WW2 Books that you've read??

[SeaCat]

I'm just finishing up "Luftwaffe Aces", and I've previously read "The Blonde Knight of Germany", which is about Erich Hartmann, the top-scoring ace. Those are the only ones I've read as far as aviation goes.

[Steiner]

When I was a kid I was taught how to read, then a public library was built just a 10 minute walk from my home. The first books I read were science fiction and I read everything published by Robert Anson Heinlein (I must have read "Starship Troopers" 50 times). Of course I read everything by I. Asimov, A.C. Clark and even H.G. Wells.
One day I picked up this little book entitled "I Flew for the Führer" pinned by Heinz Knoke, ...I haven't read any ScFi books since because TRUTH is stranger than fiction.
Some good reading I recommend is "DAY ONE" and "Omar Bradly: General of the Army".


Heinz Knoke, the German pilot who shot down Robert Post's plane wrote an account which was published after the war. The English translation of Knoke's book is called "I Flew for the Führer" and is available in a paperback version published by Greenhill Books. The translation here is from the original German version published by C. Boesendahl. Here is an excerpt from Knoke's account:
The enemy group draws nearer. Involuntarily I have gone up to full throttle. Attack! I can distinctly see the individual planes. They are for the most part Liberators. They appear plump with pregnant bellies full of bombs.
I select a target. I will attack from the front. Clearly the American sits in my sights. Quickly he becomes larger. I feel the buttons on the control stick. Tracer bullets fly over my cabin. They're shooting at me!
At the same time I open fire, pressing both buttons. The recoil of my cannons and heavy machine guns leave my bird shaking lightly. My aim is not good. I can see only a few hits on the right wing.
I swoop under the fat stomach of my opponent. The draft of his four propellers shakes me around in such a way that I think for a second that my tail assembly is torn. The combined speeds of our two approaching planes is over 1,000 kilometers per hour.
Steeply I pull above to the left. Tracer bullets from the guns of the Liberator follow me.
Damned iron-filled air! 300 four-engine bombers carry 4,800 heavy machine guns. If only a third of those are firing, that still means a hail of fire for us.
For the second time I attack, this time from the front and below, and shoot until I am within ramming distance. My shots hit! I let myself fall away below. In falling away I turn my head. My Liberator is burning underneath. It turns in a wide curve to the right away from her group. We are about 8,000 meters high.
From behind and above, once again I attack. Strong defensive fire comes toward me. My high explosive shells hit in the top side of the fuselage and the right wing. With both hands I clasp the control stick.
The fire has overcome the right side of the wing. The inside engine has stopped. The wing has ripped away! Perpendicularly the huge fuselage falls heavily to the earth, turning along its long axis. A long black flag of smog follows it.
A crew member tries to climb out of the upper part of the fuselage. He gets free, but his parachute is burning. Poor fellow! His somersaulting body falls after the spinning fuselage of the fatally hit Liberator. At 1,000 meters above the earth a violent explosion rips the wreck. Burning single parts fall two, three hundred meters along the runway of Zwischenahn airport near a farm that is immediately set on fire by the gas from the plane's tanks.
In its insane descent to the ground, I follow my booty and land on the runway below me. I roll my machine in the direction of the burning farm, turn my engine off, and swing out of my seat. I hurry to the crash site. There is a crowd of people there trying to put out the barnyard fire. I help move furniture, animals, and appliances out of the smoke and flames to safety. The smoke bites my eyes, takes my breath, and the flames singe my flying suit as I pull a pitifully squealing pig on its hind paws out of a burning stall. The stall burns to the ground. The house and the barn are saved.
What is left of the Liberator is scattered in an animal enclosure. When the machine exploded in mid-air, the crew were blown out. With limbs broken a hundred times they lay close to one another among the smoking rubble.
100 meters further on the other side of an earthen wall, I find the pilot's seat along with the nose wheel.
Undamaged, a doll, a mascot, sits next to the splintered cockpit glass.
An hour later I land in Jever. My men carry me on their shoulders to the dormitory.

LINK:
http://www.greenharbor.com/wr69/Knoke.html
http://www.heinzknokewebsite.com/My-Site/The_planes.htm

Heinz Knoke, Luftwaffe pilot

[Irishmandkg]

Not for a long time, but the last I read was Flyboys, same guy who wrote flags of our fathers(the movie was okay, letters from iwo jima was badass though). Flyboys was pretty brutal.

[Soviet Ace]

Originally Posted by Irishmandkg

Not for a long time, but the last I read was Flyboys, same guy who wrote flags of our fathers(the movie was okay, letters from iwo jima was badass though). Flyboys was pretty brutal.

I read flyboys once. It was... interesting. Now I understand why my other grandfather never liked talking about the Japanese. It's weird having two grandfathers who flew for two opposing sides sometimes.

[The Doctor B]

My favourite books have to be:

1) The Big Show by Pierre Closterman - superbly written book about the air offensive after the BoB! I cannot reccomend this book highly enough.

2) First Light by Geoffrey Wellum - Very good book written by the youngest participant in the Battle of Britain. When I read this book, I can't turn the pages fast enough!

[Plippy]

I just read a book by Vern Haugland called The Eagle Squadrons: Yanks in the RAF, 1940-1942 and I'm starting on his followup, The Eagles' War: The Saga of the Eagle Squadron Pilots 1940-1945.

There are some great stories in here about US kids who joined the RAF before the US entered the war. The second books seems to skip much of the training and back story on the characters, so I think that it might be a little more action-packed.

[Pyquila]

The Big Show by Pierre Closterman - superbly written book about the air offensive after the BoB! I cannot reccomend this book highly enough.

Just ordered it. Thanks for the tip! Looks really intresting.

A book i really enjoyed when i was young was A piece of cake

They also made it into a miniserie. Allthough not 100% historically correct it's a great watch. (it is however some 20 years old. So don't expect much in the way of special effects.)

[The Doctor B]

^

Ray Hannah flying a Spitfire under a bridge. Really nice bit of flying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf3UtmHLKUU

[King Jareth]

Mustang Pilot -Richard E Turner
My mum bought it for me from a charity shop on a whim (50p) and I read it about 10 times but sadly since moving out I have no idea where its gone at all.

[shackenb]

I would suggest "The mighty eighth: "The Air War in Europe as Told by the Men Who Fought It" by Gerald Astor and "Wild blue" by Stephen Ambrose.

Cheers Stefan