A good read?

[strawb]

Just a random thought - without going off deep end and pretending to be 'historians' (go see discussion on WitP for alll that :rolleyes: ) what do you think is a 'good read' history book on WWII, preferably Pacific but necessarily. I started this off back of recent exchange Dan and I were having on this.

My first one; Anything by Martin Middlebrook. But specifically for you naval warriors 'Convoy' a very detailed but readable account of the greatest convoy battles around SC122 and HX228. Excellent research that places eye witness accounts at heart of good strategic context

Second; a good general read for context: Dan van der Grat(?) - His two 'The Pacific Campaign' and the 'Atlantic Campaign' good overall intro to the era and theatres.

Of course all books have their leanings and axes to grind , alleged errors etc. Middlebrook give Adm King good kicking which is only partly justified and the focus that is the best part of this book also means that some strategic myths are still there eg that Germans actually had chance of cutting off convoys to UK, which they did not, IMHO

[Koniev]

Strawb - I'm currently re-reading the best overall history of WW2 I've ever read (and I've read a lot of them) "A World At Arms "by Gerhard L. Weinberg. Believe it or not he draws connections betwen various areas ofthe war that most people havn't even considered. Also, although it's a little dated Winson Churchill's 6 - volume history is magnificent.

[showboat1]

Anything by Walter Lord pops into my mind.

[Doug Olenick]

"The Big E" by Commander Edward P. Staffard. All about the USS Enterprise. Very detailed about the ship and its various air groups and since she has 20 battle stars for WWII service the book covers almost every major battle.

[showboat1]

Oh yeah, The Big E is definitely gotta be in the top ten. I read that book like when I was eight years old. It made my mind up to get into history as a profession.

[BOBUP61]

I`m not on here much but I`ve got a few books about the Japanese navy that I think are interesting.
One is THE JAPANESE MERCHANT MARINE IN WW2 by Mark P Parillo It gives a wide range of facts and figures on japans merchant fleet and planned classes of ships. The book is with the Naval institute press.
Another is A battle history of the Imperial japanese Navy(41-45) by Paul S. Dull also put out by the Naval institute press.

[madflava13]

Big E is one of my tops as well... I also highly recommend "Little Ship, Big War" by Edward Stafford. It's about the USS Abercrombie, a DE in the Pacific. It's written just like Big E, with tons of detail and personal accounts. There aren't many first person accounts from this side of the war, so I think it's a pretty good book to have.

Also "Samurai!" by Saburo Sakai is an interesting read (I just finished it). There are some grammatical errors and such which take away a little bit, but you can't beat it for getting inside the head of Japanese pilots during this time period.

Finally "Wahoo" and "Clear the Bridge" by O'Kane are great for the sub conflict. Both offer first person accounts of two of the greatest subs of the war, the Wahoo and the Tang.

[JReb]

If you want something fictional but with an excellent WW2 Pacific story background try Herman Wouk's "Winds of War". "War and Remembrance" is the last half of the war. The books follow a naval family based in Pearl. Good stuff!

[Ranger-75]

Hey everybody, CFLCC must have relaxed their internet restrictions and let me access this site finally (I'm currently in the AOR in the middle east).

Anyway, it's Dan van der Vat, and they are both good books (Atlantic Campaign & Pacific campaign).

Japan's War by Edwin Hoyt is also very good, it goes back to the 1840s when Perry's flotilla sparked off 100+ years of Japanese hatred of the US.

Also, Fuchida's Midway: the battle that doomed Japan is a good book from the Japanese side of things.

Hello to LST, Jeremy, Dave, and everyone else, whose ID I can't recall at this time.

Mike