Looking for some great World War Two memoirs. Can be from Allied or Axis point of view. Or even some great books that read like a memoir. Just a first person perspective really.
I’ve read the classics such as Helmet for my pillow by Robert Leckie, With the old breed by Eugene Sledge, Beyond Band of Brothers by Dick Winters, etc.
Any suggestions would be great!
by Boyley92
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Memoirs by theater.
Eastern Front:
*The Forgotten Soldier* by Guy Sajer (considered a classic).
*The Forsaken Army: The Great Novel of Stalingrad* by Heinrich Gerlach.
*The Beginning of the Road: The Story of the Battle for Stalingrad* by Marshal Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov.
*Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel* by Anatoly Kuznetsov (fictionalized memoir).
Europe:
*The Cretan Runner: The Story of the German Occupation* by Giórgos Psychountákis.
*Thunderbolt!: An Extraordinary Story of a World War II Ace* by Robert S. Johnson.
*Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of World War II* by Charles B. MacDonald.
*Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs* *of Major Dick Winters* by Dick Winters.
*Three Corvettes* by Nicholas Monsarrat LtCdr, FRSL RNVR.
*A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II* by Adam Makos and Larry Alexander.
*Kriegie: Prisoner of War* by Kenneth Simmons.
*Fish Out of Water: Nazi Submariners as Prisoners in North Louisiana During World War II* by Wesley Harris.
*Diary of a Nightmare: Berlin, 1942-1945* by Ursula von Kardorff.
*The Blond Knight of Germany* by Raymond F. Toliver and Trevor J. Constable.
*Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down Over Germany in World War II* by Thomas Childers.
.
Burma:
*The Battle for Burma: The Wild Green Earth* by BG Bernard Fergusson KT, GCMG, GCVO, DSO, OBE, 16th Infantry Brigade (Chindit).
*Beyond the Chindwin: An Account of Number Five Column of the Wingate Expedition into Burma, 1943* by BG Bernard Fergusson KT, GCMG, GCVO, DSO, OBE, 16th Infantry Brigade (Chindit).
*A Change in Jungles* by BG Miles Smeeton, DSO, MBE, MC, British Indian Army.
*A Chindit’s Chronicle* by MAJ Bill Towill, 3rd Bn., 9th Gurka Rifles.
The Pacific:
*Ray Parkin’s Wartime Trilogy: Out of the Smoke; Into the Smother; The Sword and the Blossom* by Ray Parkin, Chief Petty Officer, Royal Australian Navy.
*With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa* by E.B. Sledge.
*From Ingleburn to Aitape: The Trials and Tribulations of a Four Figure Man* by Bob “Hooker” Holt, 2/3rd Australian Infantry Battalion, 16th Brigade, 6th Division, 2nd A.I.F.
*Kamikaze: A Japanese Pilot’s Own Spectacular Story of the Famous Suicide Squadrons* by Yasuo Kuwahara and Gordon T. Allred.
*God Is My Co-Pilot* by Robert L. Scott and C. L. Chennault.
*Samurai!: the Unforgettable Saga of Japan’s Greatest Fighter Pilot* by Saburo Sakai and Martin Caidin.
*The Divine Wind* by Rikihei Inoguchi and Tadashi Nakajima.
*Japanese Destroyer Captain* by Tameichi Hara, Fred Saito and Roger Pineau.
*Requiem for Battleship Yamato* by Yoshida Mitsuru.
*No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War* by Hiroo Onoda.
*Return of the Enola Gay* by Paul W. Tibbets.
*The Prisoner and the Bomb* by Laurens van der Post, [CPT, British Intelligence Corps]().
*Bataan Death March: A Soldier’s Story* by James Bollich.
*Bataan Death March: A Survivor’s Account* by William E. Dyess.
*Helmet for My Pillow* by Robert Leckie.
*Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War* by William Manchester.
*The Night of a Thousand Suicides: the Japanese Outbreak at Cowra* by Teruhiko Asada and Ray Cowan (trans. and ed.) (fictionalized memoir).
*Three Came Home* by Agnes Newton Keith.