100 books like Against All Odds

There are a lot of books about the Battle of The Bulge, the biggest American engagement of World War II. I think this one is the best, and that’s because author Charles B. MacDonald fought in the Bulge as a rifle company commander, then for years after the war served as an official U.S. Army historian writing about the Bulge and the other major campaigns. MacDonald had that rare opportunity to figure out what really happened to him and his fellow soldiers. He makes a brief appearance in his own gripping narrative, just another tired, cold, young officer trying to keep himself and his troops alive in the biggest clash of the entire war. MacDonald understands how and why the Bulge went the way it did.

When I was trying to wrap my head around the grim realities of tank warfare in World War II, this book by Adam Makos taught me a lot. Makos tracked down and brilliantly narrates the stories of an American tank crew and a German panzer crew who battled it out in front of the cathedral in Cologne, Germany in March of 1945. Major General Maurice Rose makes a cameo appearance, but this book is not about generals. It's about sergeants and privates fighting to the death, tank vs. tank.

He was our greatest ground combat commander in World War II. I wanted to know why. So here is the story in the general’s own words. Most of the text comes from Patton’s wartime diary. He did not pull any punches in battle and he sure didn’t sugar-coat anything in this book, either. It’s pure Patton, unfiltered and unafraid, “war in the raw,” as he liked to put it. 

Old ground soldiers like me tend to think the airmen have it good—three hot meals a day, clean sheets at night, and only a few hours of war a day. James M. Scott’s Black Snow sure taught me otherwise. The 1945 American firebombing of Japan proved horrific for both the bombers and the bombed, and Scott tells the full awful story from both the American and Japanese sides. Major General Curtis LeMay was not some cigar-chewing caricature from Dr. Strangelove, but a young commander trying to break the will of a brave, stalwart people who had never lost a war in their country’s centuries of history. LeMay’s bomber crews won, but at a terrible price that resonates to this day.

This large (718 pages) book covers the entire history of U.S. military parachute and glider operations—from the early evolution of the concept through landings in North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Normandy, Southern France, Holland, Battle of the Bulge, Leyte, Manila, and Corregidor. Anyone wanting to appreciate the myriad American parachute and glider operations will find a wealth of information in Devlin’s book.

My students always identify with the story of E Company and its march across northern France and into Germany. As part of the 101st Airborne Division, the members of E Company parachuted into France as part of the D-Day invasion and then participated in a failed attempt to cross quickly into Germany in Operation Market Garden. At the end of 1944, Germany attempted to break through allied lines in the Battle of the Bulge, with E Company engaged in the crucial battle for Bastogne. Finally, inside Germany, E Company helped in the assault on Hitler’s alpine retreat called Eagle’s Nest. Throughout these battle stories, Ambrose focuses on one character in each chapter, allowing students to identify with individual struggles that create an emotional attachment between the reader and members of E Company.

The day I was born, the German U-boat U-505 lurked off the west coast of Africa, awaiting American and Allied ships. The submarine was part of the Nazi’s fleet of “wolfpacks,” terrorizing the Atlantic, and even the East and Gulf Coasts of the United States. The book tells about the capture of the submarine after it had carried out a dozen patrols, sinking eight ships. It was secretly towed to Bermuda where the crew interned at a U.S. POW camp. Codebooks, an Enigma machine, and other materials found on board bolstered Allied codebreakers.

The U-505 was eventually donated to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, one of only four German WWII U-boats to survive as museum ships. The submarine was towed 3,000 miles from Portsmouth, NH, through the St. Lawrence River, and across four of the Great Lakes to Chicago. The logistics of getting the huge boat across traffic… show more.

If you and your family were ordered from your home by your government, deprived of your constitutional rights, and sent to a remote internment camp, would you volunteer to risk your life fighting for your country? Thousands of young Japanese American men did just that when they were isolated as possible spies and traitors after Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. Eighteen thousand of these young men signed on as members of the Army’s 442nd Infantry Regiment, composed entirely of second-generation Japanese Americans, and distinguished themselves as some of the bravest Americans who ever lived. Sent into battles that at times looked purely suicidal, the 442nd became “the most decorated unit of its size and length of service in American history.” Brown’s riveting account follows four of these young men and a fifth who became a conscientious objector and eventually landed in prison, all the while fighting… show more.

If stories of divisions and corps advancing and retreating over battlefields don’t pique your interest, then this book will. Kershaw’s tale of a single reconnaissance platoon under the command of a fresh-faced 1st Lieutenant Lyle Bouck as it fights for its life and delays an entire German kampfgruppe for several crucial hours is the stuff of legend. The platoon’s sacrifice contributed significantly to the eventual defeat of the 6th SS Panzer Army, whose mission was to seize Antwerp. Thanks to Bouck and his understrength platoon, that didn’t happen. I wonder why Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg have not made this gripping human interest story into a blockbuster movie. Kershaw’s story, though, doesn’t end with the battle of Lanzerath. He follows the service members as they struggle to survive as prisoners-of-war in various German Stalags, scattered throughout the Reich. If you want to read a story about the personal experiences of… show more.

Silverplate was the code name for the fifteen atomic-modified B-29 Superfortresses assigned to Col. Paul Tibbets’ 509th Composite (meaning totally self-contained, including its own military police and security detail) Group. The book explains the development, delivery, history, and registry of each Silverplate bomber, including the Enola Gay. Various bomb types (including practice) are discussed in detail.

Internal 509th squadron organizations are also explored, along with crew lists and individual aircraft names. Detailed training missions before the two drops are recorded. A must-encyclopedia for the atomic bombing aficionado. Foreward by Paul W. Tibbets.