What Are You Reading?

Just started Bill Mauldin's (WW II Joe & Willie cartoon in Stars and Stripes newspaper) auto-biography, The Brass Ring.

 

Though my primary interest is the Philippines in World War II, I am going to Normandy in May, so I am reading Normandy '44 by James Holland to brush up on D Day and the fighting directly after.

 

Finished The Brass Ring and read Mauldin's Mud and Guts on line: Mud and Guts: A Look at the Common Soldier of the American Revolution : Mauldin, Bill : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

 

Lou,

Glad to meet you. So far nothing new on the facts concerning D-Day in the book, and I do not expect there to be. I read these for the personal stories that this book seems to have in abundance. I am very much a child of The Longest Day/The River and The Gauntlet genre of combat books.
In fact, that is what I write, with articles published in World War II and Vietnam magazines. Here are links to a couple of my articles concerning the fighting on Luzon: World War II: The U.S. 32nd Infantry Division Battle to Control the Villa Verde Trail and Story: Forgotten Victory, by Tracy Derks, WWII – The Wolfhound Pack. These articles are about the 32nd and 25th in the Northern mountains of Luzon and are sprinkled with personal stories from vets I have interviewed.
I am now going through those interviews because I have jumped back into my original plan to write a book about the fighting in the mountains through the eyes of the men who were there.
Tropic Lightning Division, The Red Arrows, The Golden Cross, The Buckeyes, The Sightseeing Sixth, and the Bushmasters. Most of these interviews were done 25 and 26 years ago and I am proud that I was able to capture these stories from American heroes.

Tracy Derks

 

Read it decade agos and cited in my research. I've got over five shelves on Colonial or Revolutionary War/War of 1812 era. Check you PM.

Currently on Dirk Cchervatin's Eastern Front: 500 Letters from War. Author's father served in the 329 Infantry Division in Armee Grupp Nord. He was forced labor in Czechoslovakia post war.

 

Don't expect much from Chervatin's Eastern Front. He was rear echelon so there's not much action, Censorship didn't help. I did pick up a couple interesting points but the most interesting part was the escape from Czechoslovakia into E. Germany and finally into W. Germany.

Now onto something Napoleonic: Robert Griffith's Riflemen: The History of the 5th Battalion, 60 (Royal American) Regiment, 1797-1818.

 

This just arrived today,

 

Ok. I just started it but I will when I am done. I normally read very slowly. That may be quite a while, because unless it is one you just can’t put down, it may be a long time. I just finished one like that. What a beautiful book, was entitled, “A Terrible Glory, Custer and the Little Bighorn”. The Last Great Battle of the American West, by James Donovan.This is the third book I had read on the battle and the best by far. I read different topics, even western novels and the Civil War and the Revolutionary War.

 

I really liked Stephen Ambrose's duel biography of Custer and Crazy Horse, along with The Stand, by Philbrick. I read the one that won the Pulitzer a few years back, but it just seemed like more of the same. I will bump up Donovan's book to nearer the top of my reading list. Still may take years to get to, I am a sloooow reader as well.

 

Been reading Soldat. It's the taped recordings of German PoWs in British custody.