Cassell Military Classics: The Taste of Battle: Front Line Action 1914-1991

The formula is pretty simple - insert a fictional soldier into a factual battle in one of 5 major conflicts of the twentieth century. Make the soldier have a family and friends and live, breathe, and get scared, in most cases without any understanding of the strategic implications of what he is doing or of the big picture he is a part of. The book reads well and a great effort is made to describe the social context and conditions prevailing at the time of each of the wars described. The wars covered are as follow: 4 x WWI, 4 x WWII, 1 x Malaya, 1 x Vietnam and 1 x Desert Storm. Each story is followed by a brief description of the outcome of the engagement and of the sources relied on to create the story, which was important to me in giving the stories credibility, particularly the one in which an armored car sneaks up behind a Tiger I and destroys it using a 37mm cannon!!If the author reads this I for one would love to see more - the possibilities seem endless - an Australian in New Guinea, a Soviet soldier fighting for the tractor factory, a German defending the Reichstag during the final soviet assault, the assault on Omaha Beach, either side in the battles for the Huertgen Forest or the Siegfried line. How about a Russian soldier in WWI, a little-known theatre to most of us.This is a good read and I'd recommend it.