True Stories of the Second World War

True Stories of the Second World War is a collection of short stories about some of the events of World War II and the people involved. This is a paperback book of about 170 pages. Each story in this collection covers a different perspective of the war. Some of the topics include the battleship Bismarck, women aviators in the Soviet Air Force, the Nazis involved in the "final solution", British spies, and the development of the atomic bomb and its use by the United States to end the war. All of the stories are fairly short, running from 10 to 20 pages or so, enough to develop the main theme without too much detail. Sections at the beginning and end discuss the start and end of the war, providing a background to reference the stories against. One strength of this book is that the stories are often sprinkled with first-person memories of the people associated with the story. This aspect helps one to grasp the impact of those troubled times on the people involved in the conflict. It includes stories that will be familiar to historians, but are probably unknown in the current era. Any reader interested in learning more about the Second World War will find this book a quick primer that covers a wide variety of topics in clear and simple language. The stories are real, and the first-person perspective increases their interest to the reader.