Probably the last book review you will get from me for a while (i will probably not get a chance to write them while I am away, but who knows, maybe I will have the time, there are a lot of flights i will be on).

The book is Citizen Soldiers by Stephen E Ambrose. I previously reviewed Band of Brothers by the same author and this is in the same series. In total there are 5 books in this series. Band of Brothers, Pegasus Bridge, Wild Blue, D-Day & lastly this book, Citizen Soldiers.

All of the books follow some sort of people through parts of WW2. D-Day follows the units that were at the Normandy Beaches, Band of Brothers the 101st Airborne (E co, 506PIR), Pegasus Bridge some British Gliderborne Troops & Wild Blue a B-24 Liberator Bomber Squadron in the 15th Air Force. Citizen Soldiers follows the American troops in the ETO after D-Day all the way to VE day. It follows their movements, their campaigns, their trials and tribulations.

From Normandy to Market Garden to The Bulge and the Rhine, It follows the troops, not the generals through all of this. Similar to Band of Brothers it has a lot of first person recounts of things that happen and it is a great little read. The book like the others though, doesn’t cover much of a general outlook at why decisions were made as thats not the reason, it looks at what goes through the heads of the troops.

This book is also great as it does not focus on just one group of men like Band of Brothers or Wild Blue. It follows all the different groups, so you get a focus of other events that have happened as the war was not just won by the Airborne or the Bomber pilots. It was also the Medics, Doctors, Nurses, Infantry, Armour etc that fought this war.

Very happy to of read this especially since in about a month I will be standing at the scenes of the Normandy Landings so its good to have some of this fresh in my mind. A fantastic read to end out the series. But with this book finished it allows me to start some new books ready for this trip.