"War Reading: The Best World War II Memoirs" Topic

"No matter how many books you read, some just stand out forever. It could be a remembrance of good times, bad times or just an event from childhood. Others stir emotions that you didn't know you had. That is especially true for a combat memoir.

There is an art to describing a traumatic experience. Combat and its associated struggles do not make for easy subjects. So it is a rare gift in which an author can live through those events and write about it with such skill. These books do not glorify war. They stand as a testament to the human spirit within the futility of conflict.

The focus of these books is the European Theater of Operations as well as the Mediterranean…."
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Wilson's account, while good and heartfelt is by no means as well written as Gantter's (my favorite US memoir) or MacDonald's (was an historian for the US Army.)

Several of these I haven't read, so thanks, Armand!

It's not the European theatre, but Burma, but George MacDonald Fraser's Quartered Safe Out Here is a superb read.

A little partial to Spike Milligans books about his time in the British Army in Africa and Italy. Fairley Mowat's book is an interesting read too, again about action in Italy.

Panzer commander by Von Luck

I've read a fair few memoirs, but the one that really hit me is "The Blue Door" by Lise Kristensen, a young Norwegian girl & her family interned by the Japanese in Java.
link

A votre service mon ami!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand