Books on tape

@witt

Thank you!

I’m sure many of you have heard of Infantry Attacks, a book by Erwin Rommel in the interwar era. It is about Rommel’s experiences in World War 1 as a mountain infantry commander mainly in Romania and Italy, but he also fought in France for the first year of the war, as part of a regular infantry unit. Throughout the book, especially in Romania and Italy, Rommel assumed higher and higher commands, ending in the command of the Rommel detachment of the Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion. This also doubles as a military textbook, with the English translator and the US army writing an introduction at the start of the book. I finished it and it is a great book.

One of the highlights is the Tolmien offensive in Italy, where the Rommel detachment of the Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion destroyed five Italian regiments and took 9000 prisoners in three days, the most successful of Rommel’s career.

I highly recommend it, but it’s quite a long and complicated book. It really shows you Rommel’s power as a commander. A sequel, Tank Attacks, was planned but never completed, due to Rommel’s suicide in 1944. It was meant to be based on Rommel’s experiences in North Africa. What was written can be found in the Rommel Papers. I just don’t recommend it because it was edited by Liddell Hart, a British general who edited the works to make it seem like Rommel was his “pupil”, and that Liddell Hart taught Rommel what he knew. It was also edited by one of Rommel’s staff in North Africa, and his wife and son.

If you have read this book, what are your thoughts on it? Thank you!

Do any of you have any recommendations for a book on Orde Charles Wingate?

Thank you for sharing.

The Second World War by John Keagan. Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict, 1941-45 by Alan Clark. Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia by Lieutenant Colonel Eddy Bauer.

@Der:

Mine was probably one of the books in the Time-life series published about WWII.

Same, my Great-Grandfather had a bunch of those Time-life books that he gave to me.

It seems mines in general are usually overlooked in WW2 History.  Not only were mines a danger to U-boats, much of the Allied shipping losses in the first 3 years of the war were attributed to mines.

Thanks for the great post!

@frimmel:

Agreed. It is sometimes like he can’t remember what it is he wants to tell us. Or he has so much to tell he forgets not to say it all at once. I like that it is taken a lot from the common soldier’s experience but Ambrose does get off track frequently and a little too mired in the details.

Although that can be good too. In D-Day when he talked about all the stuff the guys carried I felt weighted down with equipment.

He’s still quite readable.  I just feel like Cornelius Ryan beat him to the punch and did a much better job.  Ambrose certainly goes for the empathy angle.

@frimmel:

@tcnance:

the war of the rats is a good book, made a movie out of it  cant remember the name but it is based on the german-russian front. it centers on 2 dueling snipers in stalingrad

Enemy at The Gates?

Exactly what I was thinking.