World War II Books

Recommended WWII Books to Read

Pre-War, Leadership, European and Pacific Theaters, The Holocaust and more.

ww2-books

Pre-War

  • The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939, Antony Beevor
  • The Hundred Day Winter War: Finland’s Gallant Stand Against the Soviet Army, Gordon F. Sander
  • A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940, William Trotter
  • Flying Tigers, Daniel Ford
  • The Trial of Adolf Hitler: The Beer Hall Putsch and the Rise of Nazi Germany, David King

Overview/”Big Picture”

  • National Geographic’s Atlas of World War II, Neil Kagan and Stephan Hyslop
  • National Geographic’s The Secret History of World War II: Spies, Code Breakers and Covert Operations, Neil Kagan and Stephan Hyslop
  • The Oxford Illustrated History of the Third Reich, Robert Gellately
  • The Third Reich at War, Richard J. Evans
  • The Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson
  • *An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943
  • *The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944
  • *The Guns at Last Light : The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945
  • Deadly Sky: The American Combat Airman in World War II, John C. McManus
  • The Pacific Trilogy, Ian W. Toll
  • *Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942
  • *The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944
  • *Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific 1944-1945

Leadership

  • Winston’s War: Churchill, 1940-1945, Max Hastings
  • The Supreme Commander; the War Years of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Stephen E. Ambrose
  • The Generals; Patton, MacArthur, Marshall and the Winning of World War II, Winston Groom
  • Monty and Rommel; Parallel Lives, Peter Caddick-Adams
  • Patton and Rommel: Men of War in the Twentieth Century, Dennis Showalter
  • Panzer Leader, General Heinz Guderian, Introduction by Kenneth Macksey
  • Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck, Introduction by Stephen E. Ambrose
  • The Rommel Papers, Edited by B.H. Liddel-Hart
  • The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring, Forward by Kenneth Macksey
  • George Marshall: A Biography, Debi and Irwin Unger (Note: U.S. General)
  • Mussolini and Hitler: The Forging of the Fascist Alliance, Christian Goeschel
  • Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days, Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, Forward by John Toland, Introduction by Jurgen Rohwer
  • The First and The Last, Adolf Galland (Note: Luftwaffe General)
  • So Sad to Fall in Battle: An Account of War Based on General Tadamichi Kuribayashi’s Letters from Iwo Jima, Edited by Kakehasi Kumiko
  • Tapping Hitler’s Generals; Transcripts of Secret Conversations, 1942-1945, Sonke Neitzel

Arsenal of Democracy

  • Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in WWII, Arthur Herman
  • Engineers of Victory; the Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War, Paul Kennedy

Battle of the Atlantic/Europe/North Africa

  • The Irregulars; Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in War Time Washington, Jennet Conant
  • Operation Drumbeat; the Dramatic Story of Germany’s First U-Boat Attacks Along the American Coast in World War II, Michael Gannon
  • The Battle of the Atlantic: How the Allies Won the War, Jonathan Dimbleby
  • Very Special Intelligence; the Story of the Admiralty’s Operational Intelligence Center, 1939-1945, Patrick Beesly
  • Case Red: The Collapse of France, Robert Forczyk
  • The Battle of Britain: Five Months That Changed History; May-October 1940, James Holland
  • Crete 1941: The Battle and Resistance, Antony Beevor
  • The Allies Strike Back 1941-1943, James Holland
  • The Star of Africa: The Story of Hans Marseille, Colin D. Heaton and Anne Marie Lewis (Note: German Fighter Ace)
  • Iron Hulls, Iron Hearts: Mussolini’s Elite Armored Divisions in North Africa, Ian W. Walker
  • Pendulum of War: The Three Battles of El Alamein, Niall Barr
  • Patton’s First Victory: How General George Patton Turned the Tide in North Africa and Defeated the Afrika Korps at El Guettar, Led Barron

Italian Campaign

  • And No Birds Sang, Farley Mowat (Note: Biography of Canadian Soldier in Italian Campaign)
  • The Liberator: One WWII Soldiers 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau, Alex Kershaw
  • Monte Cassino: The Hardest Fought Battle of World War II, Matthew Parker
  • Anzio: Italy and the Battle for Rome-1944, LLoyd Clark
  • Honor Before Glory: The Epic World War II Story of the Japanese-American GIs Who Rescued the Lost Battalion, Scott Mc Gough
  • The Last Ridge: The Epic Story of the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division and the Assault on Hitler’s Europe, McKay Jenkins
  • A Memoir: One Soldier’s Story, Bob Dole

Normandy and Beyond

  • Six Armies at Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris – June,6-August, 5, 1944, John Keegan
  • The Dead and Those About to Die; D-Day – The Big Red One at Omaha Beach, John C. McManus
  • Omaha Beach, Joseph Balkoski (Note: 29th Infantry Division)
  • The Americans at Normandy: The Summer of 1944-The American War from the Normandy Beaches to Falaise, John C. McManus
  • Closing with the Enemy; How GIs Fought the War in Europe, 1944-1945, Michael D. Doubler
  • A Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagles Nest, Stephen E. Ambrose
  • Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the U.S. Army to Fight Hitler, Bruce Henderson
  • Brave Men, Ernie Pyle, Introduction by G. Kurt Piehler
  • Brothers in Arms: One Legendary Tank Regiment’s Bloody War from D-Day to VE-Day, James Holland
  • The Best Little Army in the World: The Canadians in Northwest Europe, 1944-1945, J.C. Granatstein
  • September Hope; the American Side of a Bridge Too Far, John C. McManus (Note: Operation Market Garden)
  • The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24’s Over Germany 1944-1945, Stephen E. Ambrose
  • The Battle of the Hurtgen Forest, Charles B. Mac Donald
  • Alamo in the Ardennes, John C. Mc Manus
  • Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of World War II – From the Battle of the Bulge to the Rhine, Charles B. Mac Donald
  • Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy and a Collision of Lives in World War II, Adam Makos
  • Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Antony Beevor
  • Richard Eager: A Pilot’s Story from Tennessee Eagle Scout to General Montgomery’s Flying Fortress

The Eastern Front

  • Panzer Ace: The Memoirs of an Iron Cross Panzer Commander from Barbarossa to Normandy, Richard Freiherr von Rosen
  • Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945, Catherine Merridale
  • Barbarossa Through German Eyes: The Biggest Invasion in History, Jonathan Trigg
  • Stalingrad, Antony Beevor
  • The Unwomanly Face of War, Svetlana Alexievich (Note: Soviet Female Snipers)
  • The Forgotten Soldier: The Classic WWII Auto-Biography, Guy Sajer (Note: German Soldier)
  • War on the Eastern Front: The German Soldier in Russia, 1941-1945, James Lucas
  • Death of the Wehrmacht: the German Campaigns of 1942, Robert M. Citino
  • Armor and Blood; the Battle of Kursk, Dennis Showalter (Note: July/Aug, 1943)
  • Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945, Max Hastings

The Pacific Theater

  • The Pacific War Companion: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima, Edited by Daniel Marston
  • Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army, Meiron and Susie Harries
  • The Defense and Fall of Singapore, Brian P. Farrell
  • Fire and Fortitude: The U.S. Army in the Pacific War, 1941-1943, John C. Mc Manus
  • Touched with Fire: The Land War in the Pacific, Eric Bergerud
  • A Bastard of a Place: The Australians in Papua, Peter Brune (Note: New Guinea)
  • Helmet for My Pillow: From Paris Island to the Pacific, Robert Leckie
  • The Battle of Midway: The Naval Institute’s Guide to the U.S. Navy’s Greatest Victory, Edited by Thomas C. Hone
  • Race of Aces: WWII’s Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to be Masters of the Sky, John R. Bruning
  • The War Below: The Story of Three Submarines That Battled Japan, James M. Scott
  • Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945, Waldo Heinrichs and Marc Gallicchio
  • The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific 1944-1945, James D. Hornfischer
  • Burma ’44: The Battle that Turned Britain’s War in the East, James Holland
  • The Last Lieutenant: A Foxhole View of the Epic Battle of Iwo Jima, John C. Shively
  • With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, E.B. Sledge
  • Into the Rising Sun: World War II’s Pacific Veterans Reveal the Heart of Combat, Patrick K. O’Donnell
  • Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila, James M. Scott
  • Retribution: The Battle for Japan 1944-1945, Max Hastings
  • The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, A Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War, Malcolm Gladwell
  • Black Snow: Curtis Lemay, the Fire Bombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb, James M. Scott

The Holocaust

  • Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
  • The Perpetrators: The World of the Holocaust Killers, Guenter Lewy
  • Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, Christopher Browning
  • I Will Bear Witness, 1933-1941: A Diary of the Nazi Years, Victor Klemperer, Translated by Martin Chalmers
  • Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank (Note: First Published in 1947)
  • Night, Elie Wiesel
  • The Nuremberg Trial, Ann and John Tusa
  • For “Deep Dives”/In-Depth Research
  • Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945, Richard Overy
  • The Allure of Battle, Cathal Nolan (Note: Covers many historical periods; excellent discussion of WWII strategy and operational campaigns)
  • The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, William Shirer (Note: First Published in 1961, 1,280 pages)
  • The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, Adam Tooze
  • Hitler’s Generals, Edited by Correlli Barnett
  • Retreat from Moscow: A New History of Germany’s Winter Campaign, 1941-1942, David Stahel
  • Where the Iron Crosses Grow: The Crimea 1941-44, Robert Forczyk
  • A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge, Charles B. MacDonald
  • Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909-1941, Mark R. Peattie
  • Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle, Richard B. Frank
  • Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal, James D. Hornfischer
  • The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, Edited by Mark R. Peattie
  • Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, July, 1937-May, 1942, Richard B. Frank

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