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10 World War II Book Reviews for Summer 2024

By Christopher Miskimon Full Reviews

Patton’s Prayer: A True Story of Courage, Faith and Victory in World War II (Alex Kershaw, Dutton Press, New York NY, 2024, 348 pp., Read more

Alex Kershaw’s ‘Patton’s Prayer’

By Christopher Miskimon

The U.S. Army’s summer campaign of 1944 proved hard-fought, but successful. The Normandy landing succeeded in establishing a lodgment in mainland Europe. Read more

The Northrop P-61 Black Widow was the first aircraft designed with an integral nose-mounted radar that made it an excellent night fighter.

Paul Hendrickson’s ‘Fighting the Night’

By Christopher Miskimon

On September 20, 1944, 1st Lt. Joe Paul Hendrickson said goodbye to his wife and two small children. Read more

Following a successful raid against targets in the Marianas, a Grumman F6F Hellcat fighter sets down on the USS Hornet. A tough, powerful fighter, the Hellcat ultimately dominated the skies over the Pacific.

Cdr. Hamilton McWhorter III’s ‘The First Hellcat Ace’

By Christopher Miskimon

Georgia-born Hamilton McWhorter III wanted to be a fighter pilot. When the Pearl Harbor attack happened on December 7, 1941, he was a naval aviation cadet still in training. Read more

An American soldier takes aim with a captured Japanese 6.5mm light machine gun. The weapon was taken during the savage fighting for Guadalcanal.

William Swanson’s ‘The View from my Foxhole’

By Christopher Miskimon

William Swanson described himself as an ordinary rifleman, but there was nothing ordinary about his experiences as a United States Marine in World War II. Read more

British paratroopers of the 1st Airborne Division, who were tasked with the highway bridge over the Nederrijn at Arnhem, land in an open field at the outset of Operation Market Garden.

Mike Gallagher’s ‘With Recce at Arnhem’

By Christopher Miskimon

Trapped in a reserved occupation which prevented him from enlisting, Des Evans abandoned his job and ran off to join the army. Read more

During one of many close quarters engagements in the dense jungle of Peleliu, Marines hurl molotov cocktails towards enemy positions along a bitterly contested elevation nicknamed “Suicide Ridge.”

Andrew Biggio’s ‘The Rifle 2’

By Christopher Miskimon

Emilio Magliacane, a second-generation Italian from Boston, joined the Marine Corps in 1942. After training he went to the Pacific, assigned to Company A, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st marine Division. Read more

Determined to win back eastern Tennessee from the advancing Federals, Confederates hurled themselves at the Northerners in the forested and broken fields near Chickamauga Creek in northwestern Georgia.

On They Came Like an Angry Flood: The Battle of Chickamauga

By Arnold Blumberg

It had been a little over six months since Major General William S. Rosecrans and his Army of the Cumberland had checked the Confederates at the Battle of Stones River (December 31,1862–January 2,1863). Read more

The Many Faces of Adolf Hitler

By Kevin M. Hymel

As the Allied armies in the West closed in on Germany in late September 1944, one question began to dog many of democracy’s leaders. Read more

Paratroopers of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division perform a mass jump during the 2006 Joint Service Open House at Joint Base Andrews in Prince George's County, Maryland. The 82nd was the U.S. Army's first airborne division, converted from an infantry division prior to World War II.

Evolution of the Army Airborne

By Arnold Blumberg

The United States Army came late to the idea of employing airborne troops in time of war. The first U.S Read more

Angus Konstam’s ‘The Convoy HG-76’

By Christopher Miskimon

Convoy HG-76 departed Gibraltar for Liverpool in December 1941. The 32 ships had to make a2,000-mile voyage, braving the dangers of German U-Boats and maritime strike aircraft. Read more

The Rise and Fall of the Japanese ‘Zero’

By Mark Carlson

For thousands of Allied airmen the most terrifying sight they ever beheld was a Mitsubishi A6M Zero bearing down on them—burnished black cowling over a snarling Sakae engine, staccato bursts flashing from two machine guns and two cannon—often the last thing they ever saw. Read more

Bold Gamble Above Cologne

By Michael D. Hull

Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Travers Harris, the burly, red-haired chief of Royal Air Force Bomber Command, was an anxious man on the evening of Saturday, May 30, 1942. Read more

The Arquebus

By William J. McPeak

In 1503, near the northern Italian town of Cerignola, the famous Spanish commander Gonsalvo de Cordova, Viceroy of Naples (to be known to military history as “The Great Captain”), resolved to turn and stand before the pursuing French army. Read more

Indians attack a building party in the woods. Settlers had to be on their guard for such ambushes.

Elizabethans vs. “The Naturals”

By Eric Niderost

On April 26, 1607, three small English ships arrived at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay after a grueling and contentious four-month voyage. Read more

George S. Patton’s bull terrier Wille waits quietly for his late master to return.

Patton’s Death

By Blaine Taylor

It was 11:45 am, on December 9, 1945, and former U.S. Third Army Commanding General George Smith Patton, Jr., Read more

U.S. Navy Helldiver aircraft attack the Japanese battleship Musashi in the Sibuyan Sea during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Painting by Sam L. Massette.

Battle of Sibuyan Sea

By John Wukovits

In warfare, desperate times call for desperate measures, and in the fall of 1944 the empire of Japan found itself in precisely that predicament. Read more

The location of Salses fortress in northern Spain was dictated by the presence of a natural spring—a necessity in the event of an enemy siege.

Forteresse de Salses

By Susan Ludmer-Gliebe

In the autumn of 1495, three years after the Christian reconquest of Islamic Spain, Queen Isabella I of Castile and her husband, King Ferdinand II of Aragon, sent a letter to their master architect. Read more

Medics, who have lost most of their supplies, still treat the wounded on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, in this mural by Keith Rocco. Center, left, bandaging a soldier’s leg is medic Charles Norman Shay, of the Penobscot Indian Nation, who received a Silver Star. Further to the left is wounded African American medic Waverly Woodson, Jr., who is helping a fellow soldier crawl forward. Woodson, who treated more than 200 men before collapsing after 30 hours, received a Bronze Star.

The Big Red One on D-Day

By Kevin Seabrooke

In celebration and commemoration of the courageous actions of the “The Big Red One” during the Allied Invasion of Normandy, the First Division Museum at Cantigny has unveiled two interpretive murals and a companion book outlining both the story of First Division on D-Day and the making of the murals by artist Keith Rocco. Read more

Soldiers of the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion trudge through snow while carrying bazookas. According to their commanding officer, Lt. Col. David E. Pergrin, the brave engineers stayed to defend Trois-Ponts during the Battle of the Bulge after they had been taunted by fellow soldiers. Pergrin recalled that the infantrymen had shouted, “You engineer so-and-so! Why don't you come on up there and fight?”

Combat Engineers at Trois-Ponts

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Major Robert B. Yates arrived at the 1111th Engineers’ headquarters in Trois-Ponts, Belgium, around 13:30 on Monday, December 18, 1944, expecting to sit in on an ordinary staff meeting. Read more

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