THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP discussion

A thread for members to discuss books and aspects of nations' home fronts.

Stumbled on this at my library:

by Donald Thomas

Description:
The Blitz of 1940 may have made a nation of heroes, but in the shadows the shelter gangs and looters prowled. The activities of the underworld, extending into a civilian black market and the armed forces, are one of the great untold stories of the Second World War.

The profits of civilian racketeering dwarfed the rewards of smash-and-grab or safebreaking, though these continued apace.

Professional gangs raided government offices for ration books and underground presses counterfeited petrol and clothing coupons in tens of thousands. The scale of theft in the army was also colossal, with whole consignments of cigarettes, razor-blades and NAAFI stores disappearing.

Donald Thomas draws on extensive archive material to tell the extraordinary tale of these less-heroic Britons. The facts he uncovers are often so preposterous that in a novel they would seem unbelievable.

I liked this one



It is a day by day account of what was happening in the US that fateful month. Shirley uses local newspapers as well a personal diaries and letters to tell the story of the attitudes of the American population, in the small towns, big cities and offical Washington.

Two very interesting books indeed :)

Thanks for the recommendation, Happy. Have already added December 1941 to my to-read list.

Does anyone know of any books about the Japanese "Fu-Go" (balloon bombs)attacks on the US and Canadian mainland? Was wondering if a book was ever written about the six Americans - a woman and five children, killed by one of these bombs in Oregon near the end of the war in 1945. I know many such balloons were launched during 1944 and 1945, but those casualties in Oregon were the only ones. Most of the balloons were shot down or landed without damage or victims.

I have read about about these balloon's in books on WW2 but I am not sure if there is a specific book on the subject but will check and see.

i read a book on the subject, it was a short one. and if i could remember the name i would add
it to my have read list hehe. most interesting was a map showing how they landed all over the country, one even made it to texas. i don't know if any were
shot down, but they were hushed up as not to
cause panic and provide info to the japanese.

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "I have read about about these balloon's in books on WW2 but I am not sure if there is a specific book on the subject but will check and see."

Silent Siege: Japanese Attacks against North America in World War II
Silent Siege II: Japanese Attacks on North America in World War II
Silent Siege-III: Japanese Attacks on North America in World War II: Ships Sunk, Air Raids, Bombs Dropped, Civilians Killed: Documentary
Panic! at Fort Stevens: Japanese Navy Shells Fort Stevens, Oregon in WW -II: Documentary

by Bert Webber

A little research and I found these four books/documentaries by Bert Webber that address the Japanese attacks on the Pacific Northwest, the balloon bombings, and the shelling of Fort Stevens, Oregon by the Japanese Navy. Webber seems to have been a photo-journalist of note, specializing in Pacific NW history. I Googled him and discovered that he had been an Army Air Corps fighter pilot in WWII, and later became a pilot with a photo recon group... my dad was a flight mech with a photo recon squad throughout WWII (86th Observation Squad at Bellows Field, HI). Wondering now if my Dad may have known of Webber. I must do more research on Webber, see if I can find where he served. He died in 2006, my Dad passed in 2007.

Here's few more:

Wartime Britain 1939-1945
Over Here: Gi's In Britain During The Second World War
The People's War
'Overpaid, Oversexed, and over Here': The American Gi in World War II Britain
Wartime Britain 1939-1945

all by Juliet Gardiner

by Daniel Smith

by Neil Wallington

by Helen D. Millgate

by Margaret Gaskin

by Richard Vinen

Hitler's Home Front: Wurttemberg Under the Nazis by Jill Stephenson

I ran into these books - found them interesting:

by

by Perry Moore


Krisztian Ungvary

by Stephen Nasser

by Cecil D. Eby

morgiana, i've been meaning to read the 'Siege of Budapest' you mention for awhile. keeps staring at me when i
visit my local library.

Thanks Morgiana, I've not read any of these. by Kamen Nevenkin

Again, some exellent books there, thanks for the information of those books covering the war in Hungary Morgiana, well done.

You will enjoy Siege of Budapest if you can grab it next time you see it staring at you at the library Carl :)

Morgiana wrote: "I ran into these books - found them interesting..."

Excellent selection, added The Siege of Budapest: One Hundred Days in World War II to the TBR. This is why I love GoodReads...unlikely I would have heard of these otherwise.

Good move Mike, its a pretty decent account on a very terrible battle that is hardly mentioned in most standard WW2 histories.

by Krisztian Ungvary

Mike wrote: "Morgiana wrote: "I ran into these books - found them interesting..."

Excellent selection, added The Siege of Budapest: One Hundred Days in World War II to the TBR. This is why I love GoodReads...u..."

I have followed Mikes lead and added it as well. Looks like a great book.

Another convert!

:-)

whoa, I never thought people there are so easy to convert to reading a book;)
Carl, for me this is the same: when I next time visit the local library, I won't let this book staring at me - will grab it and bring home...*winks*

Please enjoy these books, there were several battles around this greater area, and these aren't mentioned in several WW II histories.

just read They Also Served about the women who flew planes and did other stuff during the war. my mother in law was one of the pilots i always thought that was sooo cool!

Is this the book you read So:



by Olga Gruhzit-Hoyt

Thanks So, I've added it to my TBR. Have you read this too as it is a similar theme:
by Giles Whittell

Found this too Steaming to Victory: How Britain's Railways Won the War by Michael Williams

Something different Geevee, nice find. Found some more detail for you:


by Michael Williams
Description:
The railway system during World War 2 was the lifeline of the nation, replacing road transport - vulnerable to fuel shortages - and merchant shipping - an easy target for the Luftwaffe. By contrast, the railways were harder to bomb and not so difficult to repair. Astonishing feats of engineering restored tracks within hours and bridges and viaducts within days. The railways mobilised the troops, transported the munitions, evacuated the children from the cities and kept vital food supplies moving where other forms of transport failed. Railwaymen and women were so vital to the war effort that they were not allowed to join up - though many did so, defying the ban and performing outstanding acts of heroism. Nearly 400 workers were killed at their posts and another 2,400 injured in the line of duty. Another 3,500 railwaymen and women died in action. Even the locomotives were sometimes celebrated as heroes - one old engine named Victoria was credited with bringing down an enemy aircraft when its boiler exploded during the attack and caused the plane to crash.

There were quite astonishing feats of moving goods and people. During one weekend in September 1939, more than 1.3 million frightened and confused children were evacuated to the countryside from the cities. The following year, the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk saw more than 600 special trains transporting 319,000 troops from Dover to camps and hospitals throughout Britain. In the two months leading up to D-Day, 24,459 special trains were scheduled and nearly 3,700 ran in the week before D-Day itself.

This is a story of courage, ingenuity and fortitude, which has not been told before.

Top man on getting the cover Rick. I've read a couple of books on the (British) railways during the war and it's a fascinating story as the description you added states. Thanks.

It sounds like a very interesting book, I'd like to know more about this story; "one old engine named Victoria was credited with bringing down an enemy aircraft when its boiler exploded during the attack and caused the plane to crash."

This had some interesting information as well:


http://95.131.70.5/news/great-railway...

Not wholly WWII but this interests me too by Christian Wolmar

I've actually got a copy of that book Geevee and it does look good, just need the time to squeeze it into my reading schedulue!

This new release, due out next month in the UK (Jan. 2013) may interest some of the group members:

by Arthur Ward
Description:
By the spring of 1940 the phoney war suddenly became very real. In April Hitler's forces invaded Norway and a month later began their assault on France and the Low Countries. The Anglo/French allies were routed. The British escaped to fight another day after evacuating the bulk of their armies at Dunkirk. When on 10 May Winston Churchill became Prime Minister he soon discovered that the nation's defences were in a parlous state and a Nazi invasion was a very real possibility. By the end of the month nearly a million British citizens had joined the Local Defence Volunteers, soon to become the Home Guard, of Dad's Army fame. Churchill, however, realised the Home Guard was initially of little more than PR value, an important morale booster. A more serious deterrent needed to be created if Hitler's panzer divisions and the full might of the blitzkrieg was to be thwarted. Consequently, to supplement the sorely ill-equipped regular forces (all of their tanks and most of their artillery had been abandoned in France) a new, British resistance force was required. The intentionally blandly named 'Auxiliary Units' might have been the answer. Formed in the Summer of 1940, in great secrecy, this force of 'stay behind' saboteurs and assassins was intended to cause havoc behind the German front line should the Wehrmacht gain a foothold in Britain. Their mission was to go to cover, hiding in underground bunkers for the first 14 days of invasion and then springing up, at nightfall, to gather intelligence, interrogate prisoners, destroying fuel and ammunition dumps as they went about their deadly business. Each Auxilier knew his life expectancy was short, a matter of weeks. He also knew he could not tell a soul about his activities, even his spouse. 'Dads Army' they were not. Following the publication of his 50th anniversary history of the Battle of Britain, A Nation Alone, written in association with the RAF Museum, Arthur Ward looked deeper into the story of the Invasion Summer of 1940 and enjoyed unique opportunities to interview those involved with Auxiliary Units at the very top and in the front line, as volunteers in a six-man cell.

Thanks Rick this is an interesting subject so I shall look forward to this. As a boy - I found out later through a documentary - was one of these units hides in some woods near me.

I figured this book would appeal to you Geevee :)

by Wolfgang W.E. Samuel

This is an excellent book for those who desire to understand what late war / post war Germany was like from a civilian's point of view. A poignant study of how the civilian population suffer for the gross misconduct of a nation's leadership. Mr. Samuel also provides some very insightful information on what it was like to live in Russian occupied Germany. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in WWII.

Another great recommendation Nick, thanks.

Nick wrote: " by Wolfgang W.E. Samuel

This is an excellent book for those who desire to understand what late war / post war Germany was like from a civilian's p..."

Great recommendation Nick. I only have 1 or 2 books in my library that deal with the aftermath. Adding to my wishlist.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Today I came across "Where's Sylvia?" and it has great reviews and is only $4.99 on Kindle.

Book description from Amazon:

When only six "Little Sylvia" leaves her parents and their bakery in the Bronx, NY, to go to Germany with her Aunt Betty and Uncle Walter. They are supposed to bring her back before school starts in the fall. They don't. They can't. It's Autumn of 1939; Hitler's Blitzkrieg is in motion. Europe is at war! Sylvia is going to have to wait a lifetime. A US citizen, she will become an Enemy Alien when America enters WWII. Through the duration she lives with another aunt, a nun in a convent, has to go to German schools in the Rhineland then run east to Bavaria where her uncle is drafted into the German Army. Alone with Betty and her two babies she must survive the Allied invasion, her only hope of rescue. Her mother, deserted by her husband will go years without any knowledge of her only child. Everyone is waiting and wants to know, "Where's Sylvia?".

Goodreaders may be interested in my Irish Examiner review of Bernard Kelly's book Returning Home: http://www.irishexaminer.com/archives...

Ireland was neutral during the Second World War but 60,000-70,000 of its citizens served in allied armed forces, together with another 50,000 from Northern Ireland. Kelly's fine book deals with the ambivalent and sometimes hostile response of the Irish state and society to these volunteers - whose actions challenged both Ireland's neutrality and Dublin's moral distancing from the allied cause. Nowadays the Irish volunteers of World War II are celebrated as national heroes and as a vital Irish contribution to the defeat of Hitler. In the 1940s, however, they were shunned and marginalised and seen by many as traitors who had fought for Ireland's real enemy - Britain.

Geoffrey Roberts

Thanks Geoffrey for sight of the review on by Kelly which is an interesting and complex aspect of WWII.

For group members Geoffrey's latest book is

Geoffrey wrote: "Goodreaders may be interested in my Irish Examiner review of Bernard Kelly's book Returning Home: http://www.irishexaminer.com/archives......"

The book sounds really interesting Geoffrey. Thanks for providing us with the review. Adding to wishlist.

This book has been mentioned in a number of different threads but figured I would also place it here:


by Lizzie Collingham
Description:
Food, and in particular the lack of it, was central to the experience of World War II. In this richly detailed and engaging history, Lizzie Collingham establishes how control of food and its production is crucial to total war. How were the imperial ambitions of Germany and Japan - ambitions which sowed the seeds of war - informed by a desire for self-sufficiency in food production? How was the outcome of the war affected by the decisions that the Allies and the Axis took over how to feed their troops? And how did the distinctive ideologies of the different combatant countries determine their attitudes towards those they had to feed?

Tracing the interaction between food and strategy, on both the military and home fronts, this gripping, original account demonstrates how the issue of access to food was a driving force within Nazi policy and contributed to the decision to murder hundreds of thousands of 'useless eaters' in Europe. Focusing on both the winners and losers in the battle for food, The Taste of War brings to light the striking fact that war-related hunger and famine was not only caused by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, but was also the result of Allied mismanagement and neglect, particularly in India, Africa and China.

American dominance both during and after the war was not only a result of the United States' immense industrial production but also of its abundance of food. This book traces the establishment of a global pattern of food production and distribution and shows how the war subsequently promoted the pervasive influence of American food habits and tastes in the post-war world. A work of great scope, The Taste of War connects the broad sweep of history to its intimate impact upon the lives of individuals.

Reviews:
“Every now and again a book comes along that transforms our understanding of a subject that had previously seemed so well worn and familiar. That is the measure of Lizzie Collingham's achievement in this outstanding global account of the role played by food (and its absence) during the Second World War. It will now be impossible to think of the war in the old way.” - Richard Overy, (LITERARY REVIEW - UK)

“Fascinating…After this book, no historian will be able to write a comprehensive history of the Second World War without putting the multifarious issues of food production and consumption centre stage.” - Andrew Roberts, (FINANCIAL TIMES)

“Lizzie Collingham's book possesses the notable virtue of originality...[She] has gathered many strands to pursue an important theme across a global canvas. She reminds us of the timeless truth that all human and political behaviour is relative.” - Max Hastings, (THE SUNDAY MAIL - UK)

“Powerful and important” - Diane Purkiss, (THE INDEPENDENT - UK)

“Ambitious, compelling, fascinating” - (THE GUARDIAN - UK)

Forgot to mention, I actually purchased a copy of this book today as well :)

This new book may interest some folks here in the group:



by Christina Rex
Description:
Throughout six years of conflict, beginning 3 September1939, military manoeuvres, bombs and exhortations to greater dedication to the War Effort became the normality for children. For the young, this was a time of great excitement. Imagine the thrill of Anderson Shelters built in back gardens, concrete blocks and barbed-wire sprouting on beaches, soldiers and tanks in the streets, the Battle of Britain and those spectacular dogfights, the Blitz and masses of shrapnel to collect, searchlights lighting up the night sky, American servicemen appearing and their inexhaustible supplies of chewing gum! From Dunkirk to D-Day, through Doodlebugs to Victory, there was hardly a dull moment and remarkably little fear for children as they learned, collected and played under these bizarre circumstances.

A new book due out in a few months that covers America's mobilization for WW2:


by Maury Klein
Description:
The colossal scale of World War II required a mobilization effort greater than anything attempted in all of the world's history. The United States had to fight a war across two oceans and three continents-and to do so it had to build and equip a military that was all but nonexistent before the war began. Never in the nation's history did it have to create, outfit, transport, and supply huge armies, navies, and air forces on so many distant and disparate fronts.

The Axis powers might have fielded better trained soldiers, better weapons, better tanks and aircraft. But they could not match American productivity. America buried its enemies in aircraft, ships, tanks, and guns; in this sense, American industry, and American workers, won World War II. The scale of effort was titanic, and the result historic. Not only did it determine the outcome of the war, but it transformed the American economy and society. Maury Klein's A Call to Arms is the definitive narrative history of this epic struggle, told by one of America's greatest historians of business and economics, and renders the transformation of America with a depth and vividness never available before.

Reviews:
"For those who believe the 'grand narrative' has disappeared, I strongly recommend Maury Klein's elegant and endlessly fascinating account of America's mobilization for World War II. Combining a deft understanding of the enormous forces that won the war and changed the world's direction along with a jeweler's eye for the anecdotes that bring history alive, Klein has produced the best one-volume account to date. The shrewd analysis superb writing, and masterful storytelling sweep the reader along. History doesn't get much better than this." - David M. Oshinsky, (Pulitzer Prize-winning author of POLIO: An American Story and A CONSPIRACY SO IMMENSE: The World of Joe McCarthy)

"'We must be the great arsenal of democracy,' declared Franklin Roosevelt in December 1940. In the five wartime years that followed, his countrymen stocked that arsenal with astounding quantities of the instruments of war – even while expanding the civilian sector of the economy as well. For all the valor of its warriors on land, sea, and air, in the last analysis it was the stupefying productivity of America’s behemoth economy that constituted the nation’s greatest contribution to victory. Maury Klein tells the story of the World War II 'production miracle' in all its complexity, contention, and drama. Meticulously researched, incisively argued, and fetchingly written, A Call to Arms is the authoritative account of one of America’s most prodigious achievements." - David M. Kennedy, (Pulitzer Prize-winning author of FREEDOM FROM FEAR: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945)

This new book offers an account of an evil time in France during WW2:


by Douglas Boyd
Description:
Nearing D-Day, Allied intelligence used Royal Air Force airdrops to send Allied liaison officers down with supplies to the thousands of young men hiding in France's forests and hill country. Here the officers defied the two principles of guerrilla warfare: never concentrate your forces or risk a pitched battle. They assembled small armies of untrained civilians in wild country where it was believed Allied airborne forces would land and help them drive the hated occupiers out of their country. In reality they were being used as bait—to draw German forces away from the invasion beaches. They were hunted down by collaborationist French paramilitaries, Wehrmacht, and Waffen-SS troops, dying in the snows of winter through to high midsummer. Those taken prisoner were raped, tortured, and shot or deported to death camps in Germany. Many of their killers were themselves murdered after the liberation, when thousands of Frenchwomen were also publicly humiliated as sexual traitors.

I stumbled across this and it looks fascinating. I think it fits okay in this thread.

by David B. Dennis

Description
Inhumanities is an unprecedented account of the ways Nazi Germany manipulated and mobilized European literature, philosophy, painting, sculpture, and music in support of its ideological ends.

David B. Dennis shows how, based on belief that the Third Reich represented the culmination of Western Civilization, culture became a key propaganda tool in the regime's program of national renewal and its campaign against political, national, and racial enemies.
Focusing on the daily output of the Volkischer Beobachter, the party's official organ and the most widely-circulating German newspaper of the day, he reveals how activists twisted history, biography, and aesthetics to fit Nazism's authoritarian, militaristic, and anti-Semitic worldviews.

Ranging from National Socialist coverage of Germans such as Luther, D rer, Goethe, Beethoven, Wagner, and Nietzsche to 'great men of the Nordic West' such as Socrates, Leonardo, and Michelangelo, he reveals the true extent of the regime's ambitious attempt to reshape the 'German mind'.

Sounds interesting Geevee, thanks for posting the details.

I think this new book sort of fits for this thread:


by Chris Ransted
Description:
In 1944 the V-1s and V-2s, Hitler's 'vengeance' weapons, were regarded by the Allied leaders in London as the single greatest threat they had faced. It was feared that these flying bombs and rockets might turn the tide of war once again in Germany's favour. Yet, little more than half of these missiles hit their targets, some failing to explode. Their wreckage lay across the southern half of England or in Europe, with contents liable to sudden and deadly ignition. It was the job of specialist Bomb Disposal teams to render the V-weapons safe and uncover their secrets. This is their story. In this unique book Chris Ransted has investigated the work of these unsung heroes who risked their lives every time they were called into action and, in the course of his research he has located the sites of many of the unexploded V-weapons, revealed here for the first time. Mr Ransted also details the methods used by the Bomb Disposal men and the equipment they used. The book is richly illustrated with 266 photographs and diagrams, many of which have never previously been published. In completing this, the most comprehensive study of its kind, the author describes the deeds of those gallant Bomb Disposal men that were awarded one of the highest honours which could have been bestowed upon them by their country - the George Medal.

This new title which is due out in August this year offers WW2 readers something different:


by Ulrich Merten
Description:
The news agency Reuters reported in 2009 that a mass grave containing 1,800 bodies was found in Malbork, Poland. Polish authorities suspected that they were German civilians that were killed by advancing Soviet forces. A Polish archeologist supervising the exhumation, said, "We are dealing with a mass grave of civilians, probably of German origin. The presence of children . . . suggests they were civilians."

During World War II, the German Nazi regime committed great crimes against innocent civilian victims: Jews, Poles, Russians, Serbs, and other people of Central and Eastern Europe. At war’s end, however, innocent German civilians in turn became victims of crimes against humanity. Forgotten Voices lets these victims of ethnic cleansing tell their story in their own words, so that they and what they endured are not forgotten. This volume is an important supplement to the voices of victims of totalitarianism and has been written in order to keep the historical record clear.

The root cause of this tragedy was ultimately the Nazi German regime. As a leading German historian, Hans-Ulrich Wehler has noted, "Germany should avoid creating a cult of victimization, and thus forgetting Auschwitz and the mass killing of Russians." Ulrich Merten argues that applying collective punishment to an entire people is a crime against humanity. He concludes that this should also be recognized as a European catastrophe, not only a German one, because of its magnitude and the broad violation of human rights that occurred on European soil.

Reviews:
"FORGOTTEN VOICES: THE EXPULSION OF THE GERMANS FROM EASTERN EUROPE AFTER WORLD WAR II provides scholarly account that analyzes the expulsion of Germans across Eastern Europe after the second world war, and is a fine pick for any studying the aftermath of and its wide-ranging implications. A mass grave of German civilians was discovered in Poland 2009, prompting insights and investigations into what amounted to atrocities committed against non-military German civilians. This book considers the nature of crimes against Germans and humanity, and gathers an impressive collection of source materials documenting the 'ethnic cleansing' of Germans from Europe post-war. It's a sobering, enlightening account for any military or social issues collection concerned with the aftermath of World War II.” - California Bookwatch

“Merten states that it is a ‘crime against humanity’ to use ‘collective’ punishment against ‘individual’ crimes. Since there is no such thing as a collective mind, a collective conscience, a collective decision, a collective human body, it is an absolute truth that there cannot be a collective punishment that would be just . . . . This is a ‘must read’ book for our time.” - Ruben Lackman, bismarcktribune.com

"Though Merten's account does take sides in an argument, his scholarly tone, the materials he employs, and his explicit denials of any intention to equate the fate of the expellees to the Jews in the Holocaust, and/or to relativize the Holocaust, suggests strongly that he is open to further discussion about the character of the expellees. As such this is a sound and level-headed introduction for Americans." - John Flynn, professor emeritus, Sewanee: The University of the South

Also posted in the New Release thread.

A new book due out in August this year:

by Jacky Hyams

Description

They were the unsung heroines of World War II; the wives, mothers, and teenage girls, all "doing their bit" for the war effort, clocking in daily to work in vast munitions factories, helping make the explosives, bullets, and war machines that would ensure victory for Britain. It was dangerous, dirty, and exhausting work. They worked round the clock, often exposed to toxic lethal chemicals. A factory accident could mean blindness, loss of limbs—or worse. Many went home with acid burns, yellow skin, or discolored hair. Others were forced to leave their loved one and move to live with total strangers in unfamiliar surroundings. Frequently, their male bosses were coarse and unsympathetic. Yet this hidden army of nearly two million women toiled on regardless through the worst years of the war, cheerfully ignoring the dangers and the exhaustion, as bombing, rationing, and the heartbreak of loss or separation took their toll on everyone in the country.

Only now, all these years later, have they chosen to tell their remarkable stories. Here, in their own words, are the vivid wartime memories of the "secret army" of female munitions workers, whose resilience and sheer grit in the face of danger has only now started to emerge.These are the intimate and personal stories of an unforgettable group of women, whose hard work and quiet courage made a significant contribution to Britain's war effort. They didn't fire the bullets, but they filled them up with explosives. And in doing so, they helped Britain with the war.

Sounds like a good book Geevee, thanks for posting the details.

Another title providing a glimpse into the horrors of war in Russia from a very personal perspective:

by Michal Giedroyc
Description:
In September 1939, as a ten-year-old boy, Micha Giedroyc watched the Russian security police seize his home in eastern Poland. His father, a Senator and judge, was imprisoned while his mother, with Micha and his two sisters, were left on the streets of the local town to fend for themselves. Later they were transported in cattle trucks to the wastes of Soviet Siberia, with hundreds of thousands of other deportees. 'Here, by the will of the rulers of the Soviet Empire, we were to toil and die.' Eighteen months of deprivation and hunger on a collective farm brought them to the brink of extinction. Then, when hope was all but gone, they had the opportunity to join General Anders's shattered Polish army in southeast Russia. Exhausted, half starved and ill, Micha 's mother and her children set off on a second gruelling journey that would take them across Central Asia to Persia, the Middle East, and finally England. In one dramatic incident their survival hinged remarkably on the just two simple objects - a potato and a penknife. Woven into the narrative are memories of a gentler pre-war period when the Giedroyc family revived a failing country estate and enjoyed an idyllic way of life that vanished for ever in 1939. A remarkable true story of survival during WW2, Eloquently told, sparkling with moments of humour and optimism that shine all the brighter for the surrounding darkness.

I suppose this book deals with one type of "home front", in Stalin's Russia.
The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia by Orlando Figes