The War in Europe: From the Kasserine Pass to Berlin, 1942-1945

I had to say I loved the view into history that this book gave me. I also happen to be into the equipemnt of the G.I. This is THE book for that. It has over a 100 pictures that show what The GI in the European Theater of War really looked like during their epic campaign across Europe. The author is very good at pointing out details in uniforms and equipment on every picture. From types of boots and undergarmnents, he has a great eye. This is the second book from this series that will stay in my library.

The author has produced a slew of photo studies with incisive text on the life and times of the U.S. soldier, and his Spanish and Mexican californio predecessors also. His specialty is in gathering together contemporary source material for the illustrations. This method has the great virtue of showing what was what and when. But if no photos are available, then something may be omitted. All of these books are vertical studies covering a period of years. Though sometimes the illustrations serve to identify individual items of equipment, these works are not intended for that purpose. They are not catalogs intended for materiel collectors. They are of such a length and of such a level of detail that they will serve the purposes of the general reader with a curiousity about what grandaddy did in WW II or great great great grandaddy in the Civil War and what he looked like and how he lived. This is not to say that the specialist such as myself cannot find useful nuggets herein. I can. I use these for general surveys of periods I do not study in detail, such as the Civil War, and the War With Mexico, etc. And to look up the odd facts. I have yet to be disappointed with any of them.