some of them never even bother to return!

I am not sure if this is what you mean, but I collect self-published books by veterans, and my experience is that these are a lot less, if at all, edited. Most are also not as well researched as the "big books" and mistakes in places and dates, etc. can easily be found. But what they might lack in historical accuracy they gain by biased and unedited pov about what the men went through. For example, I have read some remarks in an manuscript (OK, this falls outside the books you can buy in a shop or online) about a decision of a certain BG commander which resulted in that bomb Group being on its own, faces dozens of LW fighters without fighter protection, resulting in terrible losses. These remarks you won't find in a book published by a (big) pub. co. Let's call it "colourfull"....

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