S2 Actual reading list

Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War

Rick Atkinson

A definitive account of the Gulf War told by Pulitzer Prize–winning correspondent Rick Atkinson. This previously untold story of the US war with Iraq in the early 1990s, Atkinson follows the 42-day war from the first night to the final day, providing vivid accounts of bombing runs, White House strategy sessions, firefights, and bitter internal conflicts.

Desert War: The North African Campaign 1940-43

Alan Moorehead

Penguin Books · 2001

The seminal account of the battle between Montgomery’s Eighth Army and Rommel’s Afrika Corps, amidst the endless harsh wastes of the Western Desert. In 1940, Alan Moorehead was sent to cover the North Africa campaign by the Daily Express, and he followed its dramatic course all the way to 1943. The three books he subsequently wrote about the Desert War – later collected as his ‘African Trilogy’ – were swiftly acclaimed as a classic account of the tussle between Montgomery’s Eighth Army and Rommel’s Afrika Corps, under the beating sun of the Egyptian Sahara's Western Desert. Moorehead was responsible for the celebrated insight that tank battles in the desert are like battles at sea, the lumbering tanks like ships lost in a vast ocean of sand. The New Statesman could not have put it better when it described his achievement with this riveting book: ‘There is something of genius in the breadth and penetration of his vision , which encompasses the whole panorama of war and then narrows it down to the particular: the soldier stubbing out his cigarette before going into action, the expression on a tank commander’s face as he is hit… The story of the African campaigns will go down in history as one of the great epics of mankind, largely thanks to Mr Moorehead’s account.’

Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917-1945

David E. Johnson

The U.S. Army entered World War II unprepared. In addition, lacking Germany's blitzkrieg approach of coordinated armor and air power, the army was organized to fight two wars: one on the ground and one in the air. Previous commentators have blamed Congressional funding and public apathy for the army's unprepared state. David E. Johnson believes instead that the principal causes were internal: army culture and bureaucracy, and their combined impact on the development of weapons and doctrine. Johnson examines the U.S. Army's innovations for both armor and aviation between the world wars, arguing that the tank became a captive of the conservative infantry and cavalry branches, while the airplane's development was channeled by air power insurgents bent on creating an independent air force. He maintains that as a consequence, the tank's potential was hindered by the traditional arms, while air power advocates focused mainly on proving the decisiveness of strategic bombing, neglecting the mission of tactical support for ground troops. Minimal interaction between ground and air officers resulted in insufficient cooperation between armored forces and air forces. Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers makes a major contribution to a new understanding of both the creation of the modern U.S. Army and the Army's performance in World War II. The book also provides important insights for future military innovation.

Hitler's Foreign Executioners: Europe's Dirty Secret

Christopher Hale

The History Press · 2011

How and why more than one million non-Germans joined Hitler's "war of annihilation" Revealing for the first time Heinrich Himmler's master plan for Europe, this book discusses his dream of an SS empire with no place for either the Nazi Party or Adolf Hitler. His astonishingly ambitious plan depended on the recruitment of tens of thousands of "Germanic" peoples to build an "SS Europa." This book, researched in archives all over Europe and using first-hand testimony, exposes Europe's dirty secret—that nearly half a million Europeans and more than a million Soviet citizens enlisted in the armed forces of the Third Reich—to fight a crusade against "Jewish-Bolshevism." No other historian has examined the connections between these SS "foreign legions" (both police and Waffen-SS) and the Holocaust. Even today, some apologists claim that the foreign volunteers were merely soldiers "like any other" and fought a decent war against Stalin's Red Army. Christopher Hale demonstrates conclusively that these surprisingly common views are mistaken.

Hybrid Warfare: Fighting Complex Opponents from the Ancient World to the Present

Williamson Murray

Cambridge University Press · 2012

Hybrid warfare has been an integral part of the historical landscape since the ancient world, but only recently have analysts incorrectly categorized these conflicts as unique. Great powers throughout history have confronted opponents who used a combination of regular and irregular forces to negate the advantage of the great powers' superior conventional military strength. As this study shows, hybrid wars are labor-intensive and long-term affairs; they are difficult struggles that defy the domestic logic of opinion polls and election cycles. Hybrid wars are also the most likely conflicts of the twenty-first century, as competitors use hybrid forces to wear down America's military capabilities in extended campaigns of exhaustion. Nine historical examples of hybrid warfare, from ancient Rome to the modern world, provide readers with context by clarifying the various aspects of conflicts and examining how great powers have dealt with them in the past.

Panzerkrieg: The Rise and Fall of Hitler's Tank Divisions

Peter McCarthy

Carroll & Graf Publishers · 2002

The image that defines the Nazis’ Blitzkrieg is that of the Panzerwaffe’s massed columns of tanks sweeping through Europe, all resistance smashed in their wake. The Panzers’ achievements in battle were largely responsible for Germany’s early successes in World War II, and once the tide had turned against the Reich, the Panzers became the backbone of its defense. But the dramatic story of Hitler’s tank divisions is more than one of mere mechanical efficiency. It hangs, too, on those who commanded and fought in them, and believed in their near invincibility. These are the men who come to life in this immensely readable narrative. Great generals like Guderian, Rommel, and Manstein, tank masters like Wittmann and Bake, and inspired commanders like Balck and Bayerlein dominate the story of Panzerkreig. Dispensing with jargon, but including explanatory maps, rare illustrations, and fascinating detail on uniforms, crew members, and the mechanical features of the machines, the authors give a comprehensive overview of all aspects of the subject, both human and technical. They have also benefited from new information available since the opening of Cold War archives. Emerging from the narrative is the whole vast canvas of the war, as it follows the titanic struggles that raged between France’s bocage country, North Africa’s desert wastes, and Russia’s limitless steppes. The development of German fighting vehicles and tactics is fully charted, and the many myths and misconceptions of the Panzerwaffe are exploded. Extensive research, maps, illustrations throughout, reference to the leading participants’ memoirs, and original new conclusions all contribute to this finely measured assessment of the evolution, exploits, and eventual destruction of this superlative fighting force.

Stalingrad: How the Red Army Triumphed

Michael Jones

Michael K. Jones's new history of Stalingrad offers a radical reinterpretation of the most famous battle of the WW2. Combining eyewitness testimony of Red Army fighters with fresh archive material, the book gives a dramatic insight into the thinking of the Russian command and the mood of the ordinary soldiers. He focuses on the story of the Russian 62nd Army, which began the campaign in utter demoralization, yet turned the tables on the powerful German 6th Army. He explains the Red Army's extraordinary performance using battle psychology, emphasizing the vital role of leadership, morale and motivation in a triumph that turned the course of the war. Colonel-General Anatoly Mereshko fought throughout the battle as staff officer to the commander, Chuikov. Working with the author much of Mereshko's testimony is entirely new - and will astonish a western audience. It is backed up by accounts of other key veterans and the recently released war diary and combat journals. These show that the oft-repeated descriptions of Stalingrad's two critical days of fighting - 14 September 1942, when the Germans broke into the city, and 14 October, when they launched a massive attack on the factory district - disguise how desperate the plight of the defenders really was. In their place is a far more terrifying reality. Grasping this, we come to see Stalingrad as more than a victory of successful tactics - rather, as an astounding, improbable triumph of the human spirit.

The Desert War Trilogy

Alan Moorehead

Quarto Publishing Group UK · 2009

The seminal account of the battle between Montgomery’s Eighth Army and Rommel’s Afrika Corps, amidst the endless harsh wastes of the Western Desert. In 1940, Alan Moorehead was sent to cover the North Africa campaign by the Daily Express, and he followed its dramatic course all the way to 1943. The three books he subsequently wrote about the Desert War – later collected as his ‘African Trilogy’ – were swiftly acclaimed as a classic account of the tussle between Montgomery’s Eighth Army and Rommel’s Afrika Corps, under the beating sun of the Egyptian Sahara's Western Desert. Moorehead was responsible for the celebrated insight that tank battles in the desert are like battles at sea, the lumbering tanks like ships lost in a vast ocean of sand. The New Statesman could not have put it better when it described his achievement with this riveting book: ‘There is something of genius in the breadth and penetration of his vision , which encompasses the whole panorama of war and then narrows it down to the particular: the soldier stubbing out his cigarette before going into action, the expression on a tank commander’s face as he is hit… The story of the African campaigns will go down in history as one of the great epics of mankind, largely thanks to Mr Moorehead’s account.’

The Roots Of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt And German Military Reform

James S. Corum

University Press of Kansas · February 1994

Following Germany's defeat in World War I, the Germans signed the Versailles Treaty, superficially agreeing to limit their war powers. The Allies envisioned the future German army as a lightly armed border guard and international security force. The Germans had other plans. As early as 1919, James Corum contends, the tactical foundations were being laid for the Nazi Blitzkrieg. Between 1919 and 1933, German military leaders created and nurtured the Reichswehr, a new military organization built on the wreckage of the old Imperial Army. It was not being groomed for policing purposes. Focusing on Hans von Seeckt, General Staff Chief and Army Commander, Corum traces the crucial transformations in German military tactical doctrine, organization, and training that laid the foundations for fighting Germany's future wars. In doing so, he restores balance to prior assessment of von Seeckt's influence and demonstrates how the general, along with a few other "visionary" officers--including armor tactician Ernst Volckheim and air tactician Helmut Wilberg--collaborated to develop the core doctrine for what became the Blitzkrieg. The concepts of mobile war so essential to Germany's strength in World War II, Corum shows, were in place well before the tools became available. As an unforeseen consequence of the Versailles Treaty, the Germans were not saddled with a stockpile of outdated equipment as the Allies were. This, ironically, resulted in an advantage for the Germans, who were able to create doctrine first and design equipment to match it.

The Winter War: Russia's Invasion Of Finland, 1939-40

Robert Edwards

Pegasus Books · December 30, 2007

On November 30, 1939, the Soviet Union's Red Army invaded the young nation-state of Finland, in the full expectation of routing the small, ill-equipped Finnish army and annexing the former Russian territory by the end of the year. But Finland held out for 105 bitterly cold, fiercely combative days, until March 15, 1940, when a peace agreement ended the short, savage Winter War. At the stirring center of the story lie the resourcefulness and resolve of the Finnish people, who against all military odds—in want of ammunition, food, sleep, and troops—fought a blundering, ineptly commanded Red Army to a standstill. On March 15, they ceded to the Soviet 11 percent of their territory and 30 percent of their economic assets, but none of their national pride. The Russians meanwhile had markedly damaged their international standing and effectively ruined their military reputation-to such an extent, as this probing chapter in World War II history demonstrates, that Germany, with proud-blooded Finland as an ally, dared to launch its 1940 invasion of Russia. At the same time, though, the fiasco of the Winter War forced Stalin to acknowledge the shortcomings of the Red Army and to reform it: Germany would fall at Stalingrad in 1941. With authority, this skillfully narrated military history unfolds its story of the four-month Soviet-Finnish war and explores its consequences from London to Moscow, from Helsinki to Paris, to Washington, DC.

Destiny in the Desert: The Story Behind El Alamein - the Battle That Turned the Tide

Jonathan Dimbleby

Profile Books Ltd · 2012

This is a unique single-volume history of the road to El Alamein - 'the end of the beginning' - and the bloody battle that followed...It was the British victory at the Battle of El Alamein in November 1942 that inspired one of Churchill's most famous aphorisms: 'it is not the end nor is it the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning'. And yet the true significance of this iconic episode remains unrecognised. In this thrilling historical account, Jonathan Dimbleby describes the political and strategic realities that lay behind the battle, charting the nail-biting months that led to the victory at El Alamein in November 1942. It is a story of high drama, played out both in the war capitals of London, Washington, Berlin, Rome and Moscow, and at the front, in the command posts and foxholes in the desert. "El Alamein" is about politicians and generals, diplomats, civil servants and soldiers. It is about forceful characters and the tensions and rivalries between them. Drawing on official records and the personal insights of those involved at every level, Dimbleby creates a vivid portrait of a struggle which for Churchill marked the turn of the tide - and which for the soldiers on the ground involved fighting and dying in a foreign land.

Paul Revere's Ride

David Hackett Fischer

Oxford University Press · 1995

Paul Revere's midnight ride is a legendary event in American history - yet it has been largely ignored by scholars, and left to patriotic writers and debunkers. Now one of the foremost American historians offers the first serious study of this event - what led to it, what really happened, what followed - uncovering a truth more remarkable than the many myths it has inspired. In Paul Revere's Ride, David Hackett Fischer has created an exciting narrative that offers new insight into the coming of the American Revolution. From research in British and American archives, the author unravels a plot that no novelist would dare invent - a true story of high drama and deep suspense, of old-fashioned heroes and unvarnished villains, of a beautiful American spy who betrayed her aristocratic British husband, of violent mobs and marching armies, of brave men dying on their doorsteps, of high courage, desperate fear, and the destiny of nations. The narrative is constructed around two thematic lines. One story centers on the American patriot Paul Revere; the other, on British General Thomas Gage. Both were men of high principle who played larger roles than recent historiography has recognized. Thomas Gage was not the Tory tyrant of patriot legend, but an English Whig who believed in liberty and the rule of law. In 1774 and 1775, General Gage's advice shaped the fatal choices of British leaders, and his actions guided the course of American events. Paul Revere was more than a "simple artizan, " as his most recent biographer described him fifty years ago. The author presents new evidence that revolutionary Boston was a world of many circles - more complex than we have known. Paul Revere and his friend Joseph Warren ranged more widely through those circles than any other leaders. They became the linchpins of the Whig movement. On April 18th, 1775, Paul Revere played that role in a manner that has never been told before. He and William Dawes were not the only midnight riders to ca

Toward Combined Arms Warfare: A Survey of 20th-Century Tactics, Doctrine, and Organization

Jonathan M. House

University Press of the Pacific · July 2002

Book by House, Jonathan M.

Stopped at Stalingrad: The Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East, 1942-1943 (Modern War Studies)

Joel S.A. Hayward

University Press of Kansas · September 2001

By the time Hitler declared war on the Soviet Union in 1941, he knew that his military machine was running out of fuel. In response, he launched Operation Blau, a campaign designed to protect Nazi oilfields in Rumania while securing new ones in the Caucasus. All that stood in the way was Stalingrad. Most accounts of the Battle of Stalingrad have focused on the dismal fate of the German Army. Joel Hayward now chronicles Luftwaffe operations during that campaign, focusing on Hitler's use of the air force as a tactical rather than strategic weapon in close support of ground forces. He vividly details the Luftwaffe's key role as flying artillery, showing that the army relied on Luftwaffe support to a far greater degree than has been previously revealed and that its successes in the East occurred largely because of the effectiveness of that support. Hayward analyzes this major German offensive from the standpoint of cooperation between ground and air forces to attain mutually agreed objectives. He draws on diaries of both key commanders and regular airmen to recreate crucial battles and convey the drama of Hitler's frustrations and reckless leadership. Ultimately, Hayward shows, the poorly conceived strategies of Hitler, Goering, and others in Berlin doomed the efforts of air commander Wolfram von Richthofen, a courageous and resolute leader attempting to come to grips with an increasingly impossible situation. Stopped at Stalingrad is a dynamic case study in combined arms warfare that fills in many of the gaps left by other studies of the eastern war. By reconsidering the campaign in the light of a wider body of documentary sources and analyzing many previously ignored events, Hayward provides military historians and general readers a much deeper and more complete understanding of the Battle of Stalingrad and its impact on World War II.

With Rommel in the Desert

Heinz Werner Schmidt

White Lion Publrs. · Sep 17, 1973

A first-hand account offering a perspective on Rommel's African campaign. Schmidt was close to Rommel throughout the two years of the campaign and provides details of the military action alongside personal perspectives of fellow-officers.

Rhodesian SAS Combat Manual

Rhodesian Forces

Independently Published · 2020

The "Rhodesian SAS Combat Manual" is a significant historical look of the small unit tactics employed by the elite unit during the Rhodesian Bush War. Not only is it a glimpse back at how this unit operated, but a lot of the material is still relevant today fighting counter-insurgencies. This book covers tactical follow-ups, ambush tactics, infiltration methods and combat tracking and more!

Alamein: War Without Hate

Colin Smith

For the British, the battle fought at El Alamein in October 1942 became the turning point of the Second World War. In this study of the desert war, John Bierman and Colin Smith show why it is remembered by its survivors as a 'war without hate'. Through extensive research the authors provide a compellingly fresh perspective on the see-saw campaign in which the two sides chased each other back and forth across the unforgiving North African landscape.

Victims of Yalta

Nikolai Tolstoy

Gorgi Books · 1979

Stalinova "vojevůdcovská" nezpůsobilost vehnala v průběhu druhé světové války do německého zajetí miliony vojáků. Jeho nelítostná decimace všech vrstev národa, dokonce celých komunit, vedla generála Vlasova k rozhodnutí vytvořit armádu, která by ze dvou zel - Stalin a Hitler - porazila nejprve to větší, kterým se mu jevil Stalin. Stalin například po celou válku nepřistoupil k haagským konvencím o zacházení s válečnými zajatci a svým odmítavým postojem tak nepřímo způsobil tragický osud zajatců. Kromě vlasovců se proti bolševismu postavil také národ kozáků. Další skupinou stojící proti Stalinovi byli někteří příslušníci rozsáhlé bílé emigrace, jejichž potomci se mnohdy narodili již na Západě. Vedle nich se na konci války ocitlo v britském zajetí mnoho protikomunistických Jugoslávců. Více než dva miliony těchto lidí byly v letech 1944-1947 násilně navráceny do Sovětského svazu - podle dohod, jež Britové a Američané se Stalinem stvrdili na konferenci v Jaltě - v rozporu s řadou britských zákonů a ustanovení mezinárodního práva. Osudem těchto ubožáků byla buď okamžitá smrt zastřelením po návratu, či pomalejší umírání v táborech Gulagu. Vyvázli jen nemnozí......