Sledge was excellent, +1 here. I've read a ton of WWII history.

awesome ty so much for all the recs

I have recommended some of these before here but WWII (especially pacific WWII) is one of my favorite subjects.

Helmet for My Pillow - Leckie
With the Old Breed - Sledge
(These were to two major source books for HBO's The Pacific)
Neptune's Inferno: THE US Navy at Guadalcanal - Hornfischer
The Admirals; Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy and King - Borneman
Brothers, Rivals, Victors: Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley - Jordan
Ike - Korda
The Battle of Midway - Symonds (must read!)
Shattered Sword: The untold story of Midway - Parshall (Midway told from the Japanese perspective nice follow on to The Battle of Midway)
How They Won the War in the Pacific - Hoyt
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors - Hornfischer (simply the best battle book I have ever read!)

There are plenty of others but a lot depends on if you are looking at big picture or detailed battle or leadership or personal story or strategy/tactics etc.

I really love all of it I've been obsessed with military history since I was a kid started with civil war then went to Vietnam War then WWII and modern warfare.

love the big picture stuff the best but also love good memoirs and more micro focused stories.

generation kill, blackhawk down, suprise kill vanish, band of brothers, operation paperclip, whole bunch of books about macv-sog, the command (amazing in depth book about the history of JSOC by marc ambinder) just a few of my favs that I've read recently and spring to mind.

I generally try and avoid autobiographies unless they're really good as I don't like all the personal politics they often dwell on and I find 3rd party stuff more interesting long as it's super well researched and sourced.

the best is non-fiction that reads like fiction and nothing beats WWII historical non fiction books for that it's just remarkable what went down.

In regards to WW2...I have a shelf full including most of those mentioned above. For the European theater Rick Atkinson has a comprehensive 3 part series. Antony Beevor’s books on D-Day and The Battle of the bulge are fine.
My favorite author is Ian Toll whose trilogy on the Pacific I’m just finishing. His Six Frigates revolving around the beginnings of US Navy in 1800 is good too.

Ohh...love me some Paul Fussell...

Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory is worth a read. (more lit crit/cultural history than memoir)

Have you read Operation Mincemeat?
http://https://www.nytimes.com/2010/.../Conant-t.html

I loved this book. I had to force myself to read it -- thought it would be like homework -- but ended up reading a lot of the writers mentioned in it. Would be a good companion to They Shall Not Grow Old for those who liked the flick.

I have not but I'm going to now ty for the rec.

+1 to the Symonds book on Midway. Excellent. A friend and I now have a running joke about Stanhope Ring, who was one of the carrier pilots who was an arrogant **** who flew in the wrong direction and whose carrier air group was by far the worst-performing of the Midway battle.

@mrbaseball: I'm now going to put shattered sword on my list based on your fine list of recommendations.

rbk, have you read any of Ian W. Toll books? Pacific Crucible about Midway is supposed to be excellent.

I really enjoyed this book on Stalingrad,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalingrad_(book)

Midway is probably my favorite battle of WWII history and I have read lots about it and think Symonds book is the best one I have read. Would love to see Symonds book made into a movie or mini series. That last Midway movie was just a CGI action movie when the real story is in all of the mistakes and fog of war issues that happened and just how pivotal the whole thing was along with the strategy and code breaking. The old Henry Fonda one was better in that aspect but still lacking.

And +1 to the Ian Toll books!

Beevor's (?) book on Stalingrad is pretty , and Waugh's biographical novel, Sword Of Honour, makes clear how amateurish a lot of it was.

Yeh I found it interesting. Not as good as A Short History imo, and easy to zone in and out of (I was listening to it), but worth it if you enjoy Bryson's style.

That’s the one I read. I thought the book was fascinating. As an American it’s all about by the late western invasion. The US and English combined forces where being held up in Italy by 20 German divisions. The Russians where fighting 200 divisions and pushing them back. I felt bad for the German soldiers. Your surrounded, starving to death, sitting around playing checkers because your brain won’t function enough to play chess. No chance of escape waiting for your turn to die.

Thanks, the, I've had it from the library, will hopefully make the half of borrowed books that I actually end up reading.

John Dower's book on the Pacific war is also very good.

I started to recommend Waugh, along with Kingsley Amis's My Enemy's Enemy, but I chickened out. Plus, I was pretty sure they weren't what people were looking for. I was happy enough to sneak one of Fussell's milder ones in there.

I have not but I will now!

every book and author suggested has been added to my list and I will work my way thru all of them.

when I get into a subject I GET INTO IT.

Yeah it looks Ian Toll is liked by at least couple people here.

Can’t recommend Stalingrad enough, it’ll probably be a nice change of pace if most of what your reading is focused on the American operations during the war.

ya I really enjoy reading about war from other POVs rather than just American.

the battle of stalingrad was just unreal so def looking forward to reading that.

Two tactical books from the Japanese perspective that I found fascinating were:

Samurai!, about a Zero Ace; and,

Japanese Destroyer Captain , which I paid 25 cents for and couldn't put down. If you are interested in the Pacific naval war, a must read.

excellent keep em coming!

Also Spike Milligan, although it's years since I read that.