Books like Facing Fearful Odds — picked by fans

Gallipoli occupies an infamous place in the history of amphibious operations. The British and Allies hoped in 1915 to wrest control of the Gallipoli peninsula from Turkish forces, then aligned with the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. This attack in turn would open the way for the defeat of Turkey, link up with friendly Russian forces, and ultimately defeat the Central Powers. However, as Robin Pryor explains, the British amphibious assault suffered from poor planning, incompetent leadership, ineffective logistics, and inadequate weapons and vehicles. The Turks enjoyed the advantages of high ground and good leadership. Following the assault in April 1915, ground operations cost 130,000 British and Allied casualties and ended in their evacuation and failure in January 1916. Pryor’s book paints Gallipoli as a cautionary tale of how not to conduct amphibious operations.  

First published in 1959, some 15 years after the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day, Cornelius Ryan’s book stands as a classic narrative of that amphibious assault. Writing in the vivid prose of an experienced journalist, Ryan also conducted research like a seasoned historian. He interviewed combatants of every nation and rank and sent questionnaires to many others. I feel like I am in the thick of the fight alongside Allied soldiers in the landing craft approaching the beach and with Germans hunkered down in the fortifications trying to stop their amphibious assault. Throughout his narrative, Ryan blends analyses of the good and bad decisions made by both sides.   

In the late 1990s, I stumbled on this unique book written by Theodore Gatchel, a retired Marine colonel.  He turns amphibious warfare inside out. He analyzes defenders’ efforts to oppose amphibious assaults beginning with Gallipoli in 1915 and taking the story up to the Falklands War in 1982. Three optional tactics emerge for stopping an enemy assault: a naval defense that destroys enemy ships before an assault starts, a defense at the water’s edge that drives the assault forces back into the sea, or a mobile reserve that launches counterattacks in force once enemy forces landed. Each tactic had advantages and disadvantages as shown in chapter-length case studies with analysis of lessons learned. I believe that this book provides an excellent historical backdrop for the anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) concept being discussed by Marines today in the twenty-first century.

Although most studies of amphibious operations focus on twentieth-century examples, the chapters in this anthology study ship-to-shore assaults throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern era. I think the introductory chapter is a tour de force in explaining how amphibious warfare plays out in tactics, operations, and strategy. The principles remain timeless regardless of terrain or technology. Subsequent chapters represent stand-alone studies of reasons for successes or failures in amphibious battles in the Baltic, Mediterranean, Ireland, and Europe, whether on seashores or along riverbanks. The sum of all the chapters is greater than their individual pieces. I grasped that amphibious warfare sometimes expanded beyond military objectives to include establishing footholds for commercial trade, state development, and imperial expansion. 

When Wingmen was published in 1979, there had been nothing else quite like it: a war novel, very well researched, with plenty of action and adventure… plus a romance between two men at its center. Those feelings emerge, in a classic slow burn, between young Ensign Fred Trusteau and the more seasoned Lieutenant Commander Fred Hartigan against the backdrop of the Pacific Theatre of World War II. The often-harrowing life of naval aviators is vividly conveyed in action scenes set in places whose names will be familiar to students of WW2 – Wake Island, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Truk. Case has certainly done his homework on the hardware and the military lingo, but what lifts the narrative is the uncertain, unconventional romance between the main characters. What Top Gun could have been.

This is a book I read as a teen that inspired me to write war stories. I loved it because it doesn’t glorify war; Brian Callison is a master of writing about war as it is, from multiple perspectives, in all its bloody, brutal horror.

The action is great but almost secondary to the memorable characters he creates, and Brian Callison writes dialogue the way soldiers really talk. If you like this one, he's written a dozen more like it, and they haven't aged.

Although my novel is set mainly on the home front, it starts in no man’s land and the trenches and returns to the front a few more times to demonstrate how close the links were between the home and war fronts. I wanted these passages to be realistic and needed facts, details, and knowledge from which to write.

I read John Lewis-Stempel’s meticulously researched book because it focuses on the experiences of Subalterns—young men who were made officers while they were often still at school. I found it moving, harrowing, and shocking—a book that stayed with me because it showed the impossibility of performing that role and surviving more than a few weeks. It proved invaluable for the first chapter of the book which is entitled The Subaltern.

Do I judge a book by its cover? Why yes, yes I do! And the moment I saw this gorgeous cover I put it right into my shopping cart, paid full price, and never looked back.

Luckily for me, Women in Intelligence happens to be an excellent book where the content more than matched the expectations I had from the fabulous artwork. Although there are a few familiar faces that appear, most of the women were completely new to me. Not the femme fatales of popular culture; these were patriotic women who often went unseen in the background.

I love that Fry truly delves into uncovering the unsung heroines of WWI and WWII, giving these quiet, determined women a chance to be recognized and to shine.

Like so many marvelous novels, this one has traveled through the underground of the fiction world too little known, despite catching many awards and the intense praise of people such as Stephen Fry.

It is set in France during the final bloody months of World War I and features an unexpected love affair between two ordinary young soldiers, Australian and American. What is amazing is that the author is such a vivid, meticulous historian, such a fine military researcher, and yet can write so intimately.

I became so involved with Tommy and David. Will they survive the last months of the war and go on together hiding their relationship from condemning neighbors, or will the war cancel their great love? 

I think this book explains why genocide happens under the cover of war. It made me see why both World War I and World War II were marked by genocides. I really liked how the author explained why the Armenian Genocide was a key event of World War I.

Balakian is a poet who turned to history writing to explain the experience of genocide and demonstrate the central importance of the international response to genocide. He uses interesting source material from eyewitnesses and official archives to trace both the humanitarian response and military decisions that brought the US into the war on the side of the Allies in the wake of the first large-scale genocide of the twentieth century.