Here are 100 books that Downfall fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am the author of six books on World War II, including my book that's listed below and Escape from Java: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the USS Marblehead. My fascination with history began at a young age when I built model ships and read books about World War II. My interest eventually grew into research and writing. I have interviewed scores of veterans from the Pacific War. My articles have appeared in World War II History, Naval History, and World War II Quarterly Magazines.
The book provides a fresh look at the pivotal World War II sea battle, generally considered the turning point of the Pacific War. The authors conducted extensive research on both the American and Japanese sides to provide a comprehensive account of the battle. This book is highly readable and enjoyable.
Many consider the Battle of Midway to have turned the tide of the Pacific War. It is without question one of the most famous battles in history. Now, for the first time since Gordon W. Prange's bestselling Miracle at Midway, Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully offer a new interpretation of this great naval engagement.
Unlike previous accounts, Shattered Sword makes extensive use of Japanese primary sources. It also corrects the many errors of Mitsuo Fuchida's Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan, an uncritical reliance upon which has tainted every previous Western account. It thus forces a major, potentially controversial reevaluation…
The authoritative but accessible history of the birth of modern American intelligence in World War II that treats not just one but all of the various disciplines: spies, codebreakers, saboteurs.
Told in a relatable style that focuses on actual people, it was a New Yorker "Best of 2022" selection and…
Growing up, I often told neighborhood kids about my father’s internment, what he remembered of Camp Crystal City, Texas, where he spent three years, age seven to ten, going to school, swimming, playing in nearby orchards, and other normal experiences—except for the barbed wire, guard towers, and lack of freedom. Later, I wanted to know more and learned that what happened to my family can happen to anybody else if they are feared. More recently, families have been ripped apart, children put in cages, and countless people treated as less than human. My book reminds us of what can happen when fear leads to calling those among us enemies or worse.
Among historians, we know there are few better as academics and storytellers than Goodwin. I love her writing style, and the coverage of both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt is unmatched. Small wonder that it was a NYT bestseller! I think any reader would enjoy this magisterial work.
A chronicle of the US and its leaders during the period when modern America was created. It narrates the interrelationships between the inner workings of the Roosevelt White House and the destiny of the US, painting a portrait that fills in a historical gap in the story of America under Roosevelt.
I am the author of six books on World War II, including my book that's listed below and Escape from Java: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the USS Marblehead. My fascination with history began at a young age when I built model ships and read books about World War II. My interest eventually grew into research and writing. I have interviewed scores of veterans from the Pacific War. My articles have appeared in World War II History, Naval History, and World War II Quarterly Magazines.
The book tells the story of tanker Clarence Smoyer, who served with the Third Armored Division during the last months of World War II in Europe. Makos expertly tells the personal story of the soldier and his tank as the unit thrust into Germany in early 1945. Smoyer’s tank is involved in a famous one-on-one duel with a German tank in Cologne. It's a thrilling read!
THE NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, LOS ANGELES TIMES, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER
“A band of brothers in an American tank . . . Makos drops the reader back into the Pershing’s turret and dials up a battle scene to rival the peak moments of Fury.” —The Wall Street Journal
From the author of the international bestseller A Higher Call comes the riveting World War II story of an American tank gunner’s journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel—and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.
The authoritative but accessible history of the birth of modern American intelligence in World War II that treats not just one but all of the various disciplines: spies, codebreakers, saboteurs.
Told in a relatable style that focuses on actual people, it was a New Yorker "Best of 2022" selection and…
I am an author and investor living in windward Oahu who has had a lifelong interest in military history ever since I read a biography of Alexander the Great when I was 12 years old. I have written several books including Hitler’s Great Gamble and MacArthur Reconsidered. For my next project I have transcribed, compiled, and edited 1,100 of General Douglas MacArthur’s daily communiques issued by his Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) headquarters from 1942-45. This collection will be published by McFarland in 2024.
This Is the World War II memoir of Lieutenant General Robert Eichelberger, one of our nation’s most aggressive and effective field commanders.
MacArthur ordered him forward again and again to salvage battles that were tilting in favor of the Japanese. Eichelberger often lived at the front with his men in New Guinea and the Philippines and shared their hardships as he led them to victory at nearly forgotten battlefields such as Buna, Los Negros, Hollandia, Biak, and Batangas.
Despite his success and promotion to command of the Eighth Army, few have heard of Eichelberger. The primary reason was his superior’s need to hog the limelight…or else. Check out this highly readable first-hand report of the advance to Tokyo that Eichelberger called, “The Hard Way Back.”
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been…
I am an author and investor living in windward Oahu who has had a lifelong interest in military history ever since I read a biography of Alexander the Great when I was 12 years old. I have written several books including Hitler’s Great Gamble and MacArthur Reconsidered. For my next project I have transcribed, compiled, and edited 1,100 of General Douglas MacArthur’s daily communiques issued by his Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) headquarters from 1942-45. This collection will be published by McFarland in 2024.
Japanese conduct was unfathomable to the GIs and Marines who confronted them in battle: The enemy would almost never surrender, engaged in suicidal charges, and often feigned death when wounded in an attempt to kill at least one American before expiring. As the Japanese asked no quarter, they also rarely offered it, and those taken prisoner by the Emperor’s soldiers were often murdered and their bodies mutilated.
Then there was the land itself: jungles and marshes of debilitating heat and humidity from which sprang deadly diseases such as malaria, typhus, and cholera which caused multiples of the numbers of casualties suffered in battle.
Touched With Fire chronicles this hellish battlefield as the Japanese advance was slowed, halted, and then reversed over the course of 1942-45.
A brilliant history of the land battles in the Pacific theater of World War II, with stirring personal accounts of the horrifying struggle between the Japanese and Allied forces.
The horrors of WWII in the South Pacific extended far beyond the detonation of atomic bombs. In this revelatory portrayal of the lives of the regular infantrymen who struggled to contain the Japanese advance, Eric Bergerud has given us a compelling and chilling record of the incredible hardships endured by these soldiers, and the heroic efforts that resulted in the reversal of the course of the war. Bergerud spent hundreds of…
I am an author and investor living in windward Oahu who has had a lifelong interest in military history ever since I read a biography of Alexander the Great when I was 12 years old. I have written several books including Hitler’s Great Gamble and MacArthur Reconsidered. For my next project I have transcribed, compiled, and edited 1,100 of General Douglas MacArthur’s daily communiques issued by his Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) headquarters from 1942-45. This collection will be published by McFarland in 2024.
Similar to Eichelberger, few today know the name of General George Kenney who commanded the Allied Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) from the 1942 defense of Papua New Guinea to the surrender of Japan.
Again, MacArthur’s need to dominate all headlines from his military theater explains the relative obscurity of his field generals. But Kenney’s story, related in his own words, should not be overlooked.
He was arguably the most innovative and successful air commander of the WWII. He demanded aggressiveness from his pilots, mounted .50-caliber machine guns onto pretty much anything that could fly and insisted on implementing the dangerous but deadly tactics of parachute fragmentation bombing on land and mast-height and skip-bombing against Japanese shipping at sea.
General Kenney Reports is a classic account of a combat commander in action. General George Churchill Kenney arrived in the Southwest Pacific theater in August 1942 to find that his command, if not in a shambles, was in dire straits. The theater commander, General Douglas MacArthur, had no confidence in his air element. Kenney quickly changed this situation. He organized and energized the Fifth Air Force, bringing in operational commanders like Whitehead and Wurtsmith who knew how to run combat air forces. He fixed the logistical swamp, making supply and maintenance supportive of air operations, and encouraging mavericks such as…
I am an author and investor living in windward Oahu who has had a lifelong interest in military history ever since I read a biography of Alexander the Great when I was 12 years old. I have written several books including Hitler’s Great Gamble and MacArthur Reconsidered. For my next project I have transcribed, compiled, and edited 1,100 of General Douglas MacArthur’s daily communiques issued by his Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) headquarters from 1942-45. This collection will be published by McFarland in 2024.
Written by MacArthur’s staff in Tokyo after World War II, these are detailed, beautiful, in-depth volumes of maneuvers, battles, advances, and retreats. While a useful reference, they may also be the most outrageous piece of sycophancy ever produced at taxpayer expense.
Reports present the conflict as MacArthur wanted you to learn it: a great cataclysm where he worked against time to prepare the Philippines for war, and then fought heroically in the islands for as long as possible before making a daring escape to Australia.
Upon arrival there he famously promised, “I will return”, and launched a crusade in which he led swelling armies across thousands of miles back to redemption in a liberated Manila before becoming the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in a prostrate Japan.
Reports of General MacArthur are the official after-action reports of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. Long out of print, this facsimile edition contains not only MacArthur's own perspective of his operations against the Japanese in the Southwest Pacific Area during World War II but also the enemy's unique account of Imperial Army campaigns against MacArthur's forces. Collectively, the reports have substantial and enduring value for military historians and students of military affairs, providing an illuminating record of momentous events influenced in large measure by a distinguished Soldier and towering figure in American historiography.
I am the author of six books on World War II, including my book that's listed below and Escape from Java: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the USS Marblehead. My fascination with history began at a young age when I built model ships and read books about World War II. My interest eventually grew into research and writing. I have interviewed scores of veterans from the Pacific War. My articles have appeared in World War II History, Naval History, and World War II Quarterly Magazines.
A gripping story of a group of soldiers from Bedford, VA, who participated in the D-Day invasion of France on June 6, 1944. Like all his books, Kershaw seamlessly weaves together the personal side of the war—people stories—with the actual battle—a must-read for anyone interested in World War II.
June 6, 1944: Nineteen boys from Bedford, Virginia- population just 3,000 in 1944- died in the first bloody minutes of D-Day. They were part of Company A of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Division, and the first wave of American soldiers to hit the beaches in Normandy. Later in the campaign, three more boys from this small Virginia town died of gunshot wounds. Twenty-two sons of Bedford lost- it is a story one cannot easily forget and one that the families of Bedford will never forget. The Bedford Boys is the true and intimate story of these men and…
I write stories and poetry intended to influence positive change in our world. Since marrying Kent 25 years ago and then growing to know and love his parents, something stirred in me to learn more and to write Of White Ashes. In our research, we relied on over 50 primary Hiroshima sources, visited the family home in Hiroshima, saw the bomb shelter my father-in-law dug into the side of a hillside, visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the few buildings that still stand, and walked where my father-in-law walked. Researching and writing Of White Ashes changed me—forever. My article, "How the History of Nuclear Violence Shapes Our Present", was published in CrimeReads.
Hiroshima No Pika is an Illustrated book that immerses YA readers into the daily life of the Japanese before the atomic bomb was unleashed on them.
The aftermath is shown in raw and haunting illustrations. My father-in-law, an American hiding his identity in Hiroshima, was sixteen years old and working in a factory making rifles for his emperor when the bomb fell. Hiroshima No Pika tells the horrors of what he experienced that day.
My favorite part is the ending. “It can’t happen again,” she says, “if no one drops the bomb.” Sadly, we are now closer to midnight (90 seconds) on the Doomsday Clock than at any point since the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists developed the design in 1947. Indeed, it can happen again. But we must have hope and work toward peace.
Environmental storytelling in comics is something that I’ve always admired and want to be better at. As a cartoonist I’m always thinking of better ways to tell visual stories, because it’s fun.
I first heard of Kouno’s work through the animated adaptation of In This Corner of the World. Town of Evening Calm and Country of Cherry Blossoms are a short story and short series (respectively) about Hiroshima. Like many other shojo/josei artists, Kouno uses the natural world to impart tone and mood, but is particularly good at it.
What impact did World War II and the dropping of the atomic bomb have on the common people of Japan? Through the eyes of an average woman living in 1955, Japanese artist Fumiyo Kouno answers these questions. This award-winning manga appears in an English translation for the first time. Fumiyo Kounos light, free style of drawing evokes a tender reflection of this difficult period in Hiroshimas postwar past. As the characters continue with everyday life, the shadow of the war and the atomic bombing linger ghostlike in the background. Kounos beautiful storytelling touches the readers heart but is never overly…
