Five for Friday 37: Another World War 2 Reading List

Not that long ago, my history reading was focused on WW2 memoirs. The latest batch of books, however, are more eclectic. Here is my latest WW2 reading, in alphabetical order:

• Attack & Sink: The Battle for SC42 by Bernard Edwards: While it is not a memoir, this is one of those small, up close kind of books that I love. Edwards tells the story of SC42 (Slow Convoy), a large convoy of slow rickety ships traveling from North America to Great Britain. He also ably tells the story of the U-Boats hunting SC42.
• The Battle of the Atlantic by Andrew Williams: A companion book to the History Channel's series of the same name. A short and simple summary of the Battle of the Atlantic, seasoned with some first person stories.
• Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun by John Prados: A detailed book that provides lots of background, context, and strategic analysis. Prados balances this by artfully including plenty of first-person narrative that conveys the horror and heroism of the campaign.
• Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War 2 on the Eastern Front by Constantine Pleshakov: An analysis of Stalin's failures in 1941 at the start of the war on the Eastern Front.
• Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 by Barbara Tuchman: Tuchman is one of my favorite historians and this book, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is one of her best. Tuchman builds her history of Sino-American relations, particularly during the WW2 era, around Stilwell's biography. No one comes off looking heroic in the Chinese Theater. The U.S., China, Great Britain, and Japan all come off looking bad.

Additional World War 2 Book posts:
My Favorite World War 2 Books
My Latest World War 2 Reads
More World War 2 Books
Even More World War 2 Books
Yet More World War 2 Books
A Stack of World War 2 Books
World War 2 Memoirs

Five for Friday 35: World War 2 Memoirs

Thanks to the influence of Max Hastings' Inferno, my WW2 reading has been sprinkled with more first-person narratives. Recently, I read these five books as a group (presented here in alphabetical order):

• And I Was There: Pearl Harbor and Midway Breaking the Secrets by Edwin T. Layton, Roger Pineau, and John Costello. Layton, a U.S. Naval intelligence officer stationed in Hawaii, provides a front row seat to much of the decision-making prior to and after the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese. I found the narrative weighed down by Layton's apologetics with regards to the faultfinding and fingerpointing that occurred for decades after the Pearl Harbor attack. For those interested in that subject, on the other hand, this is a critically important source on that topic.
• Going Solo by Roald Dahl. Author Roald Dahl's little memoir of his days as a British fighter pilot in the opening years of World War 2. A quick and entertaining read.
• In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of the Eastern Front by Gottlob Herbert Bidermann. Starting the war as a private in the infantry, Biderman spent the entire war on Germany's Eastern Front. He was captured in 1945 and spent several years in Soviet labor camps until returning before returning home to Germany. 
• Quartered Safe Out Here: A Harrowing Tale of World War II by George MacDonald Fraser. Fraser, author of the Flashman novels, writes about his time as a British infantryman in Burma. Funny and heartbreaking, it is considered by many to be a classic WW2 memoir. It is interesting to me that Fraser is able to express his understandable lifelong dislike of the Japanese while Gottlob Herbert Biderman and Saburo Sakai are silent with regards to their post-war feelings about their former enemies...perhaps expressing this is a privilege of the victors.
• Samurai! by Saburo Sakai: Memoirs of a Japanese fighter ace. It is actually a composite of Saburo Sakai's original memoirs and his interviews with journalist Fred Saito. Interesting and surprisingly even-handed.

Additional World War 2 Book posts:
My Favorite World War 2 Books
My Latest World War 2 Reads
More World War 2 Books
Even More World War 2 Books
Yet More World War 2 Books
A Stack of World War 2 Books

Five for Friday 34: A Stack of World War 2 Books

My most recent World War 2 reading has taken me a bit off the beaten path. As near as I can tell, I have read about 100 books on WW2, going back to childhood. I am still as fascinated as ever by the single biggest (and worst) event in human history, but I am more interested now in the cultural and political aspects of the war and less interested in the actual combat. Here are my latest five books (in alphabetical order):

• The Battle for History: Re-Fighting World War II by John Keegan. I am a John Keegan fan and picked up this book used. Keegan has a great recommended reading section at the end of his book, The Second World War. The Battle for History is an expansion of his recommended reading with more background on the academic debates around certain concepts and theories. I found it to be a quick and enjoyable read.

• Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel by Richard H. Minear. A forgotten side of Dr. Seuss. Some fascinating things here: (1) Before the U.S. entry into the war, Geisel was a liberal who advocated intervention against the fascists; and (2) Geisel wasn't perfect but he did a pretty good job of avoiding racial and ethnic stereotypes in a medium where it was rampant during WW2.

• Pandora's Keepers: Nine Men and the Atomic Bomb by Brian VanDeMark. Richard Rhodes wrote the definitive history with his The Making of the Atomic Bomb. VanDeMark takes this into account and focuses on nine physicists who played critical roles in the development of the atomic bomb as well as the postwar policy debates about the bomb. 

• The Red Orchestra by Gilles Perrault. I picked this book up used some time ago and finally read it. He focuses on the Brussels and Paris circles of the Soviet WW2 spy ring known as the Red Orchestra. The key figure here is Leopold Trepper and Perrault's book is based primarily on face-to-face interviews with former spies and spy-chasers. The book is flawed and subsequent research, using then unavailable documents and records, highlights the flaws. 

• Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestra by Shareen Blair Brysac. Again, another book picked up years ago in a used bookstore. I read it after reading Perrault's book. It is well-written and sympathetic treatment of Mildred Harnack, an American woman executed by the Nazis, at the personal direction of Hitler, for her part in an underground resistance and espionage circle. It is very well-researched and balanced. I was surprised to find out that Mildred's husband, Arvid, was a cousin to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor and theologian. Bonhoeffer is popular in a variety of Christian circles because of his role in the German resistance movement and his execution by the Nazis shortly before the war ended.

Previous World War 2 related posts:
My Favorite World War 2 Books
My Latest World War 2 Reads
More World War 2 Books
Even More World War 2 Books
Yet More World War 2 Books

Five For Friday 32: Yet More WW2 Books

My World War 2 reading over the past 18 months has been heavily influenced by the bibliography in Max Hastings' Inferno: The World at War 1939-1945, where he draws heavily on first person accounts by ordinary soldiers, sailor, airman, and non-combatants.

• Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941 by Ian Kershaw--I thought this book was fantastic. Kershaw provides a lot of detailed, well-reasoned analysis, backed up by plenty of research. Well-written, but not a quick read.
• The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War by Martin Gilbert--I was frustrated with this book at first, until I understood it. It is more of a chronicle and witness to those who died, rather than your typical history book. There are a lot of names, places and dates and not much analysis. Reading this was more like participating in a solemn memorial ritual for the dead than was reading history. In the end, that is the power of the book. Absolutely gut-wrenching, but I am glad to have read it.
• Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal by James Hornfischer--A well-written and balanced account of naval actions in the fight for Guadalcanal, most of which happened at night. The Japanese had better tactics and torpedoes. The Americans had been logistics, intelligence and radar. In the end, the Americans learned from their mistakes and the Japanese did not.
• A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in a Conquered City by Anonymous--I had been wanting to read this book for awhile, but I kept putting it off, knowing that it would be an emotional experience. I did read it and it was emotional, but it was also funny at times and, surprisingly, full of hope.
• Woodbine Red Leader: A P-51 Mustang Ace in the Mediterranean Theater by George Loving--A nice read.

Previous World War 2 related posts:
My Favorite World War 2 Books
My Latest World War 2 Reads
More World War 2 Books
Even More World War 2 Books

Five for Friday 30: Even More World War 2 Books

It has been awhile since I have posted any of my World War 2 reads. Here are some of my more recent World War 2 reads (I will post more next week).

• The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert Edsel and Bret Witter--The book on which the recent movie was based (I have not seen the movie). I read this book after ordering for my wife (her book club read it). It was interesting, as it was part of WW2 that I was not familiar, but the book jumped around a bit. My wife struggled a bit with it, as well, for the same reason.
• The Secret in Building 26: The Untold Story of How America Broke the Final U-boat Enigma Code by Jim DeBrosse and Colin Burke--Another interesting book, again because I was unfamiliar with the story. I was more familiar with the British side of things, which is barely mentioned in this book (a glaring weakness). Even so, it was a fun read.
• Target Tokyo: The Story of the Sorge Spy Ring by Gordon Prange, Katherine Dillon, and Donald Goldstein--Prange's books on the attack of Pearl Harbor and the battle of Midway are well-written and balanced. They offer a lot of detail, based on Prange's extensive research. This book is very similar. It was finished posthumously by Dillon and Goldstein. I really enjoyed this book a lot and list it among my favorite WW2 reads.
• Why the Allies Won by Richard Overy--The is a solid, thorough book by a historian who has written extensively on the Eastern Front. I wasn't surprised by his conclusions, as most WW2 history buffs are familiar with them. However, his underlying reasoning made for good reading.
• Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure by Donald Kladstrup and Petie Kladstrup--This is a breezy book that, like some other books on this list, addressed a topic unfamiliar to me. It wasn't a bad read, but it left me wanting a bit at the end.

Previous posts about World War 2 books:
My Favorite World War 2 Books
My Latest World War 2 Reads
More World War 2 Books

Five for Friday 27: More World War 2 Books

Several months ago, I posted a list of my favorite World War 2 books. I then added an update of some of my recent World War 2 reads. Here is another update, with the latest five World War 2 books that I have read (in alphabetical order):

• The Guns at Last Light by Rick Atkinson: A masterpiece and a fitting capstone for his Liberation Trilogy. Of the 100 or World War 2 books that I have read, this easy is in my top five. This comes on the heels of my reading of Max Hastings' Inferno, another top fiver (I highlighted Inferno in my last World War 2 book post). The Guns at Last Light is excellent in every respect.
• Leningrad: State of Siege by Michael Jones: Culled from interviews and private journals, this book is one of the heartbreaking books that I have read. Jones does a masterful job of painting daily life and death in Leningrad during the siege. While the fate of Soviet soldiers is touched upon, most of Jones' attention is on the average citizen of Leningrad during this terrible time. It is a well-told and moving history. 
• The Retreat: Hitler's First Defeat by Michael Jones: A decent book, but not anywhere near as good as Jones' Leningrad work.
• Russia's War: A History of the Soviet Effort: 1941-1945 by Richard Overy: Overy's work was one of the first in English to be published after the opening of the former Soviet archives and history vaults. It is important in that regard, but it has been overshadowed by more recent research and published works. It is still a short, readable history of the Eastern Front after the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
• The Siege of Leningrad: 900 Days of Terror by David Glantz: I am a big fan of David Glantz's works, but this one left me cold. Not one of my favorites.

With the exception of The Guns at Last Light, all of my recent WW2 reading has been focused on the Eastern Front. I have been using the bibliography in Max Hastings' Inferno as my "to read" list, which is mainly focused on first person experiences of the war. I have been making lots of purchases of used books but haven't really delved into them yet.

My Latest World War 2 Reads

Buy It and Read It!

I was going to post the following five books as a "Five for Friday" blog post. Then I realized there are six books on the list. Oops. This post is a follow-up to my Favorite World War 2 Books post from this past March. These are in alphabetical order:

• The Battle of Midway by Craig Symonds. A decent and readable history of the Battle of Midway. This book is part of the Oxford University Press series, Pivotal Moments in American History. I am about halfway through the Pivotal Moments series. Most have been very good.
• Bougainville, 1943-1945: The Forgotten Campaign by Harry Gailey. Apart from Pearl Harbor, Midway, Iwo Jima, and two atomic bombs, you would think nothing happened in the Pacific in WW2, at least based on the history section of your local book store. This book does a great job telling the story of Bougainville, one of the stepping stone island battles of the Pacific. It is notable that a fair amount of the combat involved African-American troops.
• Inferno: A World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings. I have read about 100 books on WW2 over the course of my life. Inferno is in my top 5 of all time. I am a big Max Hastings fan but I went into this book a bit skeptical, with doubts as to how interesting or different yet another book on the whole war could be. Hastings doesn't aim for completeness. Instead, he aims to get it what it felt like for the participants, particularly the lower ranks, the civilians caught in combat, and those on the home front. Using the stories of the non-famous, he weaves a story that is heart-wrenching, horrifying and, at times, uplifting. This powerful narrative is coupled with Hastings unparalleled ability for critical analysis. Hastings created a book unlike any other that I have read.
• Japanese Destroyer Captain: Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Midway-The Great Naval Battles as Seen Through Japanese Eyes by Capt. Tameichi Hara. This book was recommended to me by Mark Langsdorf and it is excellent.I enjoyed every page. The Japanese Navy had some excellent mid-level officers, Hara being a prime example. They also had excellent gunnery and airplane pilots. The U.S. Navy made huge leaps and bounds during 1942-45 in numbers of ships, planes, technology, skill, and command. Japan regressed in all these areas during the same time period and Hara recounts what this was like while on board a series of destroyers.
• A Measureless Peril: America in the Fight for the Atlantic, the Longest Battle of World War II by Richard Snow. Snow combines a simple history of the Battle for the Atlantic with the narrative of his father's time on a destroyer escort in that same battle. I actually listened to this book while driving on a work-related trip. It was a nice "listen."
• No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin. She won the Pulitzer Prize for this book, although she was later embroiled in controversy over plagiarism, which included this book. Apart from that, there is a reason this book won the Pulitzer. The book is a look at the U.S. home front during World War 2, looking through the lens of the Roosevelts. It is not a biography and it is not simply a history. It is a different sort of book, but I really enjoyed it and recommend it.

My "To Read" list continues to grow (you can see what it looked like back in March here, at the bottom of the post).

Excellent Reading Recommendations From the Commentors

I've had some very good book recommendations in the comment section of this blog. Thanks, you guys, for giving me hours of literary entertainment.

On the fantasy front, I am about a quarter of the way through the Chronicles of Amber (Roger Zelanzy), recommended by Tim (Gothridge Manor). There are ten books in the series, but they are short and they read fast. It feels a bit like reading Moorcock, which is a definite plus in my book, but Zelanzy has a vibe all his own. I also have Malazan Book of the Fallen (Steven Erikson) and the Garrett P.I. books (Glen Cook) on my To Read list. Both series were recommended by JD (The Disoriented Ranger). All of these recommendations were in response to my post on my favorite fantasy series.

On the World War 2 front, Mark (No School Grognard) recommended Japanese Destroyer Captain, which turned out to be a great read. Thanks, Mark! Butch recommended A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940, which is next up on my WW2 reading. It looks like an top-notch book. Butch also mentioned Flags of Our Fathers, which I am embarrassed to admit that I have not read (I have no idea why I haven't read it yet, except for the sheer volume of WW2 books out there). I will certainly correct that omission in the near future. These recommendations resulted from my post on my favorite World War 2 books.

The best part about writing a blog is the feedback in the comment section. I don't have a lot of followers, but I do get great comments. Thanks, guys, for the recommendations!

My Favorite World War 2 Books

I am a big time history buff. My favorite topics include ancient Greece, Medieval (particularly Byzantium), the Reformation, Central Asia, and the 20th Century (particularly cultural history and also science). But WW2 has always been the big draw...maybe it was having two uncles in the war. Anyway, I have read a fair amount of WW2 history over the years. The following is not meant to be a bibliography or reading list--there are some holes in my list (nothing on southeast Asia, the Balkans, or small unit tactics for example). Here is simply an annotated list of some of my favorites, in alphabetical order:

• Armageddon: The Battle for Germany by Max Hastings. Max Hastings writes books around which I could build a library. He thinks deeply and critically. He writes clearly and interestingly. His Retribution, Overlord, Bomber Command, and Das Reich are all excellent. I also liked The Korean War. His Inferno is on my To Read List.
• An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson. This book, the first volume in Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy, was a Pulitzer Prize winner in History. It is an awesome book. Volume 2, The Day of Battle, is listed below and volume 3, The Guns at Last Light, is due in May 2013.
• The Battle of Kursk by David Glantz and Jonathan House. Glantz is my favorite historian of the Eastern Front and this is my favorite of Glantz's books.
• The Battle of Leyte Gulf: 23-26 October 1944 by Thomas J. Cutler. Simply a well-written book. I'd like to read C. Vann Woodward's The Battle for Leyte Gulf, as I have read some of his non-military history (e.g. the history of Jim Crow laws).
• Battle: The Story of the Bulge by John Toland. This is still the most compelling retelling of the Battle of the Bulge. Toland has penned a number of excellent books on WW2, including The Last 100 Days, The Rising Sun, and a biography of Hitler. His Infamy is a bit more controversial.
• Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941 by William L. Shirer. A first person account of an American journalist in Berlin during the pre-WW2 Nazi regime and the first two years of the European portion of the conflict.
• A Bridge Too Far: The Classic History of the Greatest Battle of World War II by Cornelius Ryan. "Greatest Battle" is quite an overstatement, but this is my favorite of Cornelius Ryan's WW2 books. This was also made into a movie and, like Lord of the Rings, I am not sure how the movie makes sense to someone who hasn't read the book. Ryan's The Longest Day is a classic and The Last Battle is a decent read.
• D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor: There are so many books on D-Day, it was hard to select my favorite. However, in the end, Beevor's masterpiece wins for me. I would include Keegan's Six Armies in Normandy, Ryan's The Longest Day, D'Este's Decision in Normandy, and Hastings' Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy are all top notch. I guess I shouldn't leave out Stephen Ambrose when it comes to D-Day (author of Band of Brothers)--my favorite Ambrose book is Pegasus Bridge (I did enjoy BoB, BTW).
• The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 by Rick Atkinson. The second volume in Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy reaches the same bar as An Army At Dawn (listed above).
• Desert War: The North African Campaign 1940-1943 by Alan Moorehead. A classic military history trilogy in one a one-volume edition.
• Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire by Richard Frank. A powerful and detailed account of the fall of Japan, based on recently declassified documents. Lots of good analysis surrounded by an excellent narrative. Hastings Retribution covers much of the same ground and is also very good. Frank's Guadalcanal is also excellent.
• Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan by Ronald Spector. My favorite overview of America's war in the Pacific against Japan. Spector creates a lot of context by detailing pre-war plans and doctrines of both Japan and the U.S. He manages to do all this and give a good account of the military engagements without creating a multi-volume monster. Toland's The Rising Sun is also very good.
• Fire in the Sky: The Air War in the South Pacific by Eric Bergerud. This is a fantastic book on a topic that gets little coverage in pop history books. I had yet read the companion volume, Touched With Fire: The Land War in the South Pacific (another To Read item).
• Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 by David Kennedy. This book is part of The Oxford History of the United States, a series that will ultimately comprise 12 volumes. I try to get one of these books for Christmas or my birthday every year. They are incredible and Kennedy's contribution is equal to its peers.
• Guadalcanal Diary by Richard Tregaskis. A classic. I read this in junior high school and it piqued my interest in history of all kinds, not just military history. I think Frank's Guadalcanal is the definitive history of WW2 on this little island, but Tragaskis work is near and dear to me.
• Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer. I wasn't sure if I wanted to include this book or not. Speer somehow managed to escape a death sentence at the Nuremburg Trials, getting only a 20 year prison sentence despite his role in the use of slave/forced labor as Minister of Armaments. It is an important book and I came away with a much better understanding of the Nazi's rise to power and the unsettling mix of the ordinary and the diabolical. Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil provides some exegesis (to use a big fancy word) in some sort of weird way...in the sense that evil is less obvious and alien that we might suppose.
• The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. This is a big weighty tomb but it lured me in and wouldn't let me go until I finished it. Rhodes did an extraordinary amount of research and it shows, but his fine storytelling makes this work. Who knew the Soviets had their fingers in all of this? (really their eyes and ears). I had to read Rhodes sequel of a sort right away, Dark Sun, on the making of the hydrogen bomb (not to be confused with the D&D setting of the same name*).
• Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman. My wife and I read this for our "house book club" (just her and I) at her suggestion. Art Spiegelman tells the story of his father's Holocaust experience in graphic novel form. It was compelling and gut-wrenching, all the more powerful because of the graphic rendition of the story. It also had its funny moments.
• Miracle at Midway by Gordon Prange. Midway and Stalingrad are considered the turning point battles of WW2. Prange's work is my favorite Midway book. His account of the attack on Pearl Harbor, At Dawn We Slept, is also very good (and balanced).
• Ortono: Canada's Epic World War II Battle by Mark Zuehlke. I am not sure how I ended up with this book in my library, but it is a good one and not easy to find. It covers the Battle of Ortono, in Italy, where the Canadians squared off against the Germans. Zuehlke does an nice job of telling the story of this little-known battle.
• The Second World War by John Keegan. This book, boys and girls, is my favoritist of the favorites. I have worn out one copy and my current copy looks like it went through a cycle in the washing machine. Keegan's Six Armies in Normandy is also quite good. This makes up for his book, The Iraq War, which I found to be abysmal. His annotated list of 50 recommended books on WW2 is worth the price of the book.
• Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1933-1945 by David Kahn. Since the declassifying of Ultra in 1974 there has been an explosion of books on WW2 codes and codebreaking. I admit to being a junkie. Kahn's book, Seizing the Enigma, is still my favorite. The highlight of my trip to The Spy Museum in Washington D.C. (a daddy/daughter day trip...her idea) was seeing an actual German Enigma machine. Someday before I die (it will have to be, come to think about it), I want to plow through Kahn's 1200 page monster, The Codebreakers.
• Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 by Anthony Beevor. Beevor is one of my favorite WW2 authors and this is one of his best. His book, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, is listed above. I also liked The Fall of Berlin 1945.
• Stopped at Stalingrad: The Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East, 1942-1943  by Joel Hayward. A part of the epic battle that gets lost in the shuffle. I really enjoyed Hayward's history and analysis.
• To Command the Sky: The Battle for Air Superiority Over Germany, 1942-1944 by Stephen McFarland. An offering from the Smithsonian History of Aviation series. I consider it the best in the series. Hastings' Bomber Command is the more influential book on the topic and focuses more specifically on the role of Great Britain's strategic bombing in WW2, its value, and its cost to both GB and Germany.
• Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H.W. Brands. This is the only biography on my list, although there is a lot of good stuff on political and military leaders that I could have included. Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time and David McCullough's Truman are both very good bios of U.S. Presidents for the period in question.
• The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War by Samuel Eliot Morison. "Short" seems a bit inaccurate when looking at this massive tome, unless you know that it is a condension of a 15 volume work by the same author. Morison is an excellent scholar and an amazing writer. This is good stuff.
• When God Looked the Other Way: An Odyssey of War, Exile, and Redemption by Wesley Adamczyk. My wife and I read this for our "in house" book club (just she and I). A memoir of Poland and the Eastern front from the perspective of a child. We found this book to be horrifying yet ultimately uplifting and full of hope in the face of unspeakable violence and deprivation.
• With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge. John Keegan states that this is the single best memoir to come out of WW2. I concur.
• A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II by Gerhard Weinberg. This book is a big fella, devoting a lot of pages to covering the full sweep of WW2. It is probably the most complete history of WW2 that I have read, yet I plowed through it without trouble because it is so well-written.

My World War 2 To Read List

• The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History) by Craig Symonds
• Black Cat Raiders of WW II by Richard C. Knott
• The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe (Liberation Trilogy: Volume 3) by Rick Atkinson
• Heigegger and Nazism by Victor Farias
• The Holy Fire: The Teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto by Nehemia Polen
• In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson
• Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings
• Kasserine Pass by Martin Blumenson
• Kursk: The Air Battle, July 1943 by Christer Bergstrom
• The Second World War by Antony Beevor
• Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 by Barbara Tuchman
• To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942 by David Glantz and Jonathan House
• Touched with Fire: The Land War in the South Pacific by Eric Bergerud
• Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure by Don and Petie Kladstrup
• A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City, A Diary by Anonymous

And when I retire (or win PowerBall) I will finally read Morison's 15 volume work on the U.S. Navy in WW2 and Winston Churchill's classic 6 volume history of WW2.