Reading Project

[DEL56]

I have some books to read now that things are beginning to get colder and will not be working outside at the house. Sgt Drydock gave me the book on the battleships and my brother Lt. Colonel gave me some of his collection of WW 1 books to read. I would like to get my hands on some about the Philippine Insurrection, Boxer Rebellion, and anything from our time period on the USMC. What interesting books do you all plan to read here soon, or would you recommend?

[DeaconKC]

A couple of fascinating books that I really enjoyed were "Battle of the River Platte" by Dudley Pope and "Battle of the Bismarck Sea" by Lawrence Cortesi. Both were really well-written about two WW2 battles.

[Major 2]

There are some there I'd like to look over, actually all those.

[DEL56]

There are some there I'd like to look over, actually all those.

This is only a small sampling of the book my brother has on WW 1. He has one whole bookshelf full of them. These were only the ones I brought home that day. When I finish with them, I will see what else there is of interest there. Kind of like having your own WW 1 library available. The only one I have been disappointed in so far is the one on Bayonets.  Lots of missing bayonets in the book. What they do have is interesting though. Great pictures.

[Major 2]

Thanks for the heads up, I actually priced it on Amazon.
Reason being we have a collection of bayonets @ the Museum (2 Military FOOT LOCKERs full)
donated by a single collector's family.
There is 100 + bayonets w/ some duplicates and triplicates, and few rare or unusual ones.
I thought perhaps that book would shed light on some of them.
Thought, I have identified nearly all using "Bayonets of the World", including a number of Trench Knives and modified bayonets to fighting knives.

I also have these reference books, to identify a goodly number of issue equipment.

[Robert Swartz]

I have some books to read now that things are beginning to get colder and will not be working outside at the house. Sgt Drydock gave me the book on the battleships and my brother Lt. Colonel gave me some of his collection of WW 1 books to read. I would like to get my hands on some about the Philippine Insurrection, Boxer Rebellion, and anything from our time period on the USMC. What interesting books do you all plan to read here soon, or would you recommend?

.....DeWayne, if it's the same one. Have read that book, "The Great War"..... does a decent job describing the combatants, what part they played in the conflict, brief descriptions of some of the weapons used. It also speaks to the politics of the various  countries and how those shaped the conflict.

[38OVI]

Try Bayonets from Janzen's NotebookJerry L Janzen ISBN 0-9619789-1-0    Also, for early Histories on the 26th and 28th Infantry that were formed in the Philippines during the insurrection, go to www.FDMuseum.org and go to researchers.  When the list comes up, click on WW I Regimental histories.  There is a list on the site of the digitized histories.  We also have many of the 1st Division WW I & WW II records digitized.

A couple of WW I books - "The Remains of Company D" &  "The Polar Bear Expedition (339th Infantry)- Russia 1918-1919" by James Carl Nelson, any of the many books by Lyn Macdonald, a British author who spent years with veterans on their pilgrimages back to their battlefields of WW I -"Somme" "The Roses of No Man's Land" "They Called it Passchendale"  "To the Last Man".   Also, "A Shattered Peace" by David A. Andelman - includes a retelling of how France and England divided up the Middle East and S.E. Asia in an afternoon at Versailles in 1919 and where we've never had a problem there since......  Schiffer Books has a history of the 332nd Infantry in Italy.
If you can get your hands on it, "The History of the 27th Infantry" starts with the Philippines, goes to Siberia, and then returns to the Philippines, C.1931. 

You can probably Inter-Library-Loan (ILL) them through your local library

[Pitspitr]

The WWI memoirs I'm reading right now is "A Rifleman Went to War" by HW McBride. another good one is, "Sniping in France" by H Hesketh-Prichard.

If just looking for USMC books, I really enjoyed "Marine Sniper" and "Silent Warrior"

[LongWalker]

I've always found the immediate aftermath of WWI to be fascinating, both in the way it doesn't match what they taught us in school, and how it loops back to events as far back as the 1700s that set things up.  As 38OVI recommended, A Shattered Peace discusses how many of these events set up the world for WWII, and events down to today and beyond--ever wonder why Putin is so convinced the US/NATO are out to destroy Russia?  Look to the 1918-1920 intervention by Wilson/Churchill/Masatake.

No English-language scholar has really gotten into the events in Eastern Europe the way Glantz has for Soviet involvement in WWII.  Siberia To-day is a good intro to some of the internal politics the interventionists were dealing with in the Russian Revolution.  Fighting the Bolsheviks and Quartered in Hell: The Story of the American North Russia Expeditionary Force 1918–1919 are good.  The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki is available online on Project Gutenberg, as is With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia (from a British perspective); both are worth a look.  The Way of the Heavenly Sword: The Japanese Army in the 1920's get into both the Siberian Intervention and the evolution of the Meijaa military to the Imperial Japanese Army.

And if you've really got time to get into the underlying world politics, there's always Churchill's The World Crisis, 3,000+ pages covering the real start of the war in 1911 through the post-war events up to 1920, including the Treaty of Versailles.  This one was, and still is, somewhat controversial.  More than one scholar described it as Churchill's autobiography; Churchill himself said it was not a history, but should be taken with other accounts (so it was his, or his view of the British perspective, on the events 1911-1920).  Great book either way (actually, great books, as it is 6 volumes!).

[DeaconKC]

I forgot to mention "Fighting the Flying Circus" by Eddie Richenbacker, America's highest scoring Ace in WW1.

[Pitspitr]

I forgot to mention "Fighting the Flying Circus" by Eddie Richenbacker, America's highest scoring Ace in WW1.

+1!

[Mogorilla]

I will have to see if I can find 2000 Questions and Answers about the War.   It is in my basement, somewhere.   It was a book I bought ~1978 while playing porter for my father wandering around yard sales.    It looked brand new.   I figured maybe about Vietnam.   Bought for a quarter, got it home to discover it was published in 1918.   I was 12, but was fascinated with it.   

[DeaconKC]