Wild Blue

I like popular history. I like the way it brings the past to life through stories. Anecdotes. And Stephen Ambrose was one of the best, especially with his books about World War II: D-Day, Citizen Soldier, Band of Brothers, and this one, Wild Blue. He would dig down into the memories of those involved and place their own private, personal experiences front and centre. He would describe events that have become engraved on our collective memory, but from the perspective of the men and women who took part in them. The individual in world-changing events would be remembered and I can’t praise that highly enough. But there’s one thing I’ve always found missing in them.

Fear.

As interesting as the books are, as informative as they are, I never feel like I’m on the ground with bullets flying and shells exploding all around me. I never feel like I’m trapped in a tiny seat in a thin-skinned bomber with enemy fighters hurtling towards me. I never get a sense of what it must have been like to wake up every day with the thought that this might be my last on earth.

For that I need William Manchester’s Goodbye, Darkness, E.B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed, Paul Fussell’s Doing Battle. Or for those with strong stomachs, S.L.A. Marshall’s First Wave at Omaha Beach. (Link here, even though it's invisible: First Wave at Omaha Beach.) As good and valuable as Stephen Ambrose’s books are, terror and confusion don’t make much of an appearance. You have to look elsewhere.