Stirling’s Desert Raiders – Virginia Cowles, 1958 ★½

A Puzzling Legend

Can a single individual change the outcome of something as epic as World War II? This account of a pioneering British commando taking on the Afrika Korps in Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt would have you believe it not only possible, but true. If only it were more convincing.

David Stirling was the son of a Scottish laird who found himself early in the conflict looking for something more stimulating than regular military duty. The result: inventing the Special Air Service, a commando unit still active today, known for their elite professionalism.

In Stirling’s case, however, it reads more like adventurism. As described in Stirling’s Desert Raiders, there was no risk too great, no chance not worth taking. A raid was something he looked upon as “pure relaxation.” While men under his command died following orders that were highly reckless, he kept on his path.

Company Commander – Charles B. MacDonald, 1947 ★★★½

Bullets and Boredom on the Western Front

The day-to-day experience of leading an American infantry company into the heart of Germany and beyond is given real feeling as well as facts in this first-person World War II memoir. What it lacks in taut adventure it makes up for in authenticity.

Charles B. MacDonald testifies to the grim nature of war in many forms, including a night retreat under bombardment and advancing into enemy flak positions. Boredom and terror were frequent companions; so too was death.

The time we spend with MacDonald and his company are in places that don’t get much attention in histories of the war. But calling it rear-echelon duty isn’t right, either. They had more than enough to do.

The Divine Wind – Rikihei Inoguchi & Tadashi Nakajima with Roger Pineau, 1958 ★★

Survival Was Not an Option

Call it bushido, call it warrior spirit, call it wanton military terrorism, there is something about the idea of young men willingly flying their planes into enemy ships that is hard to process, even more than 80 years after it was part of daily life in World War II.

To read the story the way it is told by two principal architects of Imperial Japan’s kamikaze program, the problem wasn’t finding volunteers for these suicide missions. The problem was saying no to those who had to wait for another opportunity.

Believable? Not entirely, to be sure. But two things about Japan in 1944 helped make the kamikaze idea reality. One: Their people were steeped in a tradition of honor centered around self-sacrifice. Two: They had already all but lost the war by any conventional metric.

With Rommel In The Desert – Heinz Werner Schmidt, 1951 ★★½

Running with the Fox

During its brief lifespan, victory and defeat were close companions for the German Afrika Korps. Experiencing both firsthand was one young officer who would fight on the front lines and ride in a staff car with the unit’s legendary commander, Erwin Rommel, a. k. a. the Desert Fox.

As a memoir, With Rommel In The Desert offers color and a fair amount of candor, but is a loss when it comes to context or depth. If you grew up like me watching World War II movies or TV shows like “The Rat Patrol,” this is engaging if somewhat breezy and episodic.

Despite the title, Rommel is a background figure most of the time.

Red Duster, White Ensign: The Story Of Malta And The Malta Convoys – Ian Cameron, 1960 ★★★

Steaming against the Odds

For want of a nail, the boot was lost. New life got breathed into a tired old adage in 1943 when the failure to secure a narrow island fortress just off the coast of Sicily wound up costing the Axis the entire Mediterranean and that biggest and most famous of boots, Italy.

How did British naval forces and the people of Malta, then a Crown colony, pull off this amazing upset? Ian Cameron lays out just how close matters came to falling Hitler’s way.

The Ragged, Rugged Warriors – Martin Caidin, 1966 ★½

Heroes Battle Zeroes

World War II was an Allied victory that looks more assured now than it did at the time. Like the Nazi invasion of Russia, you can call the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor a case of colossal overreach, yet it didn’t seem so crazy and reckless going down.

In fact, for several long months after December 7, 1941, momentum was all on the side of the Japanese. It’s this aspect of the war, when the Americans and their allies were in the role of decided underdogs, that Martin Caidin draws upon in this account of the air war in the Pacific.