Book picks similar to
SS Panzer Battalion by Leo Kessler
fiction
war
historical-fiction
world-war-2
The Burning Blue
James Holland - 2004
Joss increasingly comes to depend upon the Liddells and treats Alvesdon Farm as the one place where he feels not only appreciated but also truly happy. The idyll cannot last. With war looming, Joss is forced to confront the past. He escapes through flying, becoming a fighter pilot in the RAF. But with the onset of war, even the Liddells's world is crumbling. As Joss is fighting for his life in the Battle of Britain, so he begins to fall madly in love with Stella - Guy's twin - but with tragic consequences. Leaving England and the Liddells far behind, he continues to fly amid the sand and heat of North Africa, until his hopes and dreams are seemingly shattered for good
The Bridge Over the River Kwai
Pierre Boulle - 1952
In a prison camp, British POWs are forced into labor. The bridge they build will become a symbol of service and survival to one prisoner, Colonel Nicholson, a proud perfectionist. Pitted against the warden, Colonel Saito, Nicholson will nevertheless, out of a distorted sense of duty, aid his enemy. While on the outside, as the Allies race to destroy the bridge, Nicholson must decide which will be the first casualty: his patriotism or his pride.
Das Boot
Lothar-Günther Buchheim - 1973
Over the coming weeks they must brave the stormy waters of the Atlantic in their mission to seek out and destroy British supply ships. But the tide is beginning to turn against the Germans in the war for the North Atlantic. Their targets now travel in convoys, fiercely guarded by Royal Navy destroyers, and when contact is finally made the hunters rapidly become the hunted. As the U-boat is forced to hide beneath the surface of the sea a cat-and-mouse game begins, where the increasing claustrophobia of the submarine becomes an enemy just as frightening as the depth charges that explode around it. Of the 40,000 men who served on German submarines, 30,000 never returned. Written by a survivor of the U-boat fleet, Das Boot is a psychological drama merciless in its intensity, and a classic novel of World War II.
The Soldier Who Came Back
Steve Foster - 2018
Antony Coulthard was the privately educated son of wealthy parents with a degree in modern languages from Oxford. Fred Foster, the son of a bricklayer, had left school at 14. This mismatched young pair hatched a plan to disguise themselves and simply walk out of the camp, board a train, and head straight into the heart of Nazi Germany. This audacious plan involved 18 months of undercover work, including Antony spending 3 hours each evening teaching Fred German. They set off for the Swiss border via Germany, but when they reached the border town of Lake Constance, with Switzerland within their reach, Antony crossed over into freedom, while Fred's luck ran out. What happened to them both next is both heartbreaking and inspiring.
The Smallest Crack (A Holocaust Story, #1)
Roberta Kagan - 2019
Eli knows that their only chance for survival may lie in the hands of Gretchen, a spirited Aryan girl. However, the forbidden and dangerous friendship between Eli and Gretchen has been a secret until now. Because, for Eli, if it is discovered that he has been keeping company with a woman other than his wife it will bring shame to him and his family. For Gretchen her friendship with a Jew is forbidden by law and could cost her, her life.
Landing by Moonlight: A Novel of WW II
Ciji Ware - 2019
The year is 1942, and American secret agent Catherine Thornton has no idea whether she will be dropped behind enemy lines in an inflatable raft launched from a submarine or be flung through the moonlit sky from a low-flying British Halifax. Either way, the young embassy wife and erstwhile journalist knows there’s always the chance she’ll be picked off by German sharpshooters, although nothing in her imagination prepares her for the trial-by-fire to come. Only she understands why she volunteered for such “unwomanly warfare” and the secret reasons she joined a handful of female American spies destined to risk her gilded life on French soil--yet former Vichy diplomat Henri Leblanc, code name Claude Foret, thinks he knows the answers. As Catherine’s missions grow more harrowing each day, and she fears she’s fallen in love with a captured fellow agent, the German SS begin to close in on the world of Madame “Colette Durand” and her Résistance network embedded in coastal cities along the French Riviera—an exposure that could threaten the Allied victory itself. And hanging in the air like a half-opened parachute is the life-or-death question: Who is the betrayer and who will be betrayed in this, their finest hour? New York Times & USA Today bestselling author and Emmy Award-winning former broadcast journalist Ciji Ware once again displays her extraordinary talent for weaving historical fact into compelling fiction to produce novels so engaging that one reviewer warned of her work: “…do not start unless you want to be up all night.” “Thoroughly engaging” - BOOKLIST
Fighting Fox Company: The Battling Flank of the Band of Brothers
Bill Brown - 2013
history, thanks to Stephen Ambrose s superb book Band of Brothers, followed by portrayals in film. However, to date little has been heard of Fox Company of that same regiment the men who fought alongside Easy Company through every step of the war in Europe, and who had their own stories to tell.Notably this book, over a decade in the making, came about for different reasons than the fame of the Band of Brothers. Bill Brown, a WWII vet himself, had decided to research the fate of a childhood friend who had served in Fox Company. Along the way he met Terry Poyser, who was on a similar mission to research the combat death of a Fox Company man from his hometown. Together, the two authors proceeded to locate and interview every surviving Fox Company vet they could find. The result was a wealth of fascinating firsthand accounts of WWII combat as well as new perspectives on Dick Winters and others of the Band, who had since become famous.Told primarily through the words of participants, Fighting Fox Company takes the reader through some of the most horrific close-in fighting of the war, beginning with the chaotic nocturnal paratrooper drop on D-Day. After fighting through Normandy the drop into Holland saw prolonged ferocious combat, and even more casualties; and then during the Battle of the Bulge, Fox Company took its place in line at Bastogne during one of the most heroic against-all-odds stands in U.S. history.As always in combat, each man s experience is different, and the nature of the German enemy is seen here in its equally various aspects. From ruthless SS fighters to meek Volkssturm to simply expert modern fighters, the Screaming Eagles encountered the full gamut of the Wehrmacht. The work is also accompanied by rare photos and useful appendices, including rosters and lists of casualties, to give the full look at Fox Company which has long been overdue.
Saving Private Ryan
Max Allan Collins - 1998
Military forces converge on the beaches of Normandy for one of the most decisive battles of World War II. America would call it a victory. History would call it D-Day. But for Captain John Miler and his squad of young soldiers, this fateful day would become something much more. Washington has sent them on a personal mission to save one life. One paratrooper missing in action. One soldier who has already lost three brothers in the war. Captain Miller and his men quickly realize this is not a simple rescue operation. It is a test of their honor and their duty. Their sole obsession - and their last hope for redemption. In a war of devastating proportions, saving one life could make all the difference in the world.
Cross of Iron
Willi Heinrich - 1955
A resourceful and cynical commander somehow manages to coax his men through the bitter hand-to-hand fighting in forests, trenches and city streets until eventually they regain the German lines. But safety is only temporary. After the tension of waiting for the last overwhelming Russian advance the platoon is forced into futile counter-attacks and murderous house-to-house fighting until its final decimation becomes inevitable.A modern classic of war fiction both as a book and a film, this is a strikingly realistic story of action on the Eastern Front, where the grimness of combat seems to have neither pity nor end.Author Willi Heinrich (1920-2005) served in the heavily mauled 101st Jager Division, and was himself wounded five times during the war.Cross of Iron was also made into a film of the same name by Sam Peckinpah in 1977.
Casualties
Lynne Reid Banks - 1986
Experiences as young children in Europe during World War II later affects a couples marriage and has impact on their friends.
633 Squadron
Frederick E. Smith - 2003
The action-packed story of heroism and sacrifice follows Squadron 633 on a crucial mission--a mission crucial to the success of D-Day. Their target is a Norwegian fjord, where the Germans are developing a top-secret weapon. The pilots know they'll be flying in low, between the steep mountain walls, without fighter support. For many, the trip will be one-way only...
Winter Men
Jesper Bugge Kold - 2014
Karl, a former soldier and successful businessman, dutifully answers the call to defend his country, while contemplative academic Gerhard is coerced into informing for the Gestapo. Soon the brothers are serving in the SS, and as Hitler’s hateful agenda brings about unspeakable atrocities, they find themselves with innocent blood on their hands.Following Germany’s eventual defeat, Karl and Gerhard are haunted by their insurmountable guilt, and each seeks a way to escape from wounds that will never heal. They survived the war and its revelation of systematic horrors, but can they survive the unshakable knowledge of their own culpability?
Flotilla Attack
Duncan Harding - 2017
The old sailors, who could remember her past, said that she was jinxed and ought never sail again. But in the last days of 1940, as the phoney war drew to an end, Britain needed every ship she could lay her hands on, to challenge the might of Hitler’s Kriegsmarine. So it was that Lieutenant-Commander John Lamb found himself commanding the old destroyer Rose, with a crew of misfits and troublemakers, and set sail across the dark and icy seas in a desperate race to prevent the German invasion of Norway.... Duncan Harding is a pseudonym for Charles Whiting (1926-2007), who also wrote as Leo Kessler and John Kerrigan. Charles Whiting volunteered for the Army aged 16 in 1943, where he saw active service in Belgium, Holland and Germany with the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment. He has over 350 books to his credit, encompassing military history, espionage, biography and action fiction and holds the Sir George Dowty Prize for Literature.
Opening Moves
Colin Gee - 2012
Most of the characters therein are a figment of the author’s imagination. Without exception, those characters that are historical figures of fact or based upon historical figures of fact are used fictitiously, and their actions, demeanour, conversations, and characters are similarly all figments of the author’s imagination.]
Airborne (The Airborne Trilogy)
Robert Radcliffe - 2017
In what will become known as the Battle of Arnhem, half of them will fall as casualties of war. Among their number is Theo Trickey, a young paratrooper so dreadfully injured he is not expected to survive.Under the care of Medical Officer Captain Daniel Garland, Trickey is shipped to Germany as a Prisoner of War. As Garland slowly nurses him back to health, he discovers that there's much that is unusual about Trickey, starting with a chance meeting he had with Erwin Rommel before the War...From the bestselling author of Under an English Heaven, Airborne is the first in an unforgettable trilogy that tells the story of a young soldier, of a new regiment and how, together, they altered the course of a war.