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Second World War
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Title: Hitler's Rockets
Author: Norman Longmate
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Price: £14.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: V-2 Flying Bombs
Category: Second World War |
In 1942 and 1943, rumors began to circulate in Britain about a “giant rocket” that the Germans were devising to destroy London. Most experts declared similar weapons a scientific impossibility, but between 1944 and 1945, more than a thousand of these rockets exploded down on British soil, killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring another 6,000. Hitler’s Rockets tells the story of this technically brilliant but morally detestable weapon, the ancestor and forerunner of all subsequent ballistic missiles. An absorbing story of war and science, this is the kind of serious history that entertains like the best kind of fiction.
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Title: The Battle of Burma
Author: Roy Conyers Nesbit
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £25.00
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Burma
Category: Second World War |
The struggle of British, Commonwealth and American-Chinese troops against the Japanese in Burma was one of the decisive campaigns of the Second World War. British India was threatened by the Japanese advance, the fate of the British Empire in the East hung in the balance. The tropical climate – dense malarial jungle infested with vermin and swept by monsoon rains – made the fighting, for both sides, a remarkable feat of arms. Yet the war in Burma rarely receives the attention it deserves. Roy C. Nesbit, in this highly illustrated account, traces the entire course of the campaign. In vivid detail he describes the British retreat and humiliation at the hands of the Japanese invaders in 1942. The Japanese were fanatical and trained in jungle warfare, well-equipped and backed with an overwhelming air power. The Allied response was to build up their forces on a massive scale – eventually over 1,300,000 personnel were involved – and to train them to fight in the jungle conditions. Their counter-offensive, launched in 1944, culminated in the battles at Imphal and Kohima which turned the course of the conflict, and the reconquest of Burma was achieved just before the atom bomb was dropped. |
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Title: The Venlo Incident
Author: S. Payne Best
Publisher: Frontline Books
Price: £19.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: July Plot
Category: Second World War
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In November 1939, the Nazis used the so-called Venlo Incident as a pretext for invading the Netherlands. Following orders from Himmler, two British intelligence officers, Sigismund Payne Best and Richard Stevens, were captured from the Café Backus in the town of Venlo. Best had been trying to contact German officers plotting against Hitler. The Netherlands had been an ideal ground for operations, because of its proximity to Germany and the fact that Dutch Intelligence was badly funded. When Best met the three agents including Walter Schellenberg he was carrying with him a list of British agents who were working in Europe. When he arrived at the café, which was just over the Dutch border, he realised he had walked into a trap. A Dutch intelligence officer who accompanied them, Dirk Klop, was fatally wounded. Best and Stevens were taken into Germany. After their Berlin interrogation and torture they were taken to the notorious Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Hitler used the incident together with the Elser bomb plot as an excuse for war with the Netherlands, claiming their involvement with Britain violated their neutrality. As Nigel Jones explains, the incident was crucial in making the British suspicious of dealings with anti-Hitler resistance.
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Title: Stitching for Victory
Author: Suzanne Griffith
Publisher: History Press
Price: £16.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Rationing
Category: Second World War |
When the Second World War broke out, stitched items suddenly became absolutely vital. A massive production of uniforms and stitched equipment took over factories and raw materials while in the home every scrap of thread was utilised. The stories in these pages are of weddings; parachute drops in the dead of night into enemy territory; lice and mud in the trenches; and, regimental insignia embroidered onto pyjamas until the men came home and secret stitched hidden from brutal guards. This gripping and unusual history offers a glimpse into the courage, endurance, ingenuity and skill of the men, women and children who struggled to survive wartime conditions at home and overseas, and through the hard years of rationing which followed.
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Title: Assault on Germany
Author: Ken Ford
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £15.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Second World War
Category: Second World War |
The Anglo-American battle for the Geilenkirchen salient in November 1944 was infantry warfare at its worst, and it is described in vivid detail in this new edition of Ken Ford’s classic study. The onset of winter saw the Allied advance from the Normandy beaches forced to a halt on Germany’s doorstep. The clock had been put back to the days of the Great :huh:War – the Allies had arrived at the Siegfried Line and were forced to attack the fortifications from the hell of the trenches. Geilenkirchen was the first battle on German soil to be fought by the British since Minden in 1759. For them, it was just one more battle on the way to Berlin, but for the American 84th Division, it was a first faltering step into war and a bitter lesson in the attrition and savagery of combat. The story is told by the men who were there – the British, the Americans, and the Germans who were fighting desperately for their homeland. Neither side was victorious - both lost more men than they could afford and paid a heavy price in young lives for a few miles of ground.
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Title: We Were Young and at War
Author: Sarah Wallis & Svetlana Palmer
Publisher: Harper Collins
Price: £18.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Second World War
Category: Second World War |
Never before have the diaries and letters of young people from all sides of World War Two been woven together to provide an account of what it was like to grow up amidst the daily struggles and horrors of this devastating war. We Were Young And At War follows the stories of sixteen teenage boys and girls who write with a disarming directness about their reactions to and experiences of a very adult war. They are British, French, American, Japanese, Polish, German and Russian, each with a unique and heart-rending tale to tell. Only two of them are alive today. Some of them fought and died in the war, others starved to death; many were separated from their families. All were forced to grow up quickly, their lives changed beyond all recognition by their experiences. This is their story. |
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Title: Hitler's Panzer Armies on the Eastern Front
Author: Robert Kirchubel
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £19.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Panzer Tanks
Category: Second World War |
Hitler's panzer armies spearheaded the blitzkrieg on the Eastern Front. They played a key role in every major campaign, not simply as tactical tools but also as operational weapons that shaped strategy. Their extraordinary triumphs and their eventual defeat mirrors the fate of German forces in the East. And yet no previous study has concentrated on the history of these elite formations in the bitter struggle against the Soviet Union. Robert Kirchubel's absorbing and meticulously researched account of the operational history of the panzer armies fills this gap in the literature. And it gives a graphic insight into the organization, tactics, fighting methods and morale of the Wehrmacht at the height of its powers and as it struggled to defend the Reich. Using German sources, including many first-hand accounts seen for the first time in English, the author reconstructs the operations of the panzer armies from the launch of Operation Barbarossa in 1941 to the German collapse in May 1945. He follows each army and its men through the series of massive offensives and counteroffensives that swung across a vast front that stretched from the Baltic in the north to the Caucasus in the south. Their far-reaching campaigns included the ill-fated assault on Moscow, anti-partisan operations in the Balkans and the defense of Germany¹s Fatherland. His study is a valuable addition to the history of the Nazi-Soviet conflict and to understanding the part played by armoured formations in the world war as a whole. It is absorbing reading.
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Title: The Women's Land Army
Author: Bud Powell & Nigel Westacott
Publisher: History Press
Price: £12.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Woman's Land Army
Category: Second World War |
This book brings together a wealth of black and white pictures which together record not only the operations of the Women's Land Army (WLA) but also scenes of the countryside between 1939 and 1950. Drawn from the worldwide albums of many ex-land girls at a time when film was rationed and photography monitored, this collection offers a fascinating insight into the people and places associated with the WLA. Many of these photographs have never been published in book form and so offer a unique record of the organisation. Every image is captioned, providing names and dates where possible, and revealing historical anecdotal detail which gives life to the scenes and personalities captured through the camera lens. Presenting training, occupations and the social activities of the Land Army women, this absorbing collection will not only evoke many wartime memories, but will also inspire readers through these images of hope, strength and unity.
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Title: Illingworth's War in Cartoons
Author: Mark Bryant
Publisher: Grub Street
Price: £14.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Leslie Illingworth
Category: Second World War |
Leslie Illingworth was one of the most distinguished British political cartoonists of the 20th century and remains for many 'the cartoonists' cartoonist. Yet though his career spanned more than 50 years - longer than either of his great contemporaries Sir David Low and Vicky - very little has been published about his life and works. Some of Illingworth's best cartoons were published for the "Daily Mail" during the Second World War (examples were even found in Hitler's bunker) and this book collects together for the first time 100 of his greatest to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the conflict. Illingworth joined the "Daily Mail" soon after the war started, and remained with the paper for 30 years. A superb draughtsman and an acute political commentator, he also drew weekly for "Punch" for two decades. The magazine's editor Malcolm Muggeridge even felt that his cartoons were better than Low's: 'Illingworth's go deeper, becoming, at their best, satire in the grand style rather than mischievous quips'. A student under Sir William Rothenstein at the Royal College of Art during one of its most brilliant periods - fellow students included Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Eric Ravilious - he left to become full-time political cartoonist on Wales' national paper, the Western Mail, at the age of only 19. A founding member and the first President of the British Cartoonists' Association in 1966, he was made an Honorary Doctor of Literature by the University of Kent in 1975. In addition he drew for American publications - including a famous cover for "Time" magazine - and was officially presented to US President L.B. Johnson in 1968. This unique collection is divided into chapters covering the war year-by-year and the book draws extensively on archive material held at the National Library of Wales and only recently catalogued in association with the British Cartoon Archive at the University of Kent. It also contains the first biography of Illingworth based on unique access to hitherto unavailable family records.
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Title: The British Soldier of the Second World War
Author: Peter Doyle
Publisher: Shire Publications
Price: £5.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: British Army
Category: Second World War
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This is the story of the British soldier in the Second World War; a story of endurance through the long years of conflict, in theatres as diverse as Europe, the Western Desert, the Arctic and the Far East. It is the real story of the British Tommy, truthful and unglorified. Beginning on the road to Dunkirk, Peter Doyle traces the life of the British Soldier from 1939 through the development of Fortress Britain and the rearming of troops to open the ‘Second Front’ in Europe. With reference to military equipment, literature, art and ephemera, he conjures an image of what it was like to serve in the British Army during this gruelling war. He tells how troops would fight in the desert, on the long road that led to victory in Alamein, and of the battles against the Japanese in the Far East.
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Title: A Pathfinder's War
Author: Ted Stocker
Publisher: Grub Street
Price: £20.00
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Pathfinder Force
Category: Second World War |
Ted Stocker lived a charmed life. Trained at RAF Halton as one of Trenchard's 'Brats', a posting to Boscombe Down saw him fly in both the prototype Stirling and Halifax just as war engulfed Europe for the second time. Qualifying as one of the RAF's first flight engineers, he flew operations in 1941/42 with 35 and 102 Squadrons, a contemporary of Leonard Cheshire, helping with the often hair-raising task of converting pilots from two to four engines. On his return to 35, he became a pathfinder and flight engineer leader, taking part in virtually every major air battle of the war. Awarded the DFC in 1943, he was posted to 7 and then 582 Squadrons, going on to complete more than 100 bombing operations , often as a master bomber, and flying with some of the pathfinder 'greats', including Don Bennett himself. Although his aircraft was frequently hit, and he survived a crash landing on only his second trip, Ted was never wounded. His achievements were recognised with the Distinguished Service Order, the only known DSO issued to a flight engineer during the war or since. After the war, he flew with Bomber Harris on a tour of Brazil and later qualified as a pilot, introducing the Lockheed Neptune anti-submarine aircraft to the RAF for the first time as a flight commander with Coastal Command.
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Title: A Most Secret Squadron
Author: Des Curtis
Publisher: Grub Street
Price: £20.00
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Air War
Category: Second World War |
Des Curtis was one of the founder members of 618 Squadron. Formed within days of the illustrious 617, 618's primary objective was to mount a daylight low-level attack by Mosquitos on the German battleship Tirpitz within hours of the attack on the Ruhr dams. The operation, codenamed Operation Servant, was given top security classification, to the point where the subject was excluded from the minutes of the meetings of the Chiefs of Staff of the air and naval forces. The author reveals the dilemmas and conflicting priorities existing to the highest levels, setting out in detail the technicalities of developing the 'bouncing bomb'. He also writes first hand about the tactical problems of getting to and from the target; and the tensions and strains endured by the Mosquito crews themselves, as they took the war to the German U-Boats within the sight and safety of their bases. |
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Title: D-Day: Normandy Landing Beaches
Author: Major & Mrs Holt
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £6.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: D-Day
Category: Second World War
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This guide book covers the present-day battlefield, and the actions that took place on and immediately behind the D-Day beaches, and Major and Mrs Holt's Pocket Guide to Normandy has been put together to take you around the area. This book, part of a new series of guides, is designed conveniently in a small size, for those who have only limited time to visit, or who are simply interested in as an introduction to the historic battlefields, whether on the ground or from an armchair. They contain selections from the Holts' more detailed guide of the most popular and accessible sites plus handy tourist information, capturing the essential features of the Battles. The book contains many full colour maps and photographs and detailed instructions on what to see and where to visit.
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Title: Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind
Author: Sean Longden
Publisher: Constable & Robinson
Price: £8.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Dunkirk
Category: Second World War |
The true story of the 41,000 British soldiers who were left behind after the evacuation of Dunkirk, May 1940. At 2am on the morning of the 3rd of June 1940, General Harold Alexander searched along the quayside, holding onto his megaphone and called “Is anyone there? Is anyone there?” before turning his boat back towards England. Tradition tells us that the dramatic events of the evacuation of Dunkirk, in which 300,000 BEF servicemen escaped the Nazis, was a victory gained from the jaws of defeat. For the first time, rather than telling the tale of the 300,000 who escaped, Sean Longden reveals the story of the 40,000 men sacrificed in the rearguard battles.
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Title: Sealing Their Fate
Author: David Downing
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Price: £18.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Pearl Harbor
Category: Second World War |
It took the Japanese fleet twenty-two days to sail from Japan to Pearl Harbor, the same twenty-two days that witnessed the German assault on Moscow and the Crusader battles in North Africa. The Germans failed to knock the Soviets out; the Japanese succeeded in bringing the Americans in. These twenty-two days sealed their mutual fate. With each chapter structured around one of the twenty-two days leading up to Pearl Harbor, Sealing Their Fate narrates the battles, the preparations for battle, the diplomatic manoeuvres and the intelligence wars. The story shifts from snowbound Russian villages to the stormy northern Pacific, from the North African desert to Europe's warring capitals, and from Tokyo to Washington. The book features a host of ordinary soldiers, sailors and airmen, and those political and military figures who played a key role in the war. Taking the momentum of the Japanese fleet, Sealing Their Fate works as an exciting countdown. Other countdowns - the gradual halting of the German advance in Russia, the erosion of Rommel's resources in North Africa, the institutionalization of the Holocaust - is worked into this basic structure.As Winston Churchill memorably remarked 'Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.'
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Title: Tears in the Darkness
Author: Michael Norman and Elizabeth Norman
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Price: £22.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Japan and the Second World War
Category: Second World War
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For the first four months of 1942, U.S., Filipino, and Japanese soldiers fought what was America's first major land battle of World War II, the battle for the tiny Philippine peninsula of Bataan. It ended with the surrender of 76,000 Filipinos and Americans, the single largest defeat in American military history. The defeat, though, was only the beginning, as Michael and Elizabeth M. Norman make dramatically clear in this powerfully original book. From then until the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the prisoners of war suffered an ordeal of unparalleled cruelty and savagery: forty-one months of captivity, starvation rations, dehydration, hard labor, deadly disease, and torture - far from the machinations of General Douglas MacArthur. The Normans bring to the story remarkable feats of reportage and literary empathy. Their protagonist, Ben Steele, is a figure out of Hemingway: a young cowboy turned sketch artist from Montana who joined the army to see the world. Juxtaposed against Steele's story and the sobering tale of the Death March and its aftermath is the story of a number of Japanese soldiers. The result is an altogether new and original World War II book: it exposes the myths of military heroism as shallow and inadequate; it makes clear, with great literary and human power, that war causes suffering for people on all sides.
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Title: African American Troops in World War II
Author: Alexander Bielakowski
Publisher: Osprey
Price: £11.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Second World War
Category: Second World War |
Although African Americans had to strive against prejudice for every chance to show what they could achieve, in fact the wartime US Army conceded opportunities for leadership unparalleled in American civil society at that date and tens of thousands of African Americans contributed to the war effort. Fully illustrated with poignant photographs and especially commissioned artwork, this book will depict the variety of key roles that African Americans played from fighter pilots to tank crews to grunts on the ground in every combat theatre from Europe to the Pacific. "Elite 158 African American Troops in World War II" is a concise history of the service records and combat experience of the African American troops who rose above discrimination to fight for the Allied cause and paved the way for integrated armed forces.
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Title: The Resistance
Author: Matthew Cobb
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Price: £17.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: French Resistance
Category: Second World War |
The French resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II was a struggle in which ordinary people fought for their liberty, despite terrible odds and horrifying repression. Hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen and women carried out an armed struggle against the Nazis, producing underground anti-fascist publications and supplying the Allies with vital intelligence. Based on hundreds of French eye-witness accounts and including recently-released archival material, The Resistance uses dramatic personal stories to take the reader on one of the great adventures of the 20th century. The tale begins with the catastrophic Fall of France in 1940, and shatters the myth of a unified Resistance created by General de Gaulle. In fact, De Gaulle never understood the Resistance, and sought to use, dominate and channel it to his own ends. Brave men and women set up organisations, only to be betrayed or hunted down by the Nazis, and to die in front of the firing squad or in the concentration camps. Over time, the true story of the Resistance got blurred and distorted, its heroes and conflicts were forgotten as the movement became a myth. By turns exciting, tragic and insightful, The Resistance reveals how one of the most powerful modern myths came to be forged and provides a gripping account of one of the most striking events in the 20th century.
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Title: No Mercy from the Japanese
Author: John Wyatt
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £19.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Japan and the Second World War
Category: Second World War |
By the laws of statistics John Lowry should not be here today to tell his story. He firmly believes that someone somewhere was looking after him during those four years. Examine the odds stacked against him and his readers will understand why he hold this view. During the conflict in Malaya and Singapore his regiment lost two thirds of its men. More than three hundred patients and staff in the Alexandria Military hospital were slaughtered by the Japanese - he was the only known survivor. Twenty six percent of British soldiers slaving on the Burma Railway died. More than fifty men out of around six hundred died aboard the Alaska Maru and the Hakasan Maru. Many more did not manage to survive the harshest Japanese winter of 1944/45, the coldest in Japan since record began. John's experiences make for the most compelling and graphic reading. The courage, endurance and resilience of men like him never ceases to amaze.
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Title: British Battleships 1939-45
Author: Angus Konstam
Publisher: Osprey
Price: £9.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Royal Navy
Category: Second World War
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With the outbreak of World War II, Britain's Royal Navy and her fleet of battleships would be at the forefront of her defence. Yet ten of the 12 battleships were already over 20 years old, having served in World War I, and required extensive modifications to allow them to perform a vital service throughout the six long years of conflict. This title offers a comprehensive review of the development of these British battleships from their initial commissioning to their peacetime modifications and wartime service, with detailed descriptions of the effectiveness of the main armament of individual ships. With specially commissioned artwork and a dramatic re-telling of key battleship conflicts, this book will highlight what it was like on board for the sailors who risked their lives on the high seas.
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Title: World War II: The Definitive Visual Guide
Author: Richard Holmes
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley
Price: £25.00
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Second World War
Category: Second World War |
This work presents the definitive visual history of the people, politics and events of the epic conflict that shaped the modern world, World War II. From the build-up of hostility in the years leading up to the war, through to the reverberations still felt in the aftermath, this is a compelling, accessible and immediate history of World War II. Discover how deep-seated local fears and hatreds escalated into one vast global conflict that was fought out to the bitter end. Find out about key battles, political and economic forces, individual leaders and technological advances that influenced the course of the war. Cross-referencing appears throughout and timelines and global maps establish an overview of each year of the conflict. Packed with images, including rarely seen colour photographs and unforgettable first person accounts, "World War II" is a uniquely accessible account of history's most devastating conflict.
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Title: Warsaw 1944
Author: Robert Forczyk
Publisher: Osprey
Price: £14.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Warsaw Uprising
Category: Second World War |
Defeated and occupied in 1939, Poland had suffered under the Nazi heel for nearly five years. Undaunted, however, the Poles formed an underground army, the Armia Krajowa (Home Army), and waited for a moment of German weakness. That moment seemed to have arrived in July 1944 as the Soviet armies began to advance into eastern Poland. The AK launched its revolt in Warsaw on 1 August 1944. Though its 5,000 fighters achieved some initial successes, the Germans were able to retain control over both the Vistula River bridges and the airbase, dooming the revolt to isolation and defeat. The SS was put in charge of suppressing the rebellion, beginning a wave of atrocities shocking even by Eastern Front standards. |
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Title: Last Stand at Le Paradis
Author: Richard Lane
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £19.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: British Expeditionary Force
Category: Second World War
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When the Germans launched their offensive on 10 May, the BEF advanced to the River Dyle in Belgium. Within days the Allied Armies had been forced onto the back foot by the speed and ferocity of the German breakthrough. The Norfolks withdrew to the River Escaut where the BEF was to make a stand. On 21 May, the Company Sergeant Major George Gristock courageously destroyed some German machine-gun posts and won a posthumous Victoria Cross. As the Allies withdrew towards the Channel, the Norfolks were ordered to defend a section of the Canal Line between Béthune and Le Cornet Malo. Already down to around half strength, the Norfolks held their sector from 24 to 27 May. By the time the order was issued for them to withdraw, it was too late, Battalion HQ at Duries Farm, Le Paradis was surrounded and they had no alternative but to surrender, although `C' Company held out until the following morning. After the surrender, ninety-nine men of the Battalion were marched to a paddock where they were machine-gunned in cold blood by their SS captors. Miraculously, two men survived and were instrumental in bringing the SS officer responsible, Fritz Knoechlien, to justice after the war. When the remnants of the battalion reassembled in England, its strength was just five officers and 134 other ranks. The remainder had either been killed or captured as POWs.
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Title: The D-Day Companion
Author: (Editor) Jane Penrose
Publisher: Osprey
Price: £12.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: D-Day
Category: Second World War |
Published to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Normandy Landings, "The D-Day Companion" book brings together the perspectives and opinions of leading military historians from both sides of the Atlantic. Operation Overlord saw the Allied Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery pit their wits against Hitler in a bold bid to liberate continental Europe. Featuring a foreword by Major Richard Winters, real-life commander of Easy Company as featured in Stephen E Ambrose's "Band of Brothers", this is a unique and incisive examination of the momentous events that surrounded June 6, 1944. Each chapter of this book focuses on a different aspect of the D-Day landings, from the build-up to the attack to the experiences of the troops on the ground.
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Title: The Devil's Workshop
Author: Adolf Burger
Publisher: Frontline Books
Price: £19.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Nazi Germany
Category: Second World War |
One of the most remarkable episodes of WWII was the Nazi attempt to forge currency and trigger the economic collapse of the Allies. The counterfeit operation was one of the largest the world has ever seen and lead to the postwar reissue of sterling. At the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, 144 Jewish prisoners of 13 different nationalities were forced to work on producing counterfeit pound and dollar notes worth billions. The plan was known as Operation Bernhard. The forgeries that were produced were virtually undetectable: only the most senior forgers were able to spot fakes, where even the Bank of England failed to do so. In this extraordinary memoir, the sole surviving Czech counterfeiter Adolf Burger describes his wartime experiences, including the murder of his wife Gizela in Auschwtiz and his time as a prisoner in four concentration camps. He was working as a counterfeiter until his liberation from the Ebensee camp on 5 May 1945 and was present at Toplitzee lake on July 5th 2000 when thousands of forged notes were brought to the surface. Supported by hitherto unseen documentation and photographs that Burger took of his fellow prisoners after the war, this is a shocking account which sheds fresh light on the calculated barbarity of the Nazi war machine. Adolf Burger was a consultant for the film The Counterfeiters, winner of the 2008 Foreign Language Oscar. His memoir has been published in Hungarian, Persian, Japanese and Czech. He continues to travel to speak about his wartime experiences. |
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Title: Last Days of the Reich
Author: Folke Bernadotte
Publisher: Frontline Books
Price: £19.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Folke Bernadotte
Category: Biography |
Count Folke Bernadotte was one of those rare figures in war - a man trusted by both sides alike. Shortly before the war ended, Bernadotte was the leader of a rescue operation to transfer western European inmates to Swedish hospitals in the so-called 'White Buses'. This work through the Swedish Red Cross involved mercy missions to Germany and it was through this link that Bernadotte came into touch with prominent Nazi leaders in the 1940s. During the last months of the war, Bernadotte was introduced to Heinrich Himmler - one of the most sinister men of the Third Reich. Bernadotte was asked by Himmler to approach the Allies with the proposal of a complete surrender to Britain and the US - providing Germany could continue to fight the Soviet Union. The offer was passed to Winston Churchill and Harry Truman, but rejected. The course of these negotiations is narrated in this book with a simple, compelling clarity and thrilling immediacy. This new edition of Bernadotte's memoir includes a Preface by his two sons, and an Introduction by a leading Swedish author discussing Count Bernadotte's wartime record and his post-war assassination.
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Title: Coastal Convoys: 1939-1945
Author: Nick Hewitt
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £19.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Second World War at Sea
Category: Second World War |
Using official records from the National Archives personal accounts from the Imperial War Museum and other sources, Coastal Convoys 1939 - 1945: The Indestructible Highway describes Britain's dependence on coastal shipping and the introduction of the convoy system in coastal waters at the outset of the war. It beings to life the hazards of the German mining offensive of 1939, the desperate battles fought in coastal waters during 1940 and 1941, and the long struggle against German air and naval forces which lasted to the end of the Second World War. Reference is also made to the important role played by coasters during the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940 and the Normandy landings in 1944.
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Title: The Campaigns of Alexander of Tunis
Author: Adrian Stewart
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £19.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: General Harold Alexander
Category: Biography |
A hero from the Great War he saw active service in Russia in 1919 - 20 and against the Pathans on the North West Frontier in 1935. By 1940 Alexander was a divisional commander with the BEF in France. His conduct during the withdrawal through Dunkirk where he took over the British 1st Corps in the crisis confirmed his outstanding ability. In the dark days of 1942 by now a full general he was sent to Burma with orders to hold the Japs at Rangoon. Just in time he realised this was impossible and his decision to withdraw prevented a total disaster. Despite this defeat he retained Churchill's confidence and he was appointed C in C Middle East. While eclipsed in PR terms by his subordinate Montgomery many felt that Monty owed his success to Alexander by protecting him from an increasingly impatient Churchill. Alexander went onto commanded the invasion of Sicily and as Army Group Commander masterminded the long slog up through Italy. His charm and easy nature were his greatest strengths as others worked enthusiastically with him. But critics have sought to prove that he lacked true ability and steel.
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Title: Hitler's Jihadis
Author: Jonathan Trigg
Publisher: History Press
Price: £20.00
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Waffen-SS
Category: Second World War |
As the West finds itself embroiled in conflict with radical Islam at home and abroad it is fascinating to hear the echoes of militant Islam from the Second World War, and the Nazis attempt to preach 'Jihad' against the British Empire and Stalin. Hitler's Jihadis tells the story of the tens of thousands of Muslims, from as far away as India who volunteered to wear the SS double lightning flashes and serve alongside their erstwhile conquerors. Jonathan Trigg gives insight into the pre-war politics that inspired these Islamic volunteers, who for the most part did not survive. Those who did survive the war and the bloody retribution that followed saw the reputation of the units in which they served in berated as militarily inept and castigated for atrocities against unarmed civilians. Using first hand accounts and official records Hitler's Jihadis peels away the propaganda to reveal the complexity that lies at the heart of the story of Hitler s most unlikely 'Aryans'.
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Title: SOE Agent: Churchill's Secret Warriors
Author: Terry Crowdry
Publisher: Osprey
Price: £11.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: SOE
Category: Second World War |
On average a Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent would be dead within three months of being parachuted into action. Terry Crowdy tells the extraordinary story of these agents, some of whom were women as young as 22, following them through their experiences beginning with their recruitment and their unorthodox training methods, which included hand-to-hand combat and parachuting. Packed with photographs and full-colour artwork, this book recounts the incredible combat missions of the SOE agents from their role in the attacks on a heavy water plant in Norway, to operations in the field with Yugoslav and Greek partisans, as well as sabotage missions ranging from blowing up bridges to the raising of full-scale partisan armies as they attempted to fulfill Churchill's directive to set occupied Europe ablaze.
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Title: War Crimes
Author: M. J. Trow
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £19.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Crime in Wartime
Category: Second World War |
The Second World War was a defining experience in British history. It shaped us, made us what we are, and we are still fascinated by it. And one of the most extraordinary aspects of this unique war was the effect it had on crime - and this is the focus of M.J. Trow's compelling survey. He does not write solely about servicemen who committed crime - although there were many of them - and he does not celebrate heroes. On the contrary, his account highlights the unheroic, the weak and the corrupt. And it draws attention to something perhaps uniquely British - the will of the people to cope, be it housewives with rationing, the police with the black market or magistrates all too aware that 'careless talk costs lives'. The war may have been Britain's finest hour, but during it there were many dark moments which M.J. Trow explores in his intriguing study.
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Title: Plan Z
Author: David Wragg
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £19.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Sea War
Category: Second World War |
Except for the strength of the U-boat fleet at the height of the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Navy, or Kriegsmarine, was never a match for the Royal Navy, even though the latter was overstretched and fighting in the Atlantic, Pacific, the Mediterranean and the Arctic. It was not meant to be that way. Hitler and his naval staff had a vision for a large and well-balanced fleet, including aircraft carriers. PLAN Z was the name given for the massive fleet that Germany intended to build, However the Plan relied on the outbreak of the war not occurring at least until 1942. This book examines the way in which such a fleet could have influenced the major battles between the Royal Navy and the Germans. Plan Z starts by looking at Germany's history and ambitions as a maritime power. The relationships between the three armed forces and between them and the Fuhrer are also examined, along with the country's economic and industrial position.
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Title: The Generals
Author: Robert Lyman
Publisher: Constable & Robinson
Price: £25.00
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: General William Slim
Category: Second World War |
From General Yamashita's blistering capture of Singapore in early 1942 to the final decisive victory by General Slim at Rangoon four years later, this scintillating account of war in Asia analyses the effectiveness of the Japanese, British and American commanders who lead their forces in defeat and victory during the longest continuous campaign of the Second World War. In "The Generals", Robert Lyman looks at the role of the generals on both sides of the conflict and analyses their influence on the desperate struggle between both sides in what the British describe as 'the Forgotten War'. The ability of a general to inspire and motivate his men, and lead them to success, was crucial for victory but it took several years before the British were able to field leaders of the calibre necessary to defeat the Japanese.The personality of each commander had a direct impact on the outcome of battles, the formulation of strategy and the determination or otherwise of soldiers to fight to the bitter end.
Through the stories of Yamashita, Perceval, Hutton, Irwin, Mountbatten, Stilwell, Mutaguchi and Slim, Lyman tells the gripping story of the war in the Far East through the perspective of the command and leadership abilities of the men who were responsible for the deployment of many hundreds of thousands of men in the titanic struggle for mastery in Asia during the Second World War.
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Title: Escape from the Deep
Author: Alex Kershaw
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Price: £15.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: U. S. Navy
Category: Second World War |
This is the adrenaline-soaked story of nine men who fought the Japanese from America's deadliest submarine, survived its sinking and endured months of brutal torture in captivity.By October 1944, the US Navy submarine Tang was legendary - she had sunk more enemy ships, rescued more downed airmen and pulled off more daring surface attacks than any other Allied submarine in the Pacific. And then, on her fifth patrol, tragedy struck - the Tang was hit by one of her own faulty torpedoes. The survivors of the explosion struggled to stay alive in their submerged "iron coffin" one hundred and eighty feet beneath the surface. While the Japanese dropped deadly depth charges, just nine of the original eighty-man crew survived a harrowing ascent through the escape hatch.But a far greater ordeal was coming. After being picked up by a Japanese patrol vessel, they were sent to a secret Japanese interrogation camp known as the "Torture Farm". They were close to death when finally liberated in August 1945, but they had revealed nothing to the Japanese - not even the greatest secret of World War II.
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Title: Gazala 1942: Rommel's Greatest Victory
Author: Ken Ford
Publisher: Osprey
Price: £14.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Erwin Rommel
Category: Second World War |
Following a lull in the desert war which saw the Germans and British reinforce their armies, Rommel suddenly attacked British fortifications with an assault on the northern sector of the British line near Gazala. Pinning down the British in the north and outflanking the 1st Free French Brigade, Rommel succeeded in encircling the main British positions, trapping them in what became known as 'The Cauldron'. With thousands of British soldiers killed or taken prisoner, this was a devastating defeat for the Allies. Accompanied by contemporary photographs and maps depicting the movement of both armies, Ken Ford provides a masterful study of Rommel, the "Desert Fox", at the height of his powers as he swept the British army back to the site of their final stand at El Alamein. |
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Title: Dunkirk: he Men They Left Behind
Author: Sean Longden
Publisher: Constable & Robinson
Price: £20.00
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Dunkirk
Category: Second World War |
At 2 am on the morning of the 3rd of June 1940, General Harold Alexander searched along the quayside, holding onto his megaphone and called "Is anyone there? Is anyone there?" before turning his boat back towards England. Tradition tells us that the dramatic events of the evacuation of Dunkirk, in which 300,000 BEF servicemen escaped the Nazis, was a victory gained from the jaws of defeat. For the first time, rather than telling the tale of the 300,000 who escaped, Sean Longden reveals the story of the 40,000 men sacrificed in the rearguard battles. On the beaches and sand dunes, besides the roads and amidst the ruins lay the corpses of hundreds who had not reached the boats. Elsewhere, hospitals full of the sick and wounded who had been left behind to receive treatment from the enemy's doctors. And further afield - still fighting hard alongside their French allies - was the entire 51st Highland Division, whose war had not finished as the last boats slipped away. Also scattered across the countryside were hundreds of lost and lonely soldiers. These 'evaders' had also missed the boats and were now desperately trying to make their own way home, either by walking across France or rowing across the channel. The majority, however, were now prisoners of war who were forced to walk on the death marches all the way to the camps in Germany and Poland, where they were forgotten until 1945.
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Title: Nicholson Baker
Author: Human Smoke
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Price: £20.00
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: The Second World War
Category: Second World War |
At a time when the West seems ever more eager to call on military aggression as a means of securing international peace, Nicholson Baker's provocative narrative exploring the political misjudgements and personal biases that gave birth to the terrifying consequences of the Second World War could not be more pertinent. With original and controversial insights brought about by meticulous research, Human Smoke re-evaluates the political turning points that led up to war and in so doing challenges some of the treasured myths we hold about how war came about and how atrocities like the Holocaust were able to happen. Baker reminds us, for instance, not to forget that it was thanks in great part to Churchill and England that Mussolini ascended to power so quickly, and that, before leading the United States against Nazi Germany, a young FDR spent much of his time lobbying for a restriction in the number of Jews admitted to Harvard.Conversely, Human Smoke also reminds us of those who had the foresight to anticipate the coming bloodshed and the courage to oppose the tide of history, as Gandhi demonstrated when he made his symbolic walk to the ocean - for which he was immediately imprisoned by the British. |
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Title: The Macedonian Question
Author: Dimitris Livanios
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Price: £55.00
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Josip Tito
Category: Second World War
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The Macedonian Question - the struggle for control over a territory with historically ill-defined borders and conflicting national identities - is one of the most intractable problems in modern Balkan history. In this lucid and persuasive study, Dimitris Livanios explores the British dimension to the Macedonian Question from the outbreak of the Second World War to the aftermath of the Tito-Stalin split. Investigating British policy towards the Bulgar-Yugoslav controversy over Macedonia, the author assesses the impact of British actions and strategy during this period, with a particular focus on wartime planning concerning the future of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, and attempts to prevent Tito from creating a federation of the South Slavs, both during and after the war. Making extensive use of British archives, Livanios brings to light important documentary evidence to offer a fresh perspective on the emergence of the federal Macedonian unit within Tito's Yugoslavia, and on the efforts to create a functioning Macedonian national ideology.
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Title: Bomber Pilot on the Eastern Front
Author: Vasily Reshetnikov
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £19.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: The Air War
Category: Second World War |
Soviet bombers played a vital role in defeating the Germans on the Eastern Front, yet their contribution is often forgotten. This graphic memoir should help to set the record straight. The author, a leading Soviet bomber pilot who flew throughout the conflict, tells his story from the desperate days of the German assault in 1941 to the point where Germany was invaded and the Nazis were destroyed. He gives a vivid account of his experiences during over 300 bombing missions in the dangerous skies over Russia, the Ukraine, Poland and Germany. His story is compelling reading.
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Title: Ultra Goes to War
Author: Ronald Lewin
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £16.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Second World War
Category: Second World War
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Ultra was the code word for the method by which the Allies intercepted the German radio transmissions and broke their coded contents during World War II. The author, himself a former field artilery officer with the Eighth Army from Alamein to Tunisia and then from Normandy to the end of the war in Germany, was the first historian to utilize Ultra intercepts to show how the information was used in combat. He was also the first historian to have interviewed the men, both British and American, who produced and used Ultra intercepts in the key positions of leadership throughout the war. The book highlights how Ultra helped to win the Battle of Britain and how its proper use might have prevented the Battle of the Bulge and the Allied defeat at Arnhem. Included too is a documented account of the destruction of Coventry, the reason for the American defeat at the Kasserine Pass and an account of how convoys carrying strategic war supplies to our Allies were decimated because the Germans had broken the Admiralty codes. Other works by Ronald Lewin include "Slim the Standard-Bearer", "The Life and Death of the Afrika Korps" and "Churchill as Warlord". |
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Title: Operation Varsity
Author: Tim Saunders
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £14.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Battles
Category: Second World War
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In Spring 1945, the outcome of the war was ritually certain but the mighty River Rhine still stood in the way of the Allies. Eisenhower's strategy was to guarantee a crossing in the Ruhr area by allocating the main effort to Montgomery's 21st Army Group. Monty's task was to envelope and take out the last German war production and open the way onto the North German Plain. On the morning of 24 March 1945, the Normandy veterans of 6th British Airborne Division were to land just three to six miles in front of XII Corps, within supporting distance of their artillery, with the aim of linking up with the ground forces on day one. First in were the two parachute brigades, who benefited from the numbing effect of the Allied bombardment but by the time 6th Airlanding Brigade came in aboard their gliders, the German anti-aircraft gunners were recovering and, on the DZs, resisting and even counter-attacking the British and Canadian paratroopers. Casualties were heavy, not least because the Airlanding Brigade were gliding in amidst an armoured kampfgruppe.
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Title: In Pursuit of Hitler
Author: Andrew Rawson
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £19.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Adolf Hitler
Category: Second World War |
This book is a chronology of the "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and the famous victory drive of the Seventh Army. It starts at the Worms' Rhine bridgehead and moves quickly onto Aschaffenburg, before describing the Hammelburg Raid to release US POWs. Driving South through Karlstadt, the Army seized crossing of the River Mainz at Wurzburg (which has a fine castle). The seizure of Nuremberg was hugely symbolic and this beautiful city was the scene both of the infamous Nazi Rallies and of course the War Crimes Tribunals. The road to Munich, always worth visiting (bierfest or no bierfest!) is via the Danube crossings and the book takes in the liberation of the appalling Dachau Concentration Camp and the battle at the SS Barracks. Munich was the centre of Hitler's early life and represented his powerbase. He was imprisoned here and wrote "Mein Kampf". The book climaxes with the approach to the Alps and the superb Eagle's Nest, so popular with tourists.
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Title: Moonless Night
Author: Jimmy James
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £14.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Jimmy James
Category: Biography |
From the moment he was shot down to the final whistle, Jimmy James' one aim as a POW of the Germans was to escape. The Great Escaper describes his experiences and those of his fellow prisoners in the most gripping and thrilling manner. The author made more than 12 escape attempts including his participation in The Great Escape, where 50 of the 76 escapees were executed in cold blood on Hitler's orders. On re-capture, James was sent to the infamous Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp where, undeterred, he tunnelled out. That was not the end of his remarkable story. Moonless Night has strong claim to be the finest escape story of the Second World War.
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Title: The Dambuster Who Cracked the Dam
Author: Arthur G. Thorning
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Price: £19.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Melvin Young
Category: Biography |
On 25 September 1939 Melvin Young reported to No.1 Initial Training Unit. He was selected as a bomber pilot and promoted to Flying Officer. Having undertaken a Lancaster conversion course Melvin and his new crew were posted to 57 Squadron at Scampton - soon to become 617 Squadron. On 15 May the Order for Operation Chastise was issued - the raid to be flown the next night, 16/17 May. The plan for the operation was that three waves of aircraft would be employed. The first wave of nine aircraft, led by Gibson, would first attack the Mohne Dam, then the Eder followed by other targets as directed by wireless from 5 Group HQ if any weapons were still available. This wave would fly in three sections of three aircraft about ten minutes apart led by Guy Gibson, Melvin Young and Henry Maudslay. At 00.43 Melvin and his crew made their attempt on the Mohne dam. Gibson recorded that Young's weapon made 'three good bounces and contact'.Once the dam had been breached Gibson with Melvin as his deputy led the three remaining armed aircraft towards the Eder Dam. On the return trip Melvin Young and his crew fell victim to enemy guns.
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Title: Spying on Ireland
Author: Eunan O'Halpin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Price: £30.00
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Ireland
Category: Irish History |
Irish neutrality during the Second World War presented Britain with significant challenges to its security. Exploring how British agencies identified and addressed these problems, this book reveals how Britain simultaneously planned sabotage in and spied on Ireland, and at times sought to damage the neutral state's reputation internationally through black propaganda operations. It analyses the extent of British knowledge of Axis and other diplomatic missions in Ireland, and shows the crucial role of diplomatic code-breaking in shaping British policy. The book also underlines just how much Ireland both interested and irritated Churchill throughout the war. Rather than viewing this as a uniquely Anglo-Irish experience, Eunan O'Halpin argues that British activities concerning Ireland should be placed in the wider context of intelligence and security problems that Britain faced in other neutral states, particularly Afghanistan and Persia. Taking a comparative approach, he illuminates how Britain dealt with challenges in these countries through a combination of diplomacy, covert gathering of intelligence, propaganda, and intimidation.The British perspective on issues in Ireland becomes far clearer when discussed in terms of similar problems Britain faced with neutral states worldwide.
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Title: Our Longest Days
Editor: Sandra Koa Wing
Publisher: Profile
Price: £8.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: The Home Front
Category: Second World War |
A powerful, detailed and warming story of the Second World War - told through the previously unheard voices of those (such as Nella Last) who described the home front for the Mass Observation project. Jerry is certainly not getting any change out of us'. For six years the people of Britain endured bombs and the threat of invasion, and more than 140,000 civilians were killed or seriously wounded. Men and women were called to serve in the armed forces in record numbers, and everyone experienced air raids and rationing. In these terrible times, volunteers of almost every age, class and occupation wrote diaries for the "Mass Observation" project, which was set up in the 1930s to collect the voices of ordinary men and women. Using many diaries that have never been published before, this book tells the story of the war - the military conflict, and, mainly, life on the home front - through these voices. Through it all, people carry on living their lives, falling in love, longing for a good meal, complaining about office colleagues or mourning allotment potatoes destroyed by a bomb.
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Title: Inferno
Author: Keith Lowe
Publisher: Penguin
Price: £8.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Bombing of Hamburg
Category: Second World War |
In the last days of July 1943, British and American planes dropped 9,000 tons of bombs on Hamburg with the intention of erasing the German city from the map. The resultant firestorm burned for a month and left 40,000 civilians dead. Inferno is a searing account of terrifying destruction: of how and why the Allies dropped a hail of high-explosive and incendiary bombs; of blizzards of sparks, hurricane-force winds and 800-degree temperatures; of survivors cowering in basements or struggling along melting streets; of a city and its people near annihilated from above. |
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Title: Kursk: The Air Battle
Author: Christer Bergstrom
Publisher: Ian Allan Publishing
Price: £27.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: The Air War
Category: Second World War
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Compiled by one of the worlds leading experts on the subject of the air war over the Eastern Front, Christer Bergström, Kursk: The Air Battle, is the third in a series of books covering the major phases of the air war in this theatre of operations. It will be required reading for all historians of the Luftwaffe during World War 2 and those with a specific interest in the Eastern Front in particular. The German Kursk offensive, Operation Zitadelle, was launched on 4 July 1943. Strong Soviet defence ensured that the Germans failed to make their planned breakthrough and, after three weeks, defence was turned to attack by the Soviets, as two counter-attacks saw the Red Army seize the initiative and ultimately force the Germans to retreat. During the month of August, Soviet forces recaptured strategic cities such as Oryol, Belgorod and Kharkov. This book provides a detailed history of the air battles where were a part of this operation. To date, no single study has been written in English on the air aspects of the battle in which, literally, thousands of aircraft were pitted against each other. The strength of the authors writing lies in its detail, his ability to tell the story from the viewpoints of both sides and from both strategic and tactical contexts. There is also much unique eye-witness material and the text will be accompanied by a large number of rate and previously unpublished photographs, biography boxes, plus data tables, technical assessments and appendices.
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Title: Panzerwaffe
Author: Mark Healey
Publisher: Ian Allan Publishing
Price: £16.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Panzer Tanks
Category: Second World War |
This is the second book in a series of ten titles using the successful and visually appealing format of the Classic Colours series to examine the German Panzer force from its origins in the immediate post- World War One years through to the end of World War Two. This book describes the continuing Blitzkrieg campaigns of 1940 with the German invasions of Norway and Denmark and the later attack on the Low Countries and France. The narrative text, written by Mark Healy, an authority on German armoured warfare in World War Two, addresses the events of the year 1940.This witnessed the greatest triumph of the German tank arm in the campaign that saw France and the Low Countries vanquished in just six weeks. This was also the year which saw the overwhelming vindication of the armoured warfare tactics advocated by Guderian and his supporters throughout the 1930s. Following the French surrender, and certain in the conviction that he now had to hand a war-winning weapon, Hitler ordered the doubling of the strength of the Panzerwaffe in preparation for its greatest challenge in the summer of 1941. This volume covers all the following areas: Light divisions to Panzer Divisions the Panzerwaffe in the aftermath of the Polish campaign; Panzer operations in Denmark and Norway; the influx of new equipment - Panzerjäger, Sturmgeschütz, Schützenpanzerwagen and the first self-propelled artillery prior to the assualt on the west; the evolution of Case Yellow the attack in the West from October 1939 through to the launch and execution of the devastating armoured assault of May 1940; preparing the panzers for Sealion - the invasion of Britain; the doubling of the size of the Panzerwaffe.
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Title: Behind Enemy Lines
Author: Juliette Pattinson
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Price: £55.00
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Special Operations Executive
Category: Second World War |
Behind enemy lines is an examination of gender relations in wartime using the Special Operations Executive as a case study. Drawing on personal testimonies, in particular oral history and autobiography, as well as official records and film, it explores the extraordinary experiences of male and female agents who were recruited and trained by a British organisation and infiltrated into Nazi-Occupied France to encourage sabotage and subversion during the Second World War. With its original interpretation of a wealth of primary sources, it examines how these ordinary, law-abiding civilians were transformed into para-military secret agents, equipped with silent killing techniques and trained in unarmed combat. This fascinating, timely and engaging book is concerned with the ways in which the SOE veterans reconstruct their wartime experiences of recruitment, training, clandestine work and for some, their captivity, focusing specifically upon the significance of gender and their attempts to pass as French civilians.
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Title: Monty and Patton
Author: Michael Reynolds
Publisher: Spellmount
Price: £20.00
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Bernard Montgomery
Category: Second World War |
Of the Allied generals who caught the headlines in the Middle East and Europe in WWII, two predominate - both achieved outstanding successes on the battlefield, both went out of their way to court the headlines and both made serious mistakes that attracted adverse publicity - their names were Bernard Montgomery and George S Patton, Jr - this book summarises and compares their lives and careers. |
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Title: Order of Battle: German Panzers in World War II
Author: Chris Bishop
Publisher: Spellmount
Price: £20.00
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: German Panzers
Category: Second World War
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The German armoured divisions in the Second World War were the iron fist of the Blitzkrieg. Broken down by key battle or campaigns within each theatre of war, this book shows the strengths and organizational structures of the Third Reich's armoured forces campaign by campaign, building into a detailed compendium of information.With extensive organizational diagrams and full-colour campaign maps showing the disposition of units, this is an easy guide to the German panzer forces, their strengths during key campaigns and battles, and details of where they served throughout the war.
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Title: Between Silk and Cyanide
Author: Leo Marks
Publisher: Sutton
Price: £8.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Leo Marks
Category: Second World War |
In 1942, with a black-market chicken under his arm, Leo Marks left his father's famous bookshop, 84 charing cross road, and went to war. He was twenty-two and a cryptographer of genius. In "Between silk and cyanide", his critically acclaimed account of his time in SOE, Marks tells how he revolutionized the code-making techniques of the Allies, trained some of the most famous agents, who dropped into France including Violette Szabo and 'the White Rabbit', and why he wrote haunting verses including his "The Life that I have" poem. He reveals for the first time the disastrous dimensions of the code war between SOE and the Germans in Holland; how the Germans were fooled into thinking a Secret Army was operating in the Fatherland itself; and how and why he broke General de Gaulle's secret code. Both thrilling and Poignant, Marks' book is truly one of the last great Second World War memoirs.
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Title: Voices from the Dark Years
Author: Douglas Boyd
Publisher: Sutton
Price: £19.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: French Resistance
Category: Second World War |
What was life really like in German-occupied France during the Second World War? Douglas Boyd paints the clearest picture yet, using hitherto unpublished first-person accounts of ordinary men and women who lived through this extraordinary and dangerous time, when a few made fortunes, but most went cold and hungry. Less than 1 per cent of the French was pro-German. Is it pure coincidence that the same percentage actively resisted the Germans despite knowing that, if caught, their husbands, wives and children were considered equally culpable under the brutal Teutonic principle of Sippenhaft - guilt by association? Using new, meticulously researched material, Douglas Boyd tells an enthralling and sometimes chilling narrative history of the Occupation, as lived by the French people. It is a record of great heroism and ultimate cruelty. Read it and ask yourself, 'How would I have reacted, living in Occupied France?' The answer may surprise you.
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Title: USN Carriers v IJN Carriers
Author: Mark Stille
Publisher: Osprey
Price: £12.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Second World War Sea
Category: Second World War |
As the Pacific war escalated into the largest naval conflict in history the role of the carrier, the most revolutionary and formidable of all naval weapons, became the linchpin of American and Japanese naval strategy. Finally in 1942, across the huge expanses of the Pacific, these rival carriers found themselves locked in a death struggle as they duelled for dominance of this critical theatre of war. Exploring the four major carrier clashes of Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz, this book dramatically reveals the experiences of the airmen and guncrews of the rival vessels as they battled for victory in a duel of skill, tenacity and guts. |
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Title: Visions of Victory
Author: Gerhard L. Weinberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Price: £14.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Adolf Hitler
Category: Second World War
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Visions of Victory explores the views of eight leaders of the major powers of World War II - Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Chiang Kai-shek, Stalin, Churchill, de Gaulle, and Roosevelt. He compares their visions of the future in the event of victory. While the leaders primarily focused on fighting and winning the war, their decisions were often shaped by their aspirations for the future. What emerges is a startling picture of postwar worlds. After exterminating the Jews, Hitler intended for all Slavs to die so Germans could inhabit Eastern Europe. Mussolini and Hitler wanted extensive colonies in Africa. Churchill hoped for the re-emergence of British and French empires. De Gaulle wanted to annex the northwest corner of Italy. Stalin wanted to control Eastern Europe. Roosevelt's vision included establishing the United Nations. Weinberg's comparison of the individual portraits of the war-time leaders is a highly original and compelling study of history that might have been.
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Title: The Battle of Hurtgen Forest
Author: Charles Whiting
Publisher: Spellmount
Price: £9.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Second World War Battles
Category: Second World War |
This text is an account of the battle of Hurtgen Forest on the German/Belgian border, in WW2, which ran from September 1944 to February 1945. Thirty thousand US soldiers were killed or wounded during this hellish battle. Thirty thousand American GIs were killed or wounded in the longest battle ever fought by the US Army - a battle that should never have been fought.
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Title: Contesting Home Defence
Author: Penny Summerfield & Corinna Peniston-Bird
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Price: £15.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: The Home Front
Category: Second World War |
Contesting Home Defence makes a significant and original contribution to debates concerning the British home front in the Second World War. It asks whether the Home Guard was a site of social cohesion or of dissension, explores the competing claims made for it at the time, and traces how it has been remembered since. It argues that the Home Guard at once contributed to and challenged the notion of national unity: official rhetoric was inclusive but recruitment practices were selective – and contested. Left-wingers inspired by international anti-fascist movements trained Home Guards in unauthorised guerrilla techniques; women formed their own armed organisation, sometimes helped by defiant Home Guard commanders. |
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Title: Luftwaffe at War
Author: E. R. Hooton
Publisher: Ian Allan Publishing
Price: £16.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: The Luftwaffe
Category: Second World War |
As in the campaign against Poland, it was the Luftwaffe that had perhaps the most important role. It won air superiority over the theatre of operations and was able to destroy much of the enemy's material before the army swept forward. This is the second volume in a new series that examines in detail the Luftwaffe's role in the battles of the Spring and Summer of 1940 and will be required reading for all aviation historians as well as those who model the aircraft of the period. |
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Title: The Last of the Hitlers
Author: David Gardner
Publisher: BMM
Price: £16.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Adolf Hitler
Category: Second World War |
At the end of World War II, the man Adolf Hitler called "my loathsome nephew" changed his name and disappeared. The British born William Patrick Hitler, by then settled in the USA, remained anonymous. This title tells the story of David Gardner's search for Hitler, his discovery that he was dead and had had four sons. Those four sons established a pact that, in order for Adolf Hitler's genes to die with them, none of them would have children. |
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Title: T-34 Medium Tank
Author: Mikhail Baryatinskiy
Publisher: Ian Allan Publishing
Price: £14.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: T-34 Tank
Category: Second World War |
This book examines in detail the T-34, one of the most famous and successful vehicles in the history of armoured warfare. The T-34 was a Soviet medium tank produced from 1940 to 1958 and was widely regarded as the world's best tank when the Soviet Union entered the Second World War, and although its armour and armament were surpassed by later WWII tanks, it is credited as the war's most effective and efficient and influential design. |
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Title: Last of the Ten Fighter Boys
Author: Jimmy Corbin
Publisher: Sutton
Price: £18.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Second World Air War
Category: Military History |
"The Last of the Ten Fighter Boys" is intended to be both a prequel and a sequel to the chapter Jimmy wrote for "Ten Fighter Boys", filling in the 'missing pieces'. The book charts: his early life before the outbreak of war in 1939; the decisions he made; and, those that were made for him. He describes how an ordinary working class boy from Maidstone was propelled into the most extraordinary of situations, landing him in the thick of the action in the skies over Kent during the summer and autumn of 1940. |
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Title: Make Do and Mend
Author: Jill Norman
Publisher: Michael O'Mara
Price: £9.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: The Home Front
Category: Second World War |
The rationing period during World War II is often described as a difficult time and yet also remembered nostalgically as a time of unity and good sacrifice. In fact, many of its rules and guidelines could still be applied today. "Make Do and Mend" focuses on clothes rationing, which was introduced in June 1940. With the nation's industrial output concentrated on the war effort, basic clothes were in short supply and high fashion was an unknown commodity. Adults were issued as little as 36 coupons a year to spend on clothes. But a man's suit could cost 22 coupons, a coat 16 and a lady's dress 11, so the need to recycle and be inventive with other materials became more and more necessary. The government issued the leaflets included in "Make Do and Mend" to advise on how best to avoid wasting valuable resources by recycling curtains into dresses and old sheets into underwear; in short how to 'make do and mend' rather than buying new clothes. Produced from original material held in archives, the leaflets are also a nostalgic showcase of 1940s' style, which makes them the perfect gift. |
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Title: The King's Most Loyal Enemy Aliens
Author: Helen Fry
Publisher: Sutton
Price: £18.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Germans in Britain
Category: Second World War |
This is the compelling story of the 10,000 German and Austrian nationals who fled Nazi persecution to join the British in their fight against Hitler during the Second World War. Most were Jews but a significant number were political opponents of the Nazi regime and so-called 'degenerate artists'. They arrived in Britain between 1933 and 1939, and at the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 became 'enemy aliens'. They volunteered to serve in the British forces, donned the King's uniform, swore allegiance to George VI and became affectionately known as 'the King's most loyal enemy aliens'. This compelling story includes previously unpublished interviews with veterans and an impressive selection of archive photographs, many of which are reproduced for the first time. |
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Title: War Brides
Author: Melynda Jarratt
Publisher: Tempus
Price: £18.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: The Home Front
Category: Second World War |
"We sailed for Canada in April 1945 on a Greek ship, the Nea Hellis. The crossing took three weeks all the while avoiding the torpedoes. There were over 1,000 war brides and children aboard as well as wounded soldiers going home." - Iris Rickets. 'Overpaid, over-sexed and over here' was the verdict of many British civilians of American and Canadian soldiers conscripted to Britain in the Second World War. Yet for thousands of young girls, the influx of handsome young military men meant flirting, 'walking out' - and falling in love. The result was over 48,000 hasty marriages to Canadian soldiers alone, and a mass emigration of British young women to northern America and across the globe in the 1940s. Historian Melynda Jarratt has painstakingly captured the incredible stories of young women - some say brave, some say foolish - who left their families and homes to move to a country thousands of miles away with a man they barely knew. Yet the ensuing decades brought happiness to many, and surviving women share their tales of love, family and starting again. For some brides, the outcome was a very different story, and the darker side of the crossings reveals astonishing accounts of infidelity, domestic violence, venereal disease and even bigamy. This incredible new history draws on archives, rare documents, medical records and key first-hand accounts to tell the amazing story of the war brides in their own words - and shows the love, passion, tragedy and spirit of adventure that thousands of British women experienced in a turbulent time. |
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Title: Stalingrad: The Air Battle
Author: Christer Bergstrom
Publisher: Ian Allan Publishing
Price: £27.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Second World Air War
Category: Second World War |
This book centres around the huge air battles which took place over Stalingrad between August and November 1942 and the subsequent airlift operation in the winter of 1942/43 intended to relieve the German Sixth Army which was by then trapped in Stalingrad. It also covers the air war during the Russian counter-offensive in early 1943 where the Luftwaffe played a major role in saving the whole German Eastern Front from collapsing. The book contains much eye-witness material and the text is accompanied by a large number of rare and previously unpublished photographs, biographical inserts on some of the leading figures in the struggle, data tables, technical assessments and appendices. |
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Title: VE Day: The People's Story
Author: Russell Miller
Publisher: Tempus
Price: £18.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: VE Day
Category: Second World War
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This inspiring book draws from first-hand interviews, diaries and memoirs of those involved in the VE Day celebrations in 1945. It paints an enthralling picture of a day that marked the end of the war in Europe and the beginning of a new era. VE Day affected millions of people in countless ways. This book records a sample of those views, from both Britain and abroad, from civilians and service men and women, from the famous and the not-so-famous, in order to provide a moving story and a valuable social picture of the times. Mixed with humour as well as tragedy, rejoicing as well as sadness, regrets of the past and hopes for the future, "VE Day: The People's Story" is an inspiring record of one of the great turning points in history.
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Title: Slim's Burma Boys
Author: John Hill
Publisher: Spellmount
Price: £18.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: William Slim
Category: Second World War |
"Slim's Burma Boys" relates the personal experiences of men who fought the "Forgotten War" of the Burma campaign. Hill wanted his readers to know what it was like to be there and with this in mind he selected a variety of operations and events from B Company of the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Berkshire Regiment, which he commanded. He was one of the only men to survive the border crossing into Burma. The Company earned two Military Crosses, a Distinguished Conduct Medal, four Military Medals, and a mention in Despatches. Hill conveys the intensity of involvement in the action, experiencing the adrenaline rush as well as the fear and courage of those who took part in swollen river crossings, patrols, ambushes, skirmishes and major actions against a ruthless and determined enemy who would never surrender. His memoir is of general interest as well as a fitting memoir to his men and should be prescribed reading for all would-be officers and soldiers. |
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Title: A World at Arms
Author: Gerhard L. Weinberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Price: £18.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: Second World War Index
Category: Second World War
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This major work is the first general history of World War II to be based both on the existing literature and on extensive work in British, American and German archives. It covers all the theatres of war, the weaponry used, and developments on the home front. Taking a global perspective, the work deals with all belligerents and relates events in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and the Pacific to each other. The role of diplomacy and strategy, of intelligence and espionage, and the impact of war upon society are all dealt with, often on the basis of hitherto unknown material. New light is shed on the actions of great and small powers and on topics ranging from the beginning of the war to the dropping of the atomic bombs; the titanic battles on the Eastern Front are fitted into the war as a whole; the killing of six million Jews and millions of other civilians is placed into context; and the fighting at sea and in the air is included in a coherent view of the great conflict.
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Title: Eating for Victory
Author: Jill Norman
Publisher: Michael O'Mara
Price: £9.99
Bookshop: Amazon
Spartacus Website: The Home Front
Category: Second World War |
A beautifully packaged and wonderfully nostalgic collection of war-time leaflets, presented in full colour. The period of wartime food rationing is now regarded as a time when the nation was at its healthiest. Food rationing was introduced in January 1940 after food shipments were attacked by German U-boat ‘Wolf Packs’ and everything from butter and sugar to fish and jam were rationed. The leaflets reproduced in Eating for Victory were distributed by the Ministry of Food and advised the general public on how to cope with these shortages. As a result of the stringent rules put in place during wartime, people began to eat more healthily than ever before. Eating for Victory is a great gift book and not only does it offer a nostalgic look back at one of the hardest and yet perhaps healthiest times in history, but it is also a relevant guide on healthy eating for today.
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