World Wars I & II |
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To read reviews about a book or order it, click on its title. To quickly reach one of the subtopics immediately below, click on it.
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| Air War | Bataan Death March | Belgium | D Day | Denmark | France | General WWIIl | German Army | Germany | |
Bagley, Mark. The G Stands for Guts: A Glider Pilot Remembers WWII. L & R Publishing, 2008. Pilot tells the story of military gliders and the men who died in them.
Berg, Norman E. My Carrier War: The Life and Times of a Naval Aviator in WWII. Hellgate Press, 2001.
Burriss, T. Moffatt. Strike and Hold: A Memoir of the 82nd Airborne in World War II. Brassey’s Publishing, 2001.
Davis, James M. In Hostile Skies: An American B-24 Pilot in World War II. University of North Texas Press, 2006.
Davis, William E. Sinking the Rising Sun: Dog Fighting & Dive Bombing in World War II: A Navy Fighter Pilot's Story. Zenith Press, 2007.
Eddy, George A. Fly Boy: Navy Wings and Willing Women – WWII. Outskirts Press, 2006.
Hatch, Herbert Brooks. Ace and His Angels: Memoirs of a WWII Fighter Pilot. Turner Pub., 2000.
Moffat, John and Rossiter, Mike. I Sank the Bismarck: Memoirs of a Second World War Navy Pilot. Corgi, 2010.
Morgan, Robert. The Man Who Flew the Memphis Belle: Memoir of a WWII Bomber Pilot. NAL Trade, 2002.
Rehr, Louis S. Marauder: Memoir of a B-26 Pilot in Europe in World War II. McFarland, 2003.
Rochlin, Fred. Old Man in a Baseball Cap: A Memoir of World War II. Harper Paperbacks, 2000. The book version of Rochlin’s acclaimed one-man-show on his service in the Army Air Corps during WWII.
Playter, John. Survivor: A Personal Memoir Of One Soldier's Experience In The Battle For The Philippines, The Bataan Death March, Japanese Slave Labor Camps & Escape From The Japanese Hell Ship, The Shinyo Maru. Southwest Baptist University, 2000.
Raymond, Steve. Too Dead to Die: A Memoir of Bataan and Beyond. Plaidswede Pub., 2006.
Stewart, Sidney. Give Us This Day. W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1999. Three years spent as a POW in Bataan.
Van Meers, Rachel. Lost in the Fog: Memoir of a Bastard: A Belgian Recalls the War, the Nazis, Her Fractured Life. Academy Chicago Publishers, 2008. Not well edited story of a woman born illegitimately to a Flemish Catholic family in Belgium in 1930 and abused by her stepfather who opposed her parents’ support for the SS.
Arn, Edward C. Arn's War: Memoirs of A World War II Infantryman, 1940-1946. University of Akron Press, 2005.
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| Air War | Bataan Death March | Belgium | D Day | Denmark | France | General WWIIl | German Army | Germany | |
Tveskov, Peter. Conquered, Not Defeated: Growing up in Denmark during the German Occupation of WWII. Hellgate Press, 2003. Blending of childhood memories with a history of how the German occupation affected the Danes.
France (see also Europe/France)
Anthonioz, Genevieve de Gaulle. The Dawn of Hope. Arcade Publishing, 1999. Member of the French Resistance is sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp; becomes a leader in international aid organizations after her release.
D’Albert-Lake, Virginia. An American Heroine in the French Resistance: The Diary and Memoir of Virginia D'AlbertLake. Fordham University Press, 2008.
de Anfrasio, Roger. A Garden of Thorns: My Memoir of Surviving World War II in France. Silk City Pr., 2000.
Diamond, Hanna. Fleeing Hitler: France 1940. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Duras, Marguerite. The War: A Memoir. New Press, 1994. Paris during the Nazi occupation and the first months of liberation.
Humbert, Agnes. Resistance: Memoirs of Occupied France. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2009. A Parisian art historian starts a resistance newspaper for which she is convicted and imprisoned in France and Germany.
Jackson, Warren. His Time in Hell: A Texas Marine in France. Presidio Press, 2001.
Michlin, Gilbert. Of No Interest to the Nation: A Jewish Family in France, 1925-1945, A Memoir. Wayne State University Press, 2004.
Synnestvedt, Alice. Over the Highest Mountains: A Memoir of Unexpected Heroism in France during World War II. Intentional Productions, 2004. Norwegian nurse fed French children and rescued people from the Nazis.
Wolf, Jacqueline. Take Care of Josette: A Memoir in Defense of Occupied France. Franklin Watts, 1981. 14 year old takes care of 4 year old sister when parents are taken to concentration camp.
Babcock, John B. Taught to Kill: An American Boy's War from the Ardennes to Berlin. Potomac Books, 2005.
Bennett, General Donald V. Honor Untarnished: A West Point Graduate's Memoir of World War II. Forge Books, 2004. Fighting the Afrika Korps, D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, leading inexperienced recruits into battle against the Axis powers.
Blondell, Anthony. Cape Town to Zanzibar. Hellgate Press, 2007. By a South African seaman in the British Navy during WWII.
Brombert, Victor H. Trains of Thought: Memories of a Stateless Youth. W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2002. A literary scholar on childhood during WWII.
Cawthon, Charles R. and Cooper, Jerry. Other Clay: A Remembrance of the World War II Infantry. Bison Books, 2004.
Che, Sunny. Forever Alien: A Korean Memoir, 1930-1951. McFarland, 2005. On the author’s adolescence in Japan, return to Korea, and experience of WWII.
Churchill, Winston S. Memoirs of the Second World War. Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
Compton, Lynn D. Call of Duty: My Life Before, During and After the Band of Brothers. Berkley Caliber, 2008. On the author's military service and his college baseball and football days.
Ellsworth, Ted. Yank: Memoir of a World War II Soldier (1941-1945)—From the Desert War of North Africa to the Allied Invasion of Europe, from German POW Camp to Home Again. Da Capo Press, 2006.
Foley, William. Visions From a Foxhole: A Rifleman in Patton's Ghost Corps. Presidio Press, 2004.
Franks, Lucinda. My Father's Secret War: A Memoir. Miramax, 2007. After a Pulitzer-winning reporter discovers Nazi military paraphernalia in her elderly father’s apartment (he worked in military intelligence and was one of the first American observers at a liberated concentration camp), she tries to get him to talk about his experiences.
Gantter, Raymond. Roll Me Over: An Infantryman's World War II. Presidio Press, 1997.
Gordon, Beate Sirota. The Only Woman in the Room: A Memoir. Kodansha International, 1998. Russian-Jewish author grew up in Japan, worked for Gen. Douglas MacArthur during WWII.
Gorrell, Henry T. Soldier of the Press: Covering the Front in Europe and North Africa, 1936-1943. University of Missouri Press, 2009.
Gurley, Franklin L. Into the Mountains Dark: A WWII Odyssey from Harvard Crimson to Infantry Blue. Aberjona Press, 2000.
Hadden, Alexander, H. Not Me: The World War II Memoir of a Reluctant Rifleman. Marriam Press, 1997.
Hills, Stuart. By Tank Into Normandy: A Memoir of the Campaign in North-West Europe from D-Day to VE Day. Cassell & Co., 2004.
Hoffman, Daniel. Zone of the Interior: A Memoir, 1942-1947. Louisiana State University Press, 2000. Poet recalls life on the American Homefront during and immediately following WWII.
Irgang, Frank. Etched in Purple: One Soldier's War in Europe. Potomac Books Inc., 2008. American soldier in WWII.
Joy, Dean. Sixty Days in Combat: An Infantryman's Memoir of World War II in Europe. Presidio Press, 2006.
Kingsbury, Richard R. The Eighteen-Year-Old Replacement: Facing Combat in Patton's Third Army. University of Missouri Press, 2008.
Lane, Byron. Byron’s War: I Never Will Be Young Again. Hellgate Press, 1997. A coming of age story based on the author's journals and letters written between 1942 and 1945 during his time fighting the Germans.
MacDonald, Charles B. Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of World War II. Burford Books, 1999.
Malarkey, Don. Easy Company Soldier: The Legendary Battles of a Sergeant from World War II's Band of Brothers. St. Martin's Griffin, 2009. The author’s Depression era childhood, his paratrooper training, landing at Normandy, and service as an NCO.
Pagliaro, Harold. Naked Heart: A Soldier's Journey to the Front. Truman State University Press, 1996. The author recounts his feelings of isolation of a wartime teenage solider who moves from training and eventually to the front.
Putney, William. Always Faithful: A Memoir of the Marine Dogs of WWII. Potomac Books, 2003. Author was as a marine commander in the Dog Platoon.
Roland, Charles P. My Odyssey Through History: Memoirs of War and Academe. Louisiana State University Press, 2003.
Romine, Charlie. Where Duty Calls: Growing Up in the Marine Corps. Hellgate Press, 1999. A young man joins the marines soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Settle, Mary Lee. Learning to Fly: A Writer’s Memoir. W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2007. On her service in World War II and long apprenticeship as a writer.
Swift, Stanley. Oh, What a Lovely War!: A Soldier’s Memoir. Hellgate Press, 1999. A soldier’s experience in the North African deserts and on marches from Normandy to Berlin in 1945.
Wilmot, Laurence F. Through the Hitler Line: Memoirs of an Infantry Chaplain. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 2003.
Wilson, George. If You Survive. Ballantine Books, 1997. By an officer who fought at St Lo, the Hurtgen & Bulge etc.
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| Air War | Bataan Death March | Belgium | D Day | Denmark | France | General WWIIl | German Army | Germany | |
Grass, Gunter. Peeling the Onion. Harcourt Inc., 2007. Nobel-prize winning novelist’s youthful service in the Waffen SS combat unit during the last months of WWII.
Schmid, Walter. A German POW in New Mexico. University of New Mexico Press, 2005. Captured in Tunisia, author spent three years in U.S. POW camps.
Voss, Johann. Black Edelweiss: A Memoir of Combat and Conscience by a Soldier of the Waffen-SS. The Aberjona Press, 2002.
Germany (See also Europe/Germany)
Hunt, Irmgard. On Hitler’s Mountain: Overcome the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood. Harper Perennial, 2005.
Jentsch, Mary Hunt. Trek: An American Woman, Two Small Children and Survival in World War II Germany. McWitty Press, 2008.
Sellier, Claus. Walking Away from the Third Reich: A Teenager in Hitler’s Army. Hellgate Press, 2006. German boy is proud to become a soldier, but realities faced during war are devastating.
Sereny, Gitta. The Healing Wound: Experiences and Reflections, Germany, 1938-2001. W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2002. Author who witnessed Nuremburg Rally as a child tries to understand German National Socialism.
Allanbrook, Douglas. See Naples: A Memoir of Love, Peace, and War in Italy. Houghton Mifflin, 1995.
Corvo, Max. The O.S.S. in Italy, 1942-1945: A Personal Memoir. Praeger Publishers, 1989. Chief of OSS operations in Italy writes about military intelligence.
Ellis, Robert B. See Naples and Die: A World War II Memoir of a United States Army Ski Trooper in the Mountains of Italy. McFarland and Co., 1998.
Geiser, Antonia Sparano. Innocent Heart, Laughter and Tears: A Memoir of Maria Marzia Maiello and Her Family Life in Santa Nicola La Strada, Italy. Lost Coast Press, 2000. Daughter of immigrant who fled facism tells mother’s story.
Lamb, Richard. War In Italy, 1943-1945: A Brutal Story. Da Capo Press, 1996. By an American veteran of the Italian campaign.
Loy, Rosetta. First Words: A Childhood in Fascist Italy. Holt Paperbacks, 2001.
Romagnoli, G. Franco. The Bicycle Runner: A Memoir of Love, Loyalty, and the Italian Resistance. Thomas Dunne Books, 2009. As a child, Italian food writer smuggled documents to resistance; remembers his first love, an American pilot.
Schmidt, Robert H. The Forgotten Front in Northern Italy: A World War II Combat Photographer's Illustrated Memoir of the Gothic Line Campaign. McFarland and Co., 1994.
Tittmann, Harold H. Jr. Inside the Vatican of Pius XII: The Memoir of an American Diplomat During World War II. Image Books/Doubleday, 2004.
MacDonald, Beryl. Once Upon a War: Growing Up in the London Blitz. Otek Press, 2007.
Wheal, Donald James. World's End: A Memoir of a Blitz Childhood. Arrow, 2005.
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| Air War | Bataan Death March | Belgium | D Day | Denmark | France | General WWIIl | German Army | Germany | |
Lovato, Francisco L. Survivor: An American Soldier's Heartfelt Story of Intense Fighting, Surrender, and Survival from Bataan to Nagasaki. Del Oro Press, 2008.
Milam, David C. The Last Bomb: A U.S. Marine's Memoirs of Nagasaki. Eakin Press, 2002.
Netherlands
den Hartog, Kristen. The Occupied Garden: A Family Memoir of War-Torn Holland. Thomas Dunne Books, 2009.
Hipperson, Carol Edgemon. Radioman: An Eyewitness Account of Pearl Harbor and World War II in the Pacific. Thomas Dunne Books, 2008.
Raymer, Edward. Descent Into Darkness: Pearl Harbor, 1941: A Navy Diver’s Memoir. Presidio Press, 1996.
Swain, Adrian. The Time of My Life: Memoirs of a Government Agent from Pearl Harbor to the Golden Triangle. Axelrod Publishing, 1995.
Zenji, Abe. The Emperor’s Sea Eagle: A Memoir of the Attack on Pearl Harbor and the War in the Pacific. Arizona Memorial Museum Assoc., 2006.
Blaichman, Frank. Rather Die Fighting. Arcade Publishing, 2008. Author forms Jewish resistance battalion during Nazi occupation of Poland.
Croydon-Trzcinska, Lilka. The Labyrinth of Dangerous Hours: A Memoir of the Second World War. University of Toronto Press, 2004. Young girl is sent to concentration camps as political prisoner after joining anti-Nazi resistance.
Dembowski, Peter F. Christians in the Warsaw Ghetto: An Epitaph for the Unremembered. University of Notre Dame Press, 2005.
Gelman, Charles. Do Not Go Gentle: Memoir of Jewish Resistance in Poland, 1941 - 1945. Shoe String Press, 1990.
Klukowski, Zygmunt. Red Shadow a Physician's Memoir of the Soviet Occupation of Eastern Poland, 1944 - 1956. McFarland and Co., 1997.
Lanckoronska, Karolina. Michelangelo in Ravensbruck: One Woman's War Against the Nazis. Da Capo Press, 2007.
Piotrowski, Tadsusz. Vengeance of the Swallows: Memoir of a Polish Family's Ordeal Under Soviet Aggression, Ukrainian Ethnic Cleansing and Nazi Enslavement, and Their Emigration to America. McFarland and Co., 1995. Gentile family suffers same fate as Jewish counterparts.
Zamoyska-Panek, Christine. Have You Forgotten? A Memoir of Poland 1939-1945. Doubleday, 1989. Born into aristocracy, young girl becomes victim of war.
Crasta, John Baptist. Eaten by the Japanese: The Memoir of an Uknown Indian Prisoner of War. Invisible Man Books, 1999.
Rawicz, Slavomir. The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom. The Lyons Press, 2006. A cavalry officer, captured by the Red Army in 1939 during the German-Soviet partition of Poland is sent to the Siberian Gulag but manages to escape and walk thousands of miles to freedom after which he reenlists in the Polish army to fight the Germans.
Zincke, Herbert. Mitsui Madhouse: Memoir of A U.S. Army Air Corps POW in World War II. McFarland & Co., 2003.
Mariinskiy, Evgeniy. Red Star Airacobra: Memoirs of a Soviet Fighter Ace 1941-45. Helion and Co., 2006.
Perlina, Nina and Simmons, Cynthia. Writing the Siege of Leningrad: Women's Diaries Memoirs and Documentary. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. Stories from women who lived through a 900-day blockade of the Russian city during World War II.
Smirnova-Medvedeva, Zoya. On the Road to Stalingrad: Memoirs of a Woman Machine Gunner . New Military Pub., 1997. About the war in the trenches on the Eastern Front.
Timofeyeva-Yegorova, Anna. Red Sky, Black Death: A Soviet Woman Pilot's Memoir of the Eastern Front. Slavica Publishers, 2009.
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| Air War | Bataan Death March | Belgium | D Day | Denmark | France | General WWIIl | German Army | Germany | |
Ruiz, Captain C. Kenneth. The Luck of the Draw: The Memoir of a World War II Submariner: From Savo Island to the Silent Service. Zenith Press, 2005.
Gilbert, Helen. "Okay, Girls - Man Your Bunks!" Tales from the Life of a WWII Navy WAVE. Pedestrian Press, 2006.
Allen, Hervey. Toward the Flame: A Memoir of World War I. University of Nebraska Press, 2003. A chronicle of the experiences of the 28th Division in 1918.
Browne, George. An American Soldier in World War I. University of Nebraska Press, 2006.
Graves, Robert. Goodbye to All That. Berghahn Books, 1995. Classic and bitter memoir by a member of the generation of Englishmen who suffered severely in World War I.
Libby, Frederick. Horses Don’t Fly: A Memoir of World War I. Arcade Publishing, 2000. American volunteer in Canadian Army becomes first American to receive British military cross for valor.
Thompson, Hugh S.Trench Knives and Mustard Gas: With the 42nd Rainbow Division in France. Texas A & M University Press. 2004. On the front lines of WWI.
Triplet, William S. A Youth in the Meuse-Argonne: A Memoir, 1917-1918. University of Missouri Press, 2000. Young man enlists in National Guard during WWI.
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| Air War | Bataan Death March | Belgium | D Day | Denmark | France | General WWIIl | German Army | Germany | |