Best Personal Memoirs

I'm a junky for personal memoirs written by the combatants on the war. To date the best ones I've found have been With The Old Breed by E.B. Sledge (a marine private at Peleliu and Okinawa) and The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer (an Alsatian teenager fighting with the Germans on the eastern front.)

I'm aware that some people think The Forgotten Soldier is fiction but i've never seen any good proof to make me think so.



Give me your recommendations!

 

Agree with you on both, especially Sledge's book - it's being used as one of the sources for material (along with Leckie's "Helmet for my Pillow") on which is based the new Hanks' production about the USMC's war in the Pacific.

 

Through Hell for Hitler - Henry Metelmann.
An excellent and thoughtful memoir of one young Landser's growing up alongside the Reich and his loss of innocence on the Eastern front. Unlike many personal accounts he can actually write.

By Tank into Normandy - Stuart Hills.
A fine and readable account, matter of fact and increasingly moving. The activities of their unit's padre in particular stick in the mind.
(This padre also wrote an account of the campaign: 'Sherwood Rangers Casualty Book 1944-1945 - Revd, Leslie Skinner', which contains much good stuff on casualties among allied tank crews).

Cheers,
Adam

 

And a little further afield : -

Quartered Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser.

A superb, Privates'-eye-view of the Burma War made very 'readable' by the fact of Fraser later becoming a professional writer ( of 'Flashman' novels fame ).

 

That 'readability' is so important though isn't it. A chap can have had the most fascinating war but without the skill to get it across a memoir can be the dullest form of military read.
I always find those that try overly hard to inject 'style' into things the hardest work; and of course the just plain turgid... hmmm, back to von Manstein again.

Do you like plain diaries as well Doxie? If so I reckon Alanbrooke's war diaries are one of the best books to be thrown up by the Second War. The somewhat stilted style of a diary can become irrelevant when the events and personalities being commented on are so significant.

Cheers,
Adam

 

Two more that I like ( I should say that I have many, many memoirs in my colelction - especially aviation ones. All are 'interesting' but, as Adam so rightly says, some make dull reading. I'm only recommending the really memorable memoirs - sorry ! - here...)

So Few Got Through - The Diary Of An Infantry Officer by Martin Lindsay ( 51st Highland Division in NW Europe ) and The Recollections Of Rifleman Bowlby - Italy 1944 by Alex Bowlby.

And then - although a 'novelised memoir', maybe in the style of Sajer - Take These Men by Cyril Joly - a great book about the Desert War.

Finally, one of my all-time favourites - The Cauldron by 'Zeno'. Another 'novelised' account, this time of 21st Independent Coy at Arnhem. Controversial ( I know that Airborne Medic won't agree with my including it here ). But it's the most powerful account I know of just how nasty it could be to fight the Germans in NW Europe ; you won't forget it in a hurry.

 

Truly enjoyed this one:

Amazon.com: Hot Motors, Cold Feet: Helmut Günther: Books

and also:

http://www.amazon.com/Sniper-Eastern-Front-Memoirs-Allerberger/dp/1844153177/ref=pd_sim_b_title_2

 

I just finished, and rather enjoyed, Raymond Gantter's Roll Me Over: An Infantryman's World War II. He really brought an educated man's perspective to life in the Army, life in combat as an enlisted man, and life as an officer who still was an enlisted man at heart.

 

I really enjoyed the whole series by Donald Burgett. He's form the 101st AB.

 

I have only read Currahee from Burgett's series but I agree that it was compelling reading.

 

If you liked his books you should also look at George Koskimaki's books, they are very much the same!

 

I've got a soft spot for Panzer Commander by Von Luck as it was one of the first memoir-type accounts that I read. The sections on his postwar imprisonment in Russia I found particularly fascinating.

The most recent one I've read and can recommend is Troop Leader by Bell Bellamy. He was in 8th KRIH in 7th Armoured and fought with them from Normandy to the end of the war.

-SC

 

Halfway through this book and I like it especially for the Me 163 experiment´s first steps being discussed.

Amazon.com: Top Secret Bird: The Luftwaffe's Me-163 Comet: Wolfgang Spate, Mike Machat: Books

 

Tank Rider by Evegeni Bessonov Is a good one.

 

You might also try Steinbeck's Once There Was a War. It is not technically a memoir, as he was a war correspondent, but he does a great job of conveying the human element of the war.

 

this whole series was great but '7 roads to hell' was the best one by far IMHO.

 

agreed. an excellent book and I too liked the part about what it was like to be a prisoner of the soviets. Guy Sajer's book was probably the best german point of view book though. 'das boot' by gunther locheim is also quite good.

 

I really like Von Luck's book too.

 

I recommend Under the Red Sea Sun and The Far Shore by Commander (later R. Adm. Edward Ellsburg. They are excellent reading, very entertaining, and on somewhat obscure but vital parts of WW 2.