Vol. 35, No. 2
June 2005

MORE ON WORLD WAR II

The March 2001 issue of Talking Book News included an article that explored books about the second World War, not including those that were primarily about specific officers or battles. Since that time there has been an explosion of new books about that period of time, so it’s time to revisit the subject and see what’s new.

There are new books about the home front including Our Mothers’ War (RC58820), which chronicles women from various backgrounds who filled nontraditional roles during wartime, and The Home Front (RC51936), which portrays young women working diligently for the war cause. The collection of articles in Arizona Goes to War (AZC2651) shows Arizonans both on the front lines and at home and the tremendous impact the war had on the state and its future. Introductory sections were written and narrated by Senator John McCain, State Historian Marshall Trimble and the book’s editor, Brad Melton.

We have two new books about the covert war, Behind the Lines: the Oral History of Special Operations in World War II (RC57309) by Russell Miller and Operatives, Spies and Saboteurs (RC58126) by Patrick K. O’ Donnell. There is also a book about the secret development of radar technology and its use in the war, The Invention That Changed the World (RC47888).

Secret codes were important to secure communication during the war and we have three recent books about codes and code-making. One is Between Silk and Cyanide (RC49964) by Leo Marks, a British cryptographer who wittily describes how he devised a code issued on lightweight silk. Two more books, Winds of Freedom (RC49954) and The Navajo Code Talkers (RC55315), deal with the only code not deciphered by the enemy and the experiences of the young men who developed and implemented the code.

Many men and women who served in the military during the War have recently published memoirs of their roles. Some of these are The Man Who Flew the Memphis Belle (RC53956) by Robert Morgan, Beyond Valor (RC56806), written by Ranger and Airborne veterans, The Forbidden Diary (RC48698), whose author guided B-24 Liberator bombers over Europe, Into the Rising Sun (RC55697) written by veterans of the Pacific theater, Always Faithful (RC52468) a memoir penned by the former commander of the Marines’ Third War Dog Platoon, and An Album ofMemories (RC52102), a selection of letters Tom Brokaw received after publishing The Greatest Generation Speaks (RC49312).

Books written by historians or journalists about this period are also interesting and some of our more recent titles are The Wild Blue (RC52895) by Stephen Ambrose, which describes B-24 bombing missions over Europe, Bruce Gamble’s The Black Sheep (RC48259), subtitled The Definitive Account of Marine Fighting Squadron 214 in World War II, and Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War (RC50894), a book written by Bob Green based on interviews with the pilot who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. There are also books by and about those who survived persecution in Europe. All But My Life (AZC2591) was written by Phoenix resident Gerda Weissman Klein who was fifteen years old when war came to her native Poland. By the end of the war, she had lost all of her family and survived three years of concentration camps and a forced winter march, but her story is truly inspirational. Other survival books are We Survived (RC57732), firsthand accounts of those in the resistance, and Stolen Years (AZC2457), a personal narrative of a teenage Basque girl who joined the French Resistance after being forced out of her home by Nazi troops.

We’ll end with a few books that are less serious, including Unexplained Mysteries of World War II (RC58268), which explores some of the odd occurrences of the War, All This and World War II (AZC2534), anecdotes about the war years the author spent as the American wife of an Englishman and their post-war years in different countries around the world, and A. E. Hotchner’s The Day I Fired Alan Ladd and Other World War II Adventures (RC55675), the author’s light-hearted reminiscence about his military service on the home front.

Let us know if you would like to read any of these books and we’ll get them on their way to you. We can also provide a copy of the 2001 World War II article that lists additional titles.