# Recommend books on WW1 & WW2. Please. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 8, 2004, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620 "2004-11-08T12:16:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2004, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/41 "2004-11-11T21:22:40Z")
What would be some good accounts of a ship at war? I read the fictional _H.M.S. Ulysses_, which is a story about a British cruiser on the Murmansk convoy route. _Very_ good book. I read _Battleship at War_, the non-fictional story of the USS Washington (or N.Dakota?) during WW2. Very good. Any other good books regarding a single ship during WW2? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2004, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/42 "2004-11-11T21:39:12Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > I read the fictional _H.M.S. Ulysses_, which is a story about a British cruiser on the Murmansk convoy route. _Very_ good book. Good. I’ve been rereading _Navarone_ and that gets mentioned on the cover and I had HEARD it was good but now I HAVE to track it down. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2004, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/43 "2004-11-13T06:14:21Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I agree, though, that World War I is kind of boring. Its impact on world history is interesting, but the war itself was a pointless meat grinder and is generally notable only for the amazing level of stupidity and pointlessness it represents. That’s why I liked A.J.P. Taylor’s book on the Great War over Keegan’s. Taylor’s is heavily illustrated, and his captions are wryly funny. I need pictures to get me through the war! ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2004, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/44 "2004-11-13T06:23:00Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > Any other good books regarding a single ship during WW2? Two by C.S. Forester, although they’ve been criticised as being propaganda pieces (both were written during WWII). I found them good reads: - _The Ship_, an account of a British ship in the Med, fighting the Italian navy; - _The Good Shepherd_, about an American ship on convoy duty, protecting the convoy from U-boats. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2004, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/45 "2004-11-13T08:56:53Z")
> [@Kythereia](#): > > [Regeneration](http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0525934278/qid=1099935338/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/701-1127936-5128329), [The Eye in the Door](http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140168788/qid=1099935338/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/701-1127936-5128329), and [The Ghost Road](http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140236287/qid=1099935338/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/701-1127936-5128329) by Pat Barker, and [The Wars](http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140241167/qid=1099935502/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_3_1/701-1127936-5128329) by Timothy Findley. > > They’re all absolutely brilliant. 🙂 Dammit, **Kythereia** , Pat Barker was MY pick. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2004, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/46 "2004-11-13T09:08:41Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > What bores me is most war non-fiction by British authors. Yes, they are thoroughly, even obsessively, researched but they are as dry as the sands of El Alamein. If you know which unit Dad was in you can follow his military career day by day but there is a point where you have to throw away the charts, statistics, and lists of which petty nobleman ran which unit and start blowing things up. Speaking of blowing things up, is there a good book on the Long Range Desert Group (you may remember them from “The Rat Patrol”) and the Special Boat Service, including after the the North Africa campaign and the LRDG stopped getting to use Jeeps loaded up with more machine guns than a '60s TV budget could show and the SBS stopped using boats? Permit me to recommend Quartered Safe Out Here, by George MaDonald Fraser {author of the Flashman novels, among others}: not so much non-fiction as a personal memoir {he even makes the comparison between official accounts and his own first-hand experiences} of his experiences as a callow 19 year old fighting the Japanese in the Burma campaign. It’s very reflective, beautifully written, utterly engrossing, and probably one of the best accounts ever of war as experienced by an ordinary infantryman. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2004, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/47 "2004-11-13T09:13:57Z")
That is , of course George MacDonald Fraser. ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2004, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/48 "2004-11-13T09:38:27Z")
[God is my co-pilot](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345310616/qid=1100338383/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-8240471-7374462?v=glance&s=books) Robert Scotts famous tale of flying with the American Volunteer Group aka “The Flying Tigers” in China [Firebirds!: Flying the Typhoon in action.](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0874743664/qid=1100338478/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8240471-7374462?v=glance&s=books) [Devil Boats: The PT War against Japan](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0891415866/qid=1100338533/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/002-8240471-7374462) **U-Boats Offshore: When Hitler struck America** by Edwin P. Hoyt - has some amazing stories about how close the allies came to defeat due to massive shipping losses close to the American coast. [Eagle against the Sun: The American war with Japan](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0394741013/qid=1100338752/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-8240471-7374462?v=glance&s=books) Excellent one-volume account of the Pacific War **Codename Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan** by Norman Polmar & Thomas B. Allen - Examines the pros & cons of the plans to invade Japan, looking at both the Army & Navy estimates of casualties, the differing invasion plans for each Island and how they changed with the advent of the Atomic bomb (the plan for a beach-head near Tokyo called for the use of at least **six** nukes! - the planners had no briefing on radioactivity & just treated them as really big conventional bombs) ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2004, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/49 "2004-11-13T10:15:55Z")
> [@Northern Piper](#): > > That’s why I liked A.J.P. Taylor’s book on the Great War over Keegan’s. Taylor’s is heavily illustrated, and his captions are wryly funny. I need pictures to get me through the war! Those Brits do know how to inject their wry humor into just about anything. In one of my WW2 airplane reference books (_Axis Aircraft of WW2_, I think), in the blurb for the Betty or some other Japanese bomber, the author wrote something like: _Unfortunately, the lack of self-sealing fuel tanks meant that this wonderful and useful bomber would frequently be turned into a terrible and useless flaming wreck …_ I’ll check out those A.J.P. Taylor books. They may be propaganda, but worry not! Nothing will dissuade me from my steadfast hope for the ultimate victory of the Thir-err, nevermind. I’ll give’em a look! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Tenebras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@Tenebras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenebras)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2004, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/50 "2004-11-13T12:19:45Z")
Another book that doesn´t have Germans as the bad guys: **The Seven Pillars of Wisdom** by T.E. Lawrence, which I just finished reading and found to be very good. Also, it´s WWI, which seems to be getting a pretty short shrift in this discussion… ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/51 "2004-11-14T04:07:31Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > I’ll check out those A.J.P. Taylor books. They may be propaganda, but worry not! Nothing will dissuade me from my steadfast hope for the ultimate victory of the Thir-err, nevermind. I’ll give’em a look! 😉 It was the C.S. Forester books that some have thought propaganda. I’ve never heard anyone make that sort of suggestion about Taylor. And for just outright bizarreness, _The Man Who Never Was_ is worth a read. ---
**Author:** ![SlyFrog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@SlyFrog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlyFrog)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/52 "2004-11-14T18:20:50Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > My problem with Ambrose is not that it’s “anecdotal crap” (one guy’s anecdotal crap is another guy’s oral history) but that he is so damned reverent of these guys! Well, to be fair, “ancecdotal” and “oral history” are not the same thing. My issue with Ambrose is that he doesn’t bring it together into anything, not even the oral history itself. I feel like he’s just pulling various snippets from conversations with people, with no real rhyme or reason. There’s nothing cohesive to what he does, and what analysis he does try to provide seems poor. If I want to read primary sources, I can. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/53 "2004-11-14T19:54:45Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > I just tried looking it up, but I don’t recall the name or the title offhand - when I next visit my parents I’ll look it up - but there’s a great narrative of the Pacific War from the view of a Japanese Naval officer. He was only a small cog, but still it’s a view of WWII that is not often seen. The only reason the book was published and translated to English was that the man who wrote it was the captain of the detroyer that ran over JFK’s PT 109. But that’s a poor reason to read the book - it’s only a very small part of the story, mostly it’s one man trying to survive a losing war with personal honor and duty. > > Of course, it also solidified my view of JFK’s PT 109 incident as being the outgrowth of a major FUBAR. > > The thing that most affected me when I read it was a mid-war vacation that the captain and his wife took, and how they’d had a lovely time. As an aside, the author mentioned how if he could he’d love to go back there, but it’s not possible - it had been in Nagasaki, you see. The book is called _Japanese Destroyer Captain_ by Tameichi Hara with Fred Saito and Roger Pineau. If your FIL hasn’t read them yet, there is EM Remarque’s _All Quiet on the Western Front_ for WWI fiction, and Hans Helmut Kirst trilogy _08/15_ for WWII fiction. For the Pacific war I would recommend Martin Caidin’s _The Ragged Rugged Warrior_ for the first six months of the air war, Richard B. Frank’s _Guadalcanal_ for that famous campaign. **Mehitabel** mentionned Walter Lord previously but she forgot to mention his _Midway, the incredible victory_ about the turning point of the Pacific war. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/54 "2004-11-14T19:57:28Z")
> [@detop](#): > > The book is called _Japanese Destroyer Captain_ by Tameichi Hara with Fred Saito and Roger Pineau. Thanks for the info, **detop**. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/55 "2004-11-14T20:10:55Z")
You’re welcome. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620/56 "2004-11-15T01:45:17Z")
Thank you everyone. My FIL is going in on Thursday for his operation. Probably in for 48 hours after that. Then six.fun.filled.weeks.on.his.back. I will be printing out this thread to take to the book store with me. Everyone helped alot. Mucho Gracias. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-on-ww1-ww2-please/273620.md?page=2)