Major War: World War 2 Reading List

The World War 2 Reading List has been compiled to identify the best books on world war two. Major campaigns, battles, units, and personalities.

Title:

Where The Iron Crosses Grow – The Crimea 1941-44

Author:

Book Description:

“Where The Iron Crosses Grow: The Crimea 1941-44” by Robert Forczyk is an in-depth examination of the intense battles that took place on the Crimean Peninsula during World War II. The book provides a detailed account of the military campaigns that unfolded between 1941 and […]

Book cover for Where Iron Crosses Grow - The Crimea 1941-44 by Robert Forczyk

Title:

Battle Cry

Author:

Book Description:

Battle Cry is a fictional novel set during World War II, focusing on the experiences of a group of U.S. Marines in the Pacific Theater. The book follows the 6th Marine Regiment as they train, deploy, and fight through some of the war’s most challenging […]

Title:

The War Journal of Major Damon “Rocky” Gause

Author:

Book Description:

The true, first-person account of a captured World War II soldiers incredible escape and courageous journey home, discovered after more than fifty years. Of all the heroic stories to come out of World War II, few are so extraordinary as that of Major Rocky Gause, […]

Title:

Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45

Author:

Book Description:

By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan’s defeat was inevitable, but how the drive to victory would be achieved remained unclear. The ensuing drama—that ended in Japan’s utter devastation—was acted out across the vast theater of Asia in massive clashes between army, […]

Title:

Pacific Blitzkrieg: World War II in the Central Pacific

Author:

Book Description:

Lacey closely examines the planning, preparation, and execution of ground operations at the corps and division level for five major invasions in the Central Pacific: Guadalcanal, Tarawa, the Marshall Islands, Saipan, and Okinawa. The commanders had to integrate the U.S. Army and Marine Corps into […]

Title:

Grunts Inside the American Infantry Combat Experience, World War II Through Iraq

Author:

Book Description:

John C. McManus covers six decades of warfare in which the courage of American troops proved the crucial difference between victory and defeat. Based on years of archival research and personal interviews with veterans, Grunts demonstrates the vital, and too often forgotten, importance of the […]

Title:

American Military History, vol. 2, The United States Army in a Global Era, 1917-2008

Author:

Book Description:

Created initially as a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps textbook, this second volume in a two-volume overview of the Army’s story covers the period from World War I to the early days of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Written in an engaging style and enhanced […]

Title:

The Second World War

Author:

Book Description:

This book approaches the war from a thematic and periodic standpoint. The course of the war is divided into six passages and attached to each is an analytical narrative of a battle, which exemplifies a mode of warfare special to this war, such as city […]

Title:

The Doolittle Raid: America’s Daring First Strike Against Japan

Author:

Book Description:

On April 18, 1942, 16 B-25s launched from the carrier Hornet, under the command of Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, flew 650 miles to Japan, dropped their bombs on Tokyo and other targets, and escaped to China and neutral Soviet territory. Although a very small affair […]

Title:

Once An Eagle

Author:

Book Description:

Once An Eagle is the story of one special man, a soldier named Sam Damon, and his adversary over a lifetime, fellow officer Courtney Massengale. Damon is a professional who puts duty, honor, and the men he commands above self interest. Massengale, however, brilliantly advances […]

Title:

No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II

Author:

Book Description:

“No Ordinary Time” is a monumental work, a brilliantly conceived chronicle of one of the most vibrant and revolutionary periods in the history of the United States. With an extraordinary collection of details, Goodwin masterfully weaves together a striking number of story lines– Eleanor and […]