NOTHING bUT cOURAGE BY jAMES dONAVON, aBOUT 82ND aIRBORNE,

Napoleon: A Life, by Andrew Robert's

The Road to Berlin by John Erickson
Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall

Just finished The Longest Campaign by Brian Walter, about Britain's naval war against Germany in WWII.

Just started a re-read of "With the Old Breed". Haven't read it in about 20 years. Been meaning to do it for a while. My son and I took a guys history trip this summer to Mobile and saw Sledge and Sid Phillips graves as well as hit up some civil war sites and the USS Alabama. Of course my then 13y/o son's favorite thing was visiting a Piggly Wiggly supermarket.

An interesting description from Erickson's Road to Berlin, illustrating the utterly massive scale of operations on the Eastern Front.

Describing the Kursk salient: "The huge salient (about half the size of England)" (p. 64)

"Half the size of England." Smeggin' 'ell.

Aggie1205 said:

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After some time with Fiction and a couple of biographies, I returned to history, specially WW2. It wasn't planned this way, but generally most ended up being linked to the campaigns in Italy and Southern France.

Bloody River: The Real Tragedy of the Rapido - Blumenson - Story of the 36th division attempted crossing of the Rapido (Gari) river. Breaks down why the attempt was made and where different people were on whether it was a good idea. Gave some background as to why the attempt at Anzio was made and why the timing of that was important. (They couldn't hold the landing craft in the Med longer as they needed to begin building up in England.

When the Odds Were Even - Bonn - This book details the campaign in the Vosges area of France. It works to compare a time when the American Army and German Army were roughly equal in manpower and where air power wasn't as dominate for the Americans to see how the units stacked up against one another. The author points out that this is in contrast to some of the post war writing that portrays the Germans as superior and just overwhelmed due to bad decisions be Hitler etc. The 36th division played a role here as well.

Against All Odds - Kershaw - Detailed biographies of 4 Medal of Honor winners, plus mentions of many others including Aggie Eli Whiteley. One of the 4 major characters is Audie Murphy. Lots of mentions of the 3rd Infantry decision in particular in Italy and France.

The Last Ridge - Jenkins - History of the 10th Mountain Division from how it got started to the men involved with recruiting for it. Details their time in Northern Italy and securing key points in the Gothic line. The author did seem to miss that they weren't the only troops training at Camp Hale in CO, as the Viking Battalion was also there getting the same training.

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My dad was in the 10th, trained at Camp Hale and fought in Italy. I'm heading there in May to tour the areas where the 10th fought. There are local guides who will take you to specific areas your dad fought, just let them know Regiment and Company. Can't wait!

I will have to check a couple of those books out.

For anyone interested, Jonathan Parshall's 1,264 page magnum opus 1942: The Crux of War is scheduled for release on June 1st and available for pre-order.

Clear the decks. And maybe buy a hand truck to tote it around.

Texag poster Titan's co-author of Shatterd Sword

About halfway through the following books:

Orthodoxy by C. H. Chesterton
The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander
Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution by Eric Jay Dolin
Lions & Scavengers: The True Story of America by Ben Shapiro

Under 100 pages left on:

The Two Swords of Christ: Five Centuries of War Between Islam & the Warrior Monks of Christendom by Raymond Ibrahim

Just started

The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky

Stalingrad by Sir Anthony Beevor.
Published in 1998. It was researched in both German and Russian military archives in the mid 90's.
This was a time that the Russians opened their archives to foreigners shortly after the collapse of USSR. A time that will probably not happen again in my lifetime. Beevor was able to interview survivors from both sides, he had access to the daily dispatches the commissars sent to Stalin with the real info, not just propaganda for the masses. Lots of excepts from unit military diaries as well as person diaries from both German and Soviets.

There probably won't be another book with this much inside info about Soviet ww2 activity for a very long time.
I can't see the Russians letting foreign historians and academic have access to their archives anytime soon.

Best part about it is you get to read about two of my least favorite armies smashing the crap out of each other.