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Hi all,

I was looking to buy some books to help me in the game a bit and while the selection available in my part of the world is fairly small I have come across a few that I have heard were good (or at least I can buy them online in Oz) They are all by Stephen Ambrose and are called:

D Day

Citizen Soldiers

Band of Brothers

Pegasus Bridge (I want this one because I read an excerpt online and saw that my namesake - Wallwork - was the first glider pilot to cross into France in the invasion)

Anyway has anyone read these (I'm sure you have) and if so do you recommend them. I am looking for readability rather than being bogged down in a myriad of detail. I don't want to do a Major in Military History here, I just want a bit more of a feel for what the fighting was like and the tactics used.

Thanks

Tasman

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Check out siteonsound.com. Rob has put together a pretty impressive list of books that folks here have recommended. YOu could also do a search. The 'books' topic has come up many times.

As for Ambrose. I like him but am not crazy about him. Not one of my favorite WWII historians. I loved Undaunted Courage--Lewis and Clark.

For small unit tactics I would recommend:

Company Commander by Charles Macdonald

Infantry Attack by Irwin Rommel

The Devils Adjutant by Michael Reynolds

There are sooo many others......

Hope this helps-------Chris

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Land Soft--Kill Quiet

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Hi,

the best book on tactics in WW2 in NW Europe

is Closing with the Enemy by Michael Doubler,

its perfectly readable too.

I would agree that Company Commander is a fine personal account of infantry warfare. For tank warfare my number one book is Tank! by Ken Tout, a moving personal account of war from inside a tank. Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk should have both.

For books on the Eastern Front pop over to the "Stalingrad, a Fantastic Read" thread.

All the best,

Kip.

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Guest Michael emrys

Tasman, I expect you will find Ambrose a congenial read, but you need to be careful about buying everything he's offering. For one thing, he suffers from a heavy case of hero worship for the GI's, which is not a bad thing in itself, but does tend to degrade the distance and objectivity a historian needs to bring ot his task.

Secondly, he commits some outstanding howlers that I find simply incredible in anyone claiming to be a historian of that period. The one that comes immediately to mind was the place in /Citizen Soldiers/ where he announced that the Panther *tank* had an 88mm gun. This was not a one-time thing. After page after page of this kind of thing, I gave up on him.

This is not to say that his work is of no value at all, just that for me personally it wasn't worth the time and effort to continue. Perhaps it would be better to think of him not as a historian but as a journalist compiling interviews and just not sweat the details. Just be careful after reading him that you don't go around making declarations of fact based on what he writes.

Michael

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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>...he commits some outstanding howlers that I find simply incredible in anyone claiming to be a historian of that period...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> While not a "historian" per se, I also found some problems in "The Greatest Generation Speaks" by Tom Brokaw. Obviously he's quoting letters from veterans, but in one of the opening chapters he quotes someone who was apparently a B-24 crewman who referred to "50mm shell casings piled up on the floor" and "since the P-38 had better radar and sonar than we did ...". Those aren't exact quotes but close enough.

Then, one chapter later, was the "saga" of a Polish man whose exploits can only be described as fantastic, with the emphasis on fantasy. Again, to be fair, they were recounted by his son and God knows what his old man told him.

Joe

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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by TankDawg:

Of the Ambrose books, Band of Brothers is very, very good.

Jeff<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I really wanted to read this book (having been a paratrooper myself), but one thing stopped me.. I looked through the photographs and came to one where the caption read something about how the gallant defenders of Bastogne held out against the SS Panzer divisions....Correct me if I'm wrong but Bastogne was in the 5th Panzer Army (Manteuffel ) sector, which had no SS troops.

Nitpicking maybe, but that kind of makes me wander how accurate the text is going to be.

In truth, I did enjoy Ambrose's D-Day and a friend bought me Citizen Soldiers...

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Land Soft--Kill Quiet

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Guest Michael emrys

In fact, it was the Panzer Lehr division (general Fritz Bayerlein) that did most of the attacking at Bastogne. I think later on a Volksgrenadier division got involved too, but I don't recall which one (252nd.?).

Michael

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I,m reading a general history of the Overlord campaign called "Decision in Normandy" by Carlo D'Este which seems pretty good. "Battle "by John Toland is a good one on the Bastogne action. "Battle at Best" by S.L.A. Marshall, in fact anything by SLAM Marshall. "The Men of Company K" by Leinbaugh and Campbell is good one for the infantryman's viewpoint. "A Time For Trumpets" by Charles MacDonald, "August 1944' by Miller, "Panzer Commander" by Hans von Luck,"Panzer Battles" by von Mellenthin, "The Battle of the Generals" by Blumenson, "Saving the Breakout" by Featherston, Omar Bradley's "A Soldier's Story" for a general history of the War in Europe, "Steel Inferno" by Micheal Reynolds for the Panzer's history of the Normandy campaign.

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Blessed be the Lord my strength who teaches my hands to war and my fingers to fight.

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