If you enjoy reading short, well-written military memoirs, then this is a shoe-in for its authoritative, fresh account of everyday life in service during the second world war. First published in 1948, Alexander Baron retells the story of the Fifth Battalion, the Wessex Regiment, in the run up to and aftermath of D-Day. It’s a fictional account, but Baron draws from experience and it’s seen as one of the most accurate and unsentimental portrayals of the ordinary soldier’s life anywhere in fiction – homing in on the ‘ordinary Tommy’, the working-class soldier with no time for heroics or derring-do. Beautifully written.
Featured in:
