Looking for autobiographies about Alamein and N.Africa veterans

[byterock]

Reading futher into the Carter book and he talks about being attached with the LRDG for an operation called 'Boomorang' with a 25lb.

Could not find anything on that operation did find one with a 25lb portee, so he might of been taking some very wide liberties and may be using alternat facts or as writing as a 70~80 year old he just got facts wrong.

Will see as I progress though it.


As an aside here is a good site with a few first person period accounts

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/schol...-WH2-1Epi.html

[Bond]

Diary of a Desert Rat by R. L. Crimp.

The Recollections of Rifleman Bowlby, by Alex Bowlby.

G Patrol (The Guards Patrol of the LRDG), by Michael Crichton-Stuart

[Jean-Loup]

Thanks. I am traveling this week, but will see if I can find these when I get back home.
As for Carter, I think I might pass. It seems professional writers have a hard time sticking to the simple facts in their autobiographies.

[Jean-Loup]

I think I have now bought all the books mentionned in this thread except the once by Carter.
I also got my hands on "Brazen Chariots" and "Take these men", that are both desert tank warfare classics that nobody mentionned for some reason. This shows that even well known classics can be hard to hear about.

So once again, I am looking for titles of all sorts of army autobiographies from soldiers involved in North Africa, particularly the 1940-42 period. So far I have found nothing written by a south African or Indian, and only "The reluctant volunteer" by an Australian. Surely there must be some other 9th Division memoirs that were published in Australia?

JL

[WWIIBuff]

Are you only looking for regular army stories, or would a book about the L.R.D.G. fit into your search criteria? If it would, then I recommend the book
Long Range Desert Group 1940-1945: Providence Their Guide by Major-General David Lloyd Owen.

[Jean-Loup]

Yes, that would certainly fit in. However I have already bought LRDG books by Shaw and Crichton, and ill read those first.

JL

[macleod]

Hi Jean-Loup,

have you heard of "The Mirror of Monte Cavallara" by Ray Ward? It is a memoir written by a soldier that served with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in North Africa, Sicily and Italy during WW2. I have just ordered it from Amazon. I could let you know if it is any good?

regards

macleod

[Jean-Loup]

I have read another book by the same author... I wonder if it is a case of changing the title and selling the same book again?

J'

[macleod]

Ah yes, most likely. Was it any good?

regards

macleod

[Tom M]

Slightly off topic...

But since you mentioned Italian POW memoirs and a lack thereof, I’d recommend Happy Odyssey by Adrian Carton de Wiart. One of the best war memoirs written.

[BB75]

Jean Loup-

Plug these urls into your computer and browse away.

https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search...=0&recCount=25

https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search...=0&recCount=25

These are search results from the catalog of the U.S. Library of Congress. You may find some books in there.

I was going to mention Brazen Chariots, which I have never read, but a co-worker many years ago recommended. He was a tanker in the U.S. Army stationed in Germany in the 1980s and had an interest in such things. But you already know about it. Also, I was going to mention Spike Milligan but he has also already been mentioned. He has two others: Adolf Hitler, My Part in his Downfall and Mussolini, His Part in my Downfall, which together with Rommel/Gunner Who?, cover his wartime experiences in the Mediterranean theater. Funny, irreverent, full of pathos. Not filled with memoirs of blowing up German tanks but an account of a man who, like a lot of others in the war, would rather not have been there.

[BB75]

Also from the LC catalog:

https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search...nt=25&sk=en_US

The LC has a lot of great titles, believe me. Get into the catalog and search keywords using:

personal narratives world war 1939 1945 australian (or south african, indian, finnish, german, etc., etc.)

No boolean search terms are needed.



QUOTED <<So once again, I am looking for titles of all sorts of army autobiographies from soldiers involved in North Africa, particularly the 1940-42 period. So far I have found nothing written by a south African or Indian, and only "The reluctant volunteer" by an Australian.>>

[Jean-Loup]

"Ah yes, most likely. Was it any good?"

I have been reading lots of N Africa related books and to be honnest I cant remember much about Ward's.

I will check out the links for the library of congress.

JL