Hello, I'm new to the forums and I have a question about a book I am looking for. Forgive me if this has been asked before.

I'm 19 and very interested in WW2 and I'm looking for a book thats almost a "tell all" book about WW2. I want to read about soldiers stories about the mis-drops, how some survived when they lost their weapons, battle stories, etc. I dont know if theres all this in one book, but if there is one I figured this would be the best place to ask!

Thank you,

Mike

Well, Mike, to me that would be one big book, if you are looking details about the entire war.
If your general knowledge of WWII is weak, John Keegan's The Second World War is a good book to start with. Samuel Elliot Morrison's Two Ocean War talks about the Pacific War in general terms. There are some others, maybe some of the other guys can help or confuse you more.

After you figure what area interests you, start reading specfic books for more detail. There are several threads discussing this in this forum and ww2talk.com. I generally avoid Stephen Ambrose, he "borrowed" too much from other books for my liking.

Any of you rogues have any other suggestions for this young man?

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Best Regards,
JW

hey Mike!
welcome to the forum!!

i got a book from Borders years ago, "WORLD WAR II- A Complete Photographic History"
(also called "A Complete Chronicle of the World's Greatest Conflict")
by Hal Buell, a very big coffee table book, starts with the ending of WWI and goes thru to 1945. lotws of pictures, but also lots of good info to go with them!
hope that helps!

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Members of the Dutch Resistance with 101st AB, Eindhoven. Operation Market Garden.

Scott

One of the best attempts at producing what you describe is a large book called simply 'The War : 1939-1945' compiled by Desmond Flower and James Reeves ( Cassell, London 1962 ).

It attempts to tell the whole story of the war by using excerpts from eyewitness accounts, contemporary news reports, official documents, letters, etc ( there are no photos - only maps ). To give an idea of scope, no less than 257 books are cited as 'sources'.

The result is generally considered to have been a good effort, and AFAIK the only time such a project on this scale has been attempted. It's an old book, but worth looking out for secondhand via 'Bookfinder' or similar.

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Thank you all very much for your response. I will look into all of these books to see what fits.

Thank you all again for the information!

Is this a great forum, or what??

A new guy comes on and asks a question, and instead of saying "AAh, we talked about that way back when!" or 'Use the SEARCH button!" (as usually happens on MOST forums I've seen), instead, nothing but interesting replies and excellent suggestions from some really intelligent people!

Well done, gentlemen.....well done, indeed!

-whatever

-Lou

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5 out of 4 people have difficulty with fractions.

Haha, I thought the same would happen to me. I did search a little but my request is different so I thought it was better I made a new post. Wish more forums could be that nice

Cheers,

Mike

We're genuinely glad to be of help...

By the same token, it makes a nice change for someone to log in, ask a reasonable question, and then simply say 'Thank you'. Some of us get a little tired when the same thing thing happens, we put a little effort in, and never get an acknowledgment, let alone 'thanks' .

It makes a big difference !

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

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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"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson

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www.basher82.nl

I have book by a tanker veteran that is by an large a good story of his experience in Europe. In the early part of the book, he tries to give some background on US tank development and makes unsubstantiated claims and put one well known US general in a location at a time he well documented not to have been there.

I think the veterans here will bear me out when I say that they know more about what happened during the war now than they did at the time. Their view was confined mostly to what happening to them and they knew very little about what was happening above them in the command structure and in other locations.

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Best Regards,
JW

Is that book self-publsihed, Slipdigit?

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"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson

(banner by Otto)
www.basher82.nl

This is one of the great things about this forum, the willingness to help, there may come a time when you get a negative response, but for the most part i don't think you will see it too often. This attitude has been shown to me in all of my posts, so I feel a sense of responsibilty to pass that on!!

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Members of the Dutch Resistance with 101st AB, Eindhoven. Operation Market Garden.

Scott