City Travel Guides > Books > World War II 1939-1945

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.In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of the Eastern Front (Modern War Studies)
City Travel Guides > Books > World War II 1939-1945
by: Gottlob Herbert Bidermann

September 30, 2001
I have to disagree with previous reviews, I found this book a chore to read and nothing like the other dozen I have read such as The Forgotten Soldier or most recently, Blood Red Snow.

I prefer books written in the style of those that concentrate on their experiences and of those in a foxhole around them. In Deadly Combat those around the author get rare mentions, they are simply faceless and nameless, frankly you don't care what happens to them.

Instead you get a rather dry overview of the combat as if written by a General using his memoirs and a map. I found myself skipping over paragraphs that appeared to be lifted out of a history book on German troop movements.

There are a few exceptions that describe ... Read More:
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.Ju 87 Stukageschwader of the Russian Front: 0 (Combat Aircraft)
City Travel Guides > Books > World War II 1939-1945
by: John Weal

July 10, 2008
I have to disagree with previous reviews, I found this book a chore to read and nothing like the other dozen I have read such as The Forgotten Soldier or most recently, Blood Red Snow.

I prefer books written in the style of those that concentrate on their experiences and of those in a foxhole around them. In Deadly Combat those around the author get rare mentions, they are simply faceless and nameless, frankly you don't care what happens to them.

Instead you get a rather dry overview of the combat as if written by a General using his memoirs and a map. I found myself skipping over paragraphs that appeared to be lifted out of a history book on German troop movements.

There are a few exceptions that describe ... Read More:
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.Between Silk and Cyanide
City Travel Guides > Books > World War II 1939-1945
by: Marks

September 01, 2000
Marks was with SOE during WW2. This book is a memoir of his experiences. Don't be put off by its size. Like some other reviewers, once I started it, I couldn't put it down.

In SOE Marks had the job of briefing agents about the codes they would use in the field. At the start of the war SOE's codes had several weaknesses and Marks chronicles their gradual improvement, often against opposition from various closed-minded people in the military hierarchy.

Particularly moving is his description of the code given to Violette Szabo based on the famous "Life that I have" poem. He also describes SOE's tragic failure to accept that its Danish network was completely compromised by the Germans and that most of the SOE agents sent to Denmark were ... Read More:
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.The Nachtjager War Diaries Vol 1: 0
City Travel Guides > Books > World War II 1939-1945
by: Dr. Theo Boiten

August 07, 2008
Marks was with SOE during WW2. This book is a memoir of his experiences. Don't be put off by its size. Like some other reviewers, once I started it, I couldn't put it down.

In SOE Marks had the job of briefing agents about the codes they would use in the field. At the start of the war SOE's codes had several weaknesses and Marks chronicles their gradual improvement, often against opposition from various closed-minded people in the military hierarchy.

Particularly moving is his description of the code given to Violette Szabo based on the famous "Life that I have" poem. He also describes SOE's tragic failure to accept that its Danish network was completely compromised by the Germans and that most of the SOE agents sent to Denmark were ... Read More:
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.Spitfire on My Tail: A View from the Other Side
City Travel Guides > Books > World War II 1939-1945
by: Ulrich Steinhilper, Peter Osborne

1990-05
I, too, was very impressed by this book. The author's integrity and honesty shine through as do his achievements at a very young age. I find it remarkable how very much his story is like the stories of the young RAF pilots on the English side of the Channel. An excellent read.
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.Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters
City Travel Guides > Books > World War II 1939-1945
by: Dick Winters, Cole C. Kingseed

February 07, 2006
It is so amazing of what not only Major Winters has done but the whole Battalion. I've read Stephen E Ambrose's Band of Brothers and have also got the DVD. Whether I'm watching the DVD or reading the book, if feels as though I'm there.

As Dick Winters says, if it wasn't for Captain Sobel being so nasty the lads wouldn't have bonded as well as they did.

Dick Winters is an inspiration.
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.Station X: The Code Breakers of Bletchley Park (Pan Grand Strategy)
City Travel Guides > Books > World War II 1939-1945
by: Michael Smith

February 06, 2004
It is so amazing of what not only Major Winters has done but the whole Battalion. I've read Stephen E Ambrose's Band of Brothers and have also got the DVD. Whether I'm watching the DVD or reading the book, if feels as though I'm there.

As Dick Winters says, if it wasn't for Captain Sobel being so nasty the lads wouldn't have bonded as well as they did.

Dick Winters is an inspiration.
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.The Diary of a Young Girl: Definitive Edition (Penguin Modern Classics)
City Travel Guides > Books > World War II 1939-1945
by: Anne Frank

March 30, 2000
I think this book was quite interesting and made me feel very sad at the end. It is good but it also is not very engaging and it was rather boring in parts. I bought it after studying it for A level English and even though i thought it was ok, it is not one of the best books that i have read.
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.Dunkirk: Retreat to Victory
City Travel Guides > Books > World War II 1939-1945
by: Julian Thompson

May 02, 2008
`History provides many examples of a British Army being asked to operate under appalling handicaps by the politicians responsible for British Policy, but I doubted that the British Army had ever found itself in a graver position than that in which the governments of the last twenty years had placed it.'

Maj Gen Noel Mason-MacFarlane briefing the press, 15 May 1940

So opens Julian Thompson book on the Dunkirk Campaign, the title is a bit misleading since it covers the whole employment of the BEF in that forgotten campaign of 1940. Julian Thompson rightly points out that within twenty years the best-trained, best equipped and best-command army went to within a hairs breath of total defeat. The army that in 1918 was at the height of its powers `in a ... Read More:
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.The Fall of Crete (Cassell Military Paperbacks)
City Travel Guides > Books > World War II 1939-1945
by: Alan Clark

October 11, 2001
The author narrates and analyses the situation leading up to the invasion, the fighting itself, the decisions (in indecision) by the senior New Zealand commanders which led to the Allied withdrawal and the withdrawal itself. Other than an epilogue of stories of individuals, he ends his narrative there. The style is similar to Barbarossa (another of Clark's books) with a concentration on operational and command aspects rather than the emphasis on individual experiences and anecdotes favoured by several more modern popular historians. He seems particularly good on naval aspects.

He concentrates on the British and ANZAC experience with relatively little attention given to the Greeks and Germans. His limited analysis of the disastrous Allied decisions around Maleme ... Read More:
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