What are your favourite military memoirs?
Here's my list:
Among generals:
--U.S. Grant and W.T. Sherman both wrote superb memoirs which are very interesting. One can get a good appreciation of logistical factors from reading their account of campaigns.
--Field-Marshal Slim's Defeat into Victory is brilliant all-round.
--published parts of the diaries of Patton and Stilwell are quite interesting. If you enjoy sarcasm, Stilwell is a riot (and you can see why the authorities sent him off to spend the war on the other side of the world).
--Churchill's Their Finest Hour, although long a part of the canonical history of WWII, nevertheless offers a look from the position of a warlord at work, composed fairly soon after the events, and with surprisingly little apologia.
--Schwarzkopf's It Doesn't Take a Hero is well worth a read, and of course he made some telling remarks on the limited aims of the 1991 war.
Among non-generals:
--To read Hans von Luck, Panzer Commander, is an education in itself. Of particular note are the chapters covering his captivity in Georgia and Russia from 1945-50.
--Dimitri Loza's memoirs With the Red Army's Sherman Tanks and Fighting for the Soviet Motherland are rare looks at the Soviet experience. For more Soviet individual accounts, check out the "Russian Battlefield" site, www.iremember.ru (mixed quality, but interesting).
--T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom is often written for effect, but a lot of it still rings true to me.
--F.C. Hitchcock's Stand To is the best memoir of trench warfare I have read. A lot of details are related which I have found nowhere else.
--Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That is a classic, and along with Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth, gives a good look at the effect of WWI on the British middle class.
--Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is another classic, with a good account of confused factional street-fighting in Barcelona, and an overall look at modern war waged in a underdeveloped country.
Here's my list:
Among generals:
--U.S. Grant and W.T. Sherman both wrote superb memoirs which are very interesting. One can get a good appreciation of logistical factors from reading their account of campaigns.
--Field-Marshal Slim's Defeat into Victory is brilliant all-round.
--published parts of the diaries of Patton and Stilwell are quite interesting. If you enjoy sarcasm, Stilwell is a riot (and you can see why the authorities sent him off to spend the war on the other side of the world).
--Churchill's Their Finest Hour, although long a part of the canonical history of WWII, nevertheless offers a look from the position of a warlord at work, composed fairly soon after the events, and with surprisingly little apologia.
--Schwarzkopf's It Doesn't Take a Hero is well worth a read, and of course he made some telling remarks on the limited aims of the 1991 war.
Among non-generals:
--To read Hans von Luck, Panzer Commander, is an education in itself. Of particular note are the chapters covering his captivity in Georgia and Russia from 1945-50.
--Dimitri Loza's memoirs With the Red Army's Sherman Tanks and Fighting for the Soviet Motherland are rare looks at the Soviet experience. For more Soviet individual accounts, check out the "Russian Battlefield" site, www.iremember.ru (mixed quality, but interesting).
--T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom is often written for effect, but a lot of it still rings true to me.
--F.C. Hitchcock's Stand To is the best memoir of trench warfare I have read. A lot of details are related which I have found nowhere else.
--Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That is a classic, and along with Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth, gives a good look at the effect of WWI on the British middle class.
--Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is another classic, with a good account of confused factional street-fighting in Barcelona, and an overall look at modern war waged in a underdeveloped country.
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