D-Day

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by corroonb

Amazon UK have 20 D-Day related history books as today's Kindle Daily Deal.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=s9_hps...d_i=1000577623

Sadly nothing like this in the US.


I did run across a freebie that might be of interest though (yes Mods, I know this isn't a deals thread)...
Lessons Learned in Combat: Normandy Paratroopers
Amazon CA | Amazon UK

A collection of personal experience papers written by Parachute officers only a few years after WW2 dealing with their experiences in the Normandy invasion, and the lessons that they learned. Annotated with footnotes by the editor pointing out interesting facts and clarifying certain aspects of the text. Includes color maps, scalable on most devices, drawn by the officers themselves. Split into both an 82nd and 101st section, this book also includes additional information and after action reports on the divisions, as well as sections from the Air Force History on the preparation for the invasion, and on the glider and resupply operations. The second volume in the "Lessons Learned" series.

[AnemicOak]

Found this interesting...

Nova: D-Day's Sunken Secrets

Dive teams, submersibles, and robots explore a massive underwater WWII archeological site.

approx. 2 hours long

[pwalker8]

IMPO, the Ambrose plagiarism thing is pretty much a mountain out of a molehill. Basically, it appears that he didn't dot all his i's and cross all his t's when attributing his quotes. I think this is much more important in the academic world than in main stream publishing. I enjoy reading his books, which is one of the most important things to me. As far as accuracy goes, I agree. For the most part, writing about history is about making an informed guess as to what really happened, based on the sources you have access to. There are literally hundreds of books about what _really_ happened in the Battle of Gettysburg. You pays your money and you takes your chances, as they say.

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Ambrose knew how to put together a 'can't put down' kind of read, but sometimes his "facts" are questionable. Some say it's him taking veteran accounts and lending them 100% accuracy instead of following through and verifying the facts. I don't think I've read a history book yet where everyone agreed the facts were all completely accurate and somebody didn't dispute something or other so I don't know. Some others say it's people jealous of his success/notoriety. I'd guess it's probably somewhere in the middle, a little bit of both?

As for the plagiarism I've heard/read about it too and the Wikipedia entry on the subject sums up what I recall pretty well...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen...sm_controversy

On the same wiki page you can see he was pretty roundly blasted for his book "Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863–1869" too and read about the Eisenhower controversy as well.

I've read and liked 'Band of Brothers', 'Pegasus Bridge', 'D-Day' & 'Citizen Soldiers' and also own a few others, but I read them all years ago and honestly can't say if I like them more in memory than I did at the time and can't really state to their accuracy.




Thanks. I've heard good things about all of his books. A friend keeps bugging me to read his Stalingrad book, but I haven't yet.

[rollei]

Gerald Astor has a number of well written oral histories on World War II.

June 6, 1944: The Voices of D-Day, by Gerald Astor

A Blood-Dimmed Tide: The Battle of the Bulge by the Men Who Fought It, by Gerald Astor