(Part 2) Best wwi biographies according to redditors

> I have to apologize to RenoXD for expanding on a small point so extravagantly, but it's one that interests me.

Don't apologise! Thanks for the detailed analysis.

> This is not a cheerful tone to set, and it was only made worse by the situation of the Pals' Battalions. Because of the way in which these battalions were constructed, a particularly bad day for one of them could result in the functional destruction of an entire town's worth of men.

I know this isn't really answering the above question, but I've done a lot of research into the Pals Battalions and their story is very sad. I couldn't resist writing a little bit here: This 'wiping out' of an entire community of men was especially prevalent on the Somme. On the far right of the line, 720 soldiers of the Accrington Pals (or 11th East Lancashire Regiment) went into battle. 584 were either killed, wounded or missing. Beside them, the Sheffield City Battalion (12th York and Lancashire Regiment) lost 513 officers and men. The 2nd Barnsley Pals (14th York and Lancashire Regiment) recorded a 30% casualty rate before zero hour had even been reached. Some of these men had never even seen the enemy, and yet for many their first experience of combat would be their last.

If you're interested in reading about the Accrington Pals, Sheffield City Battalion or 1st and 2nd Barnsley Pals but don't have the money for expensive books, this site is very respectful and there is so much information regarding the tragedy that day. If you do have the money, this book is very good, and if you're interested in some accounts from Pals Battalions on the Somme, this book is really interesting. I've actually visited the Somme and seen the memorials to the Accrington Pals and Sheffield City Battalion. If you haven't, there are some lovely pictures and some information here.

Only the Germans gave their pilots parachutes.

While the balloon corps on both sides issued parachutes to their observers from the outset of the war, neither side was willing to give their pilots and observers in their air services parachutes. The general idea was that a parachute enabled cowardice, and aeroplane crews would abandon their planes at the first sign of danger. British pilot Arthur Gould Lee would later write in his book 'No Parachute' that this was preposterous. He argued that had they had parachutes, he believes that he and his men would have been emboldened and more likely to take risks.

All that said though, at the time, the parachutes that were issued to the balloon corps would have never been useful anyway, they were too big and bulky and would have never fit inside of the already cramped cockpit of the aircraft of the time. It wouldn't be until late 1917 that Otto Heinecke would design a parachute that was compact enough to be stored in the cockpit of German aircraft. The Heinecke Type A Fallschirm as it was known began to be slowly issued around late 1917/early 1918. It was flawed however, the leather straps and fasteners weren't strong enough to withstand the shock of deployment and many Germans plummeted to their deaths when their parachutes failed. The improved Type B was quickly introduced and these occurrences happened less frequently.

I believe the British finally approved their own parachute in the final months of the war, but the Armistice came along before any of them made it to the front. I haven't got much information on their design, though.


In answer to your other question, I'm sure there were more than a few that managed to escape, but the one that sticks out in my mind is Duncan Grinnell-Milne. He was forced to land behind German lines and taken prisoner. He spent two years in captivity before he managed to escape and made it back to his squadron. Funny enough, when he made it back he was put into the cockpit of an SE5 that he named [Schweinhund,] (http://i.imgur.com/wcZKExE.jpg) in honor of what the Germans called he and his fellow prisoner's. [He wrote a book about his experience.] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1473822688/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_BGpHzbJSQCYVE)

I'm reading [My Reminiscences of East Africa: The East Africa Campaign of the First World War by the Most Notable German Commander] (https://www.amazon.com/My-Reminiscences-East-Africa-Commander/dp/0857064185/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517608055&sr=8-1&keywords=von+lettow-vorbeck)

It's Von Lettow-Vorbeck's journal from the East African Campaign during WW1.

“Please, don’t worry.”

‘May 4 1918 – Dearest Mother: Excuse this little note but I just have time to tell you that we are through at the gunnery school and are on our way back to Issoudun to await further orders. I am now completely through my training and am ready to go to the front!

Over here we are very comfortable and please don’t worry. It really is a shame how we fellows are made heroes by you people at home, when we really live like Kings, etc. We have good food, plenty of clothes and everything we need, so you needn’t worry about me at all.’

An American Pursuit Pilot in France- 1918, American aviator - SDASM Archives.

What about what did officers with orders to attack at 6AM do at 5:59AM? This is a fantastic read on the topic

http://www.the-best-childrens-books.org/Archies-War.html

This one could be a book you might have read in school. It's designed for kids and is written like a children's scrapbook full of letters from soldiers and notes about the war.

Here are a couple others that could also fit with what you remember...

https://www.amazon.com/Love-Letters-Great-Mandy-Kirkby/dp/0230772838

https://www.amazon.com/Allen-Peck%C2%92s-Letters-Home-1917-1919/dp/0595362230


Best of luck finding this! It sounds like an interesting book!

Norman Stone - The Eastern Front is the classic standard, best single volume general history.

Prit Buttar's four volume series is the best overall general history, very comprehensive with a much bigger focus on military action, compared to Stone's which has more time devoted to things like the politics of the factories and how it affected production.

> In recent years, some suggest that the prancing horse was actually copied by Baracca from the wreckage of a German aircraft he shot down- the horse prominently featured on the city emblem for Stuttgart, Germany.

That's all it is, a suggestion. A lot of people argued that the black horse on his airplane came from a downed German aircraft, hailing from Stuttgart, thus making the Ferrari logo a rip off of Porsche's logo, which also features a prancing horse... but it's not! It's covered in the book Italian Aces of World War I and Their Aircraft.

> "It was during this period that the soon-to-be-famous black prancing horse first appeared on the fuselage of his Nieuport 17. It has been suggested that Baracca adopted it after shooting down a pilot from the German city of Stuttgart, whose crest features a prancing horse. This cannot be true, however, as German aviation units did not arrive in Italy until October 1917. Baracca himself explained the insignia's real origin in one of his many letters, stating that he chose the prancing horse as a tribute to Piemonte Reale Cavalleria, whose crest featured the device in silver on a red background."

So there ya have it, straight from the horse's mouth.

Graves gives a good account of a personal experience of the the war from a British subaltern's point of view. Others giving the bottom up look are from the French soldier's perspective in the trenches 1915-1916 Under Fire: The Story of a Squad by Henri Barbusse free here, another from a German perspective Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger. More graphically violent than All Quiet, but more a memoir than a novel. And unlike Remarque, Jünger was a combat soldier wounded 14 times, Iron Cross 1st Class, youngest recipient of Pour le Mérite (The Blue Max) and when he died in 1998, he was last living Blue Max recipient. From the American Doughboy's perspective, there's Toward the Flame a memoir by Hervey Allen who served in the "bucket of blood" the 28th Keystone Div in the Aisne - Marne offensive and leaves you contemplating being on the receiving end of a flamethrower attack. A harrowing compilation of vignettes running chronologically through each month of the war on the Western Front is The Hazy Red Hell Tom Donovan ed. It has been described as terrifying. I'll not dispute that. A more balanced view of the experiences of the fighting men is Forgotten Voices of the Great War: A New History of WWI in the Words of the Men and Women Who Were There I'm reading that right now.

https://www.amazon.com/Command-Culture-Education-1901-1940-Consequences/dp/1574413031

and

https://www.amazon.com/Order-Chaos-Memoirs-General-Hermann/dp/0813161266

Might be interesting for you.

Another wonderful book about WWI riflery is A Rifleman Went to War by Herbert McBride. He was a crafty bastard who fought for both the Canadians (for fun) and the Americans. He describes everything from sniping to machineguns, trench raids, pistols, etc. It's a superb read.

Try all the Teaching Company and Modern Scholar series. I think a lot depends on whether you enjoy the presenter/scholar - and the topic of course. This one is very good based on her famous book - Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World. Moreover, both these series (TTC and TMS) should be free at your local libraries. Frankly, I find Carlin more entrepreneur than scholar.
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Scholar-Months-Changed-Conference/dp/B001EBHFES

I like the "short history on" books.

A Short History of World War II.

A Short History of World War I.

A Short History of the Korean War.

A Short History of the American Revolution.

I've found them to be really easy to read and exciting.

In "My Hitch in Hell", there is an interested chapter about guerrilla efforts in the Pacific during WW2. The author Lester Tenney was an American POW that was a survivor of the Bataan Death March. For a short period during the war he escaped one of his POW camps. While hiding in the river an American guerilla spotted him and brought them into a camp of guerillas that were hiding out deep in the woods. The soldiers were from a number of countries with mixed backgrounds. Some were AWOL, some escaped the march, etc.


It was a very interesting chapter. They were well organized with supplies. They would go on missions to sabotage Japanese supply routes. One the author said they blew up a truck carrying supplies and looted it. They Japanese would take out aggression on the Filipinos and torture villages into disclosing the locations of the guerillas. The author was caught after a son whose mother was murdered by the Japanese gave away his location. The guerillas had specific rules that enacted to help avoid others from being caught or revealing info during torture. The training helped Tenney survive the Japanese torture after his capture. The torture was really difficult to read.

A Rifleman Went To War https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014SRU58C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_nlsQDbW82ZW4R

Duffy's War: Fr. Francis Duffy, Wild Bill Donovan, and the Irish Fighting 69th in World War I https://www.amazon.com/dp/1574886517/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ZpsQDbV05BFY2

Storm of Steel, New Translation in American-English https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074YTLTXN/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ussQDbZ5AG4NA

Rock of the Marne: The American Soldiers Who Turned the Tide Against the Kaiser in World War I https://www.amazon.com/dp/0425275566/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_0ssQDb1M0RSXK

My WW1 library is rather American focused

Hey, just wanted to thank you for being a famous Gass. Not many Gass' out there.

When my kids ask if there are any well known Gass' out there, I point you out. And they're impressed. :)

(Oh, here's another pretty impressive Gass: Claire)

Cheers!

It's not great literature, but it is making for engrossing reading.

The Last Fighting Tommy by Harry Patch.

It's a very engaging autobiography of a very old man near the end of his life who is remarkable only because he outlived all other British WWI combat veterans.

There's not actually that much in the book about WWI, but it's the bits about life in a small pre-war English west-country town that I find interesting.

It's a bit like listening to an old great-uncle's reminiscences.

This translation was suggested in 'A Short History of World War II' by James L. Stokesbury. Within the context, perhaps it might be accurate - or maybe not. I am honestly not sure.

Regardless, it is a good read!

http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-World-War-II/dp/0688085873/