. Intresting dokumentary. Paratroupers

Soldier in Waffen SS. By Johan Voss. Can´t find it on Amazone but it is about a young German guy who wants to join the best. He ends up in Finland fighting the red Army, but have to escape when Finland get the ultimatum to join the allied, or go under with the German army.

Lots of Swedish authors well known here, it is a pitty they have not translated their work to English.

I have also read Stalingrad and The Road to Berlin by Beevor. Berlin was a bit messy and not as good as Stalingrad and D-day.

Cheers

[JensenPark]

have some of those. War in a Stringbag is fantastic. Leave Samurai for the end...when you have nothing else to read. It is crap.

Will grab Leckie's book.

All of the Beevor books are great (steady lads. I said "Beevor" not "Beaver") except for the Spanish Civil war one. The one on Crete is great.

[Tribunus]

Try these Sweper.

"The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer.

A horrific first hand account of combat on the Eastern Front with the Grossdeutschland Panzer Grenadier Division.

"Goodbye, Darkness" by William Manchester.

The celebrated author's own personal account of his experiences in the Pacific as a U.S. Marine.

These two books capture what WWII infantry combat was truly like.

"The Campaigns of Napoleon" by David G. Chandler

A masterful account of Napoleon's military career and it is very readable.

This book needs to be in the library of every military history buff.

[fruitbat]

Try these Sweper.

"The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer.

A horrific first hand account of combat on the Eastern Front with the Grossdeutschland Panzer Grenadier Division.

"Goodbye, Darkness" by William Manchester.

The celebrated author's own personal account of his experiences in the Pacific as a U.S. Marine.

These two books capture what WWII infantry combat was truly like.

"The Campaigns of Napoleon" by David G. Chandler

A masterful account of Napoleon's military career and it is very readable.

This book needs to be in the library of every military history buff.

I've got 'The Forgotten Soldier' by Guy Sajer, and it is indeed a fantastic book, although apparently there is quite a lot of debate as to its authenticity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forgotten_Soldier

even so, still a great read.

[Sweper]

Thanks chaps, just ordered The Forgottten Soldier.

[Snacko]

Do any of you guys use this site: GoodReads.com? It's great for sharing book ideas with friends.

[Rattler]

Picked up this one from Chapters....

Finest Years: Churchill as Warlord 1940-45

Review here

Excellent so far.....

[JensenPark]

it's a great book Pete.

Shows his greatness...and also the humbling side of his failures.

[BadAim]

I've read Forgotten Soldier and consider it one of the finest personal accounts of the life of a soldier I have ever read. As for all the controversy, It is very easy to discount. I have talked to dozens upon dozens of veterans of WWII, and almost without exception I know way more about their theaters of action than they do. For the most part, these guys were not career soldiers and they have very little knowledge outside of their own training and experiences. Whatever historical perspective most of these guys have in relationship to their service was obtained after the war. Their personal perspective, on the other hand is invaluable.......only they can tell you what it felt like. I'm sure Tribunus can elaborate.

There are several of the other books I intend to read. (especially the one on Napoleon)

[Tribunus]

Guy Sajer was a teenage private.

As anyone who has been in the military knows, privates pretty much do as they are told. They know what is going on in their squad and platoon, but their knowledge of even what their company is doing can be pretty sketchy.

A private’s day is controlled by his sergeants and the German Army had excellent sergeants. Even when they were not up on the line, these sergeants would keep the soldiers busy. They would be constantly digging some sort of hole for a defensive position, or maintaining their equipment, eating and sleeping; when they were not up half the night pulling guard duty.

Once they went up on the line, then you added the confusion of combat, where time and space becomes distorted.

And I mean distorted. I have been in fire fights, and other than it seemed like half the world was shooting at us, I have only vaguest idea of what was happening around me. My focus was totally on MY unit. I sort of knew what my HQ expected and what adjacent units were supposed to be doing, but when I say vaguely knew what the other units were doing, I mean it.

There were no lines or arrows on a map showing the course of the fight, that would come later. During the fight, it was like someone had put a stick in an ant hill and then stirred it around to aggravate the ants. Combat is just utter confusion and chaos.

So I’m sure that if I wrote a book, there would be hundreds of Experts who would tear it apart for all of the inaccuracies.