WWII books to read....

Reach for the Sky by Lewis Gilbert... Story of Douglas Bader a double amputee that flew for the RAF during the Battle of Britain. He was eventually shot down over Europe and held as a POW. The Red Cross dropped new legs for him to have while being held...
Pair that with...
Fighter- The True Story of the Battle of Britain by Len Deighton

The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer

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EDIT: Robert Mason is the author. If I had to pick one of the above I would pick Chickenhawk.
Mason had balls of steel!

More than half a million copies of Chickenhawk have been sold since it was first published in 1983. Now with a new afterword by the author and photographs taken by him during the conflict, this straight-from-the-shoulder account tells the electrifying truth about the helicopter war in Vietnam. This is Robert Mason’s astounding personal story of men at war. A veteran of more than one thousand combat missions, Mason gives staggering descriptions that cut to the heart of the combat experience: the fear and belligerence, the quiet insights and raging madness, the lasting friendships and sudden death—the extreme emotions of a "chickenhawk" in constant danger.

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In addition to that, once you read "Chickenhawk" there will be no doubt in your mind that you can't sit at the controls of a Huey and fly it as if you had 1000 hrs of flight time logged.

Excellent book.

The Corp & The Officers by W.E.B. Griffin are also excellent. If you choose them, be prepared to read 8-9 novels @ around 800 pages for each series.

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With the Old Breed.

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Good book.

If you like personal books I'll recommend something from a different but extremely interesting angle, Reaping the Whirlwind by Nigel Cawthorne is made up of interviews and personal accounts of German and Japanese Soldiers and civilians through different stages of the war. There are a proverbial shite ton of books about the American experience in the war but to see it from the other side is kind of eye opening.

Those are just accounts from the "average" people involved on the Axis side. If you want something a little more highspeed then there's Skorzeny's Special Missions by Otto Skorzeny himself. How his life hasn't been made into a movie is beyond me.



Mannerheim: President, Soldier, Spy is the last thing I'll recommend. Fought the Western Allies, the Soviets and the Nazis and still managed to protect Finland's independence. He was pretty boss.

Awesome, thanks guys for the different books. Looking forward getting a few!

Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day (about D-Day) and A Bridge Too Far (about Operation Market Garden). Both are classics and were made into pretty good movies.

ETA: Thunder Below! by Eugene Flukey and The Terrible Hours by Peter Maas are good reads on submarine warfare, as well. Also, The Imperial War Museum Book of War Behind Enemy Lines by Julian Thomson details the small units and operations of the British in WWII, including the beginnings of the SAS and SBS.

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W.E.B.s stuff is great fiction.

Add the Brotherhood of War series to that.

I think that series is the best of the bunch and it's only 6 books.

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A Little background on W.E.B Griffin from wiki: Early life, education, and military service

Griffin grew up in New York City and Philadelphia. He joined the United States Army in 1946. His MOS was counter-intelligence and in this capacity he served in the Constabulary in Germany, thus earning the Army of Occupation Medal. After completing his active duty military service, Griffin attended Philipps-Universität Marburg at Marburg-an-der-Lahn. His college days were cut short in 1951 when he was recalled to serve in the Korean War, first as an official Army war correspondent, then as public information officer for U.S. X Corps, which included the 1st Marine Division. Griffin received the Combat Infantryman Badge for service at the front lines.[2] His knowledge of combat and garrison life and his friendships with military personnel from different services would well serve his writing. Many of his books are dedicated to fallen comrades who died in Korea or later on in Vietnam or while serving with the international peacekeeping force dispatched during the Lebanese Civil War. Griffin is modest about his own service. He once told a Barnes & Noble interviewer:

My own military background is wholly undistinguished. I was a sergeant. What happened was that I was incredibly lucky in getting to be around some truly distinguished senior officers, sergeants, and spooks.

Ditto Brotherhood of War.

Link to his web page: LINK

Hitler, and the War On the Pope
By Ronald J. Rychlak

Debunks the fictional novel by John Cornwell Hitler's Pope. Cornwell fabricated much of his "research", and even his cover photo, which shows the Pope leaving a party in 1927 for a future Nazi leader, is taken well before the Nazi party was even conceived.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer

I've read several and my favorite was Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides. It chronicles the Bataan Death March and the mission to free the POW's in the Phillipines. Had a close family friend that survived it and is in the book.