Reading material

[bracco_n]

Hey guys, newbie here... I was just wondering if you could recommend a book about the normandy campaign. I'm looking for some detailed reading with maps and photos to follow the action better.

Thanks in advance!

[M1A1TC]

Here are some books in my collection:

Siegfried - The Nazi's Last Stand by Charles Whiting

Battered Bastards of Bastogne by George Koskimaki

Overlord - D-Day and the battle of Normandy by Max Hastings

[umlaut]

I´ve just read "Tank!" by Ken Tout. A very well written personal tale about one day´s battle for a british Sherman crew in Normandy.

Highly recommended - even though the brits won´t arrive until the next module.

[Placebo]

I´ve just read "Tank!" by Ken Tout. A very well written personal tale about one day´s battle for a british Sherman crew in Normandy.

Highly recommended - even though the brits won´t arrive until the next module.

I am in the middle of this as well, good book about life as a tanker not the generals view of the battlefield. Now I just wish i could get hold of that commonweath module!!

[mjkerner]

bracco, this site is a must:

http://www.history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/resmat/WW2-EAME.html

[Magpie_Oz]

Nothing by Ambrose !

He is in disgrace on this forum

[MengJiao]

Hey guys, newbie here... I was just wondering if you could recommend a book about the normandy campaign. I'm looking for some detailed reading with maps and photos to follow the action better.

Thanks in advance!

You can get the US official history (and or Blumenson):

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Breakout/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Blumenson

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/martin-blumenson-my-remembrance-of-a-friend.htm

[kipanderson]

Hi,

I add my vote to books by Ken Tout.

Great writer.

All the best,

Kip.

[wokelly]

Overlord - D-Day and the battle of Normandy by Max Hastings

Gonna argue against this one, book is about 30 years out of date with recent works. Normandy historiography has evolved a lot over even the last decade, let alone three. Frankly I would argue that newer the book is the better, even though there are recent works which are mediocre at best. 1980's revisionist works were good for their time, but their explanations for a lot of stuff does not hold a candle compared to modern stuff.

I can't really offer any good up to date study of the campaign as a whole, though I can offer books that focus on aspects of Normandy. Personally I have been focused on the Anglo-Canadian side more recently, so for that my recommendations are:

British Armour in the Normandy Campaign 1944 by John Buckley

Colossal Cracks - 21st Army group in Normandy by Stephen Hart

Fields of Fire - Canadians in Normandy by Terry Copp

I also hear Zitterling's Normandy work is quite good though I know people have problems with his arguments (hard to find a book that everyone likes). Also there is Antony Beevor's recent Normandy book, which is at the very least a recent publication that is likely to contain more recent works by other authors and thus should be better than many of the 1980's "classics".

Unfortunately nothing quite Glantz like for Normandy as of yet.

[Speedy]

Mention of Tank reminded me of this good book.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tank-Normandy-Cassell-Military-Paperbacks/dp/0304366404

[sburke]

Two recent reads that were good.

Destination Normandy: Three American Regiments on D-Day - G. H. Bennett

After D-Day: Operation Cobra and the Normandy Breakout - James Jay Carafano

[Broadsword56]

Beyond the Beachhead, by Joseph Balkoski

The Clay Pigeons of Saint Lo, by Glover S. Johns

Saving the Breakout: The 30th Division's Herois Stand at Mortain, August 7-12, 1944, by Alwyn Featherston

And if you just want a ripping read (not set in 1944 but in 1942's Dieppe raid):

Green Beach, by James Leasor

[Lets_All_Fight]

Mention of Tank reminded me of this good book.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tank-Normandy-Cassell-Military-Paperbacks/dp/0304366404

By Tank into Normandy is a very good book and I heartily recommend it.

I also second The Clay Pigeons... It's almost the perfect companion to CMBN.

[Aragorn2002]

Dying for Saint-Lo. Best book I've ever read about the American part of the Normandy front.

[Sickie]

Antony Beevor's D-Day The Battle for Normandy.

[Fredrock1957]

Beyond the Beachhead, by Joseph Balkoski

A really good account of the 29th Division...

Also some I have enjoyed are:

'The D-Day Companion', J. Penrose Osprey Publishing, ISBN 1-84176-779-4

'Currahee, A Screaming Eagle in Normandy' by D. Burgett, ISBN 0-440-23630-4

'Invasion 1944', by Hans Speidel, ISBN 0-445-63812-9

'Fighting with the Screaming Eagles', by R. Bowen, ISBN 1-85367-465-6

'From Normandy to the Ruhr: With the 116th Panzer Division in World War II' , by Heinz Günther Guderian, ISBN 0-96663-897-2

'Omaha Beach' by A. Lewis, ISBN 0-80782-609-X

...

[Lt. Smash]

I've neem enjoying "Tonight We Die as Men PB: The Untold Story of Third Battalion 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment from Toccoa to D-Day" by Ian Gardner and Roger Day.

http://www.amazon.com/Tonight-Die-Men-Batallion-ebook/dp/B0058Z9CYW/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_ke?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312639883&sr=1-1

Bob

[Frankster65]

I'm currently reading this one. Goes into great detail with operational and tactical level combat including a lot of interesting detail from the grunts who were there in the thick of it.

The Americans in Normandy by John C. McManus

http://www.amazon.com/Americans-Normandy-1944---American-Beaches/dp/076531200X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312644864&sr=1-1

Also, great material for scenario making from the American side.

[Broadsword56]

As a former journalist, I really value the WWII books that are well-written and whose stories are more than just the dry facts.

Here's an outstanding one I read a few weeks ago -- don't know how I missed it all these years:

Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich, by David Kenyon Webster.

Webster was in the famous "Band of Brothers" unit, but because he wrote this in the 1950s when the memories (good and bad) were still fresh, he doesn't put a halo on Capt Winters or nurture the legend that's grown up since then around their exploits. You won't find as many detailed tactical vignettes about the battles here -- just the most cynically honest depiction of the moment-to-moment WWII soldier's life I've ever read. One of the best chapters is one where very little happens: a long period in Alsace manning a dangerously isolated outpost in a ruined basement, peering across the river at the Germans and worrying about being overrun.

[Frankster65]

Aaahh...interesting. I remember his character in the movie. His was the character which stook up in the truck and shouted at the German soldiers...about meeting Ford, GM and etc. I believe he ended up missing at sea in real life. I'll have to check his book out.

[Lets_All_Fight]

As a former journalist, I really value the WWII books that are well-written and whose stories are more than just the dry facts.

Here's an outstanding one I read a few weeks ago -- don't know how I missed it all these years:

Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich, by David Kenyon Webster.

Webster was in the famous "Band of Brothers" unit, but because he wrote this in the 1950s when the memories (good and bad) were still fresh, he doesn't put a halo on Capt Winters or nurture the legend that's grown up since then around their exploits. You won't find as many detailed tactical vignettes about the battles here -- just the most cynically honest depiction of the moment-to-moment WWII soldier's life I've ever read. One of the best chapters is one where very little happens: a long period in Alsace manning a dangerously isolated outpost in a ruined basement, peering across the river at the Germans and worrying about being overrun.

He disappeared in the 60's did he not? Feared drowned IIRC. I've always been quite curious about Webster and his memoirs. Is it a new edition? I always imagined it was long out of print.

EDIT: OK, just ordered it from Amazon market. 1 click purchasing is a dangerous thing...

[Broadsword56]

Yes, Webster was a New York preppie and a Harvard man who -- while he probably could have pulled strings to get a safe billet or at least an officer's commission -- chose instead to join the paratroops as a combat infantryman. I imagine his war experiences contributed to a hunger for thrill-seeking, which led him into sailing, surfing, scuba diving and eventually deep-sea shark fishing from small boats. One day in 1961 the sharks apparently got their revenge -- his boat was found, but the oar and tiller were missing, along with Webster.

[Broadsword56]

That reminds me of yet another ripping read, this time by a British author. Patrick Leigh Fermor's, "Ill Met by Moonlight." Fermor was one of those vanished breed of well-bred Empire scholar-warriors, steeped in the Classics, who might be as comfortable parachuting behind enemy lines as they would be at a diplomatic cocktail reception. This is Fermor's true story of how he and a few other British agents stayed behind in Crete to organize the resistance movement. He not only managed to survive and accomplish this, but to lead a daring nighttime ambush that captured a German general!

[Lets_All_Fight]

That reminds me of yet another ripping read, this time by a British author. Patrick Leigh Fermor's, "Ill Met by Moonlight." Fermor was one of those vanished breed of well-bred Empire scholar-warriors, steeped in the Classics, who might be as comfortable parachuting behind enemy lines as they would be at a diplomatic cocktail reception. This is Fermor's true story of how he and a few other British agents stayed behind in Crete to organize the resistance movement. He not only managed to survive and accomplish this, but to lead a daring nighttime ambush that captured a German general!

Yes, the story of Fermor and general Kreipe sitting on the mountain at dusk awaiting Fermor's contact whilst reciting Horace to each other (Fermor had translated Horace a few years before 'for something to do') is one of those legends that seems from a vanished world now. He was also one of the finest travel writers of the 20th century - from a period when travel writing meant something vastly different from what it does now. He only died a few weeks ago, in June, at the age of 96.

[bracco_n]

Thanks for the input! I decided upon a wide-reach book to begin with so I bought Americans on D-day and Americans in Normandy 1944 by McManus, almost a thousand pages between the two so that will keep me busy for some time!