The Greatest War Fiction 

Much as I love this channel, I rather think our two chaps have missed the mark here? (I hasten to add that as a subscriber and avid viewer I'm both educated and entertained by the channel...) However, on the subject of 'NOVELS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR' I'm of a mind that our two OPs haven't really even scratched the surface. Some novelists, many indeed, have written masterpieces. I'll mention just five, if I might? (1) 'BOMBER' - Len Deighton. (An account of a single RAF Bomber Command mission over Germany in 1943. Deighton also includes the German experience, both military and civilian. An excellent, upsetting and even shocking read.) (2) 'KING RAT' - James Clavell. (He documents the slow but inevitable collapse of 'British Values' in the Changi POW camp under the brutal control of the Japanese. Those values don't quite collapse, of course, merely have to be moderated. Thought provoking.) (3) 'A GOOD CLEAN FIGHT' - Derek Robinson. (An account of The RAF DESERT AIR FORCE in North Africa but also an account of the early days of the SAS/LRDG in that theatre. The novel is characterised by Robinson's bleak if often very funny dark humour...) (4) 'THE EMPIRE OF THE SUN' - JG Ballard. (A young British child, imprisioned by the Japanese, finds himself both attracted and repulsed by his Imperial Japanese captors.) (5) 'ALONE IN BERLIN' - Hans Fallada. (A middle-aged German couple, having lost their only son in the early days of the war, adopt an 'Anti Nazi' poscard campaign to protest the NSDAP regime. We see what it must have been like to live under such oppression...) There are dozens of other WWII novels too, of course. ('The Book Thief', 'Ostland' (by David Thomas, you'll need a strong stomach...), 'Mila 18', 'A Town Like Alice', 'Charlotte Grey' and probably hundreds of others...) Our two presenters obviously know their stuff but they haven't REALLY explored WWII fiction here? They can and they should. LOVE THE CHANNEL!!!! xx SF

Would like to hear an episode on the British 2nd Tactical Airforce Brad

People forget:WHO WAS THESE TROOPS??? 300K in Norway and 100K in Denmark, these were not crack troops, many training facilities in both DK and Norway, the majority off the german was around 50 years old(or 17) and a lot off jugoslaves/hungarians and Russians that had swithed side, and this is also for Luftwaffe and Marine units, the good troops were transferred 42-43-44 to the eastern front

Would love to see Jim do a Shaara style book on Dunkirk, I have always enjoyed those type of works and think it could open up history to a whole different type of reader and while Shaara's books focus on the the generals of the battle this could shed light on what the common man and woman were doing at the time.

Sven Hassell and Leo Kessler? lol Gunner Arsch is good.

Would love to know your favourite WW2 Autobiographies from all sides.

No, Allied invasions do NOT need nice beaches. And they do NOT need to be within air range of the British Isles. In WW1 the Allies had tried to invade Gallipolli - which doesn't have any nice beaches. In WW2 they had already invaded Sicilly and southern Italy - certainly very far away from the British Isles. In WW2 the Allies had even already successfully (!) tried to invade Norway in 1940. Narvik was the very first German controlled city the Germans lost to the Allies. This invasion wasn't sustained - but not because it wouldn't have been feasible but because the invasion of France happened at the same time and the French and British couldn't spare any resources for their Norwegian adenture. But the allies HAD done it - and they could have done it again. (Plus of course: The Germans had shown that Notway could be invaded from the sea. True, the Blucher was sunk - but all the other Norwegian ports were captured by the German navy. And of course the British navy was MUCH more powerful than the German surface fleet so there was no reason why they shouldn't try to go for Norway). That's why the Germans could not afford to keep Norway undefended. And if they HAD to defend Norway, this did require lots of troops. The Norwegian coast is crazy long and there were not a lot of roads to move troops quickly - so the Germans had to station troops along this very long coast line.