The blurb says

THIS is one of the finest collections ever assembled of first-hand accounts of the Second World War. Season by season it charts the course of the central event of the twentieth century in the words of those who were there, from Russian women fighter pilots to prisoners of the Japanese to Londoners enduring the Blitz. It puts us on the ramparts of Colditz, in the hiding places of the Warsaw Ghetto, aboard a dive bomber at Pearl Harbour, with Rommel in the desert and at Churchill’s side in Downing Street.


Unrivalled in the immediacy, range and power of the experiences it contains, The Voice of War includes writing by, among others, Joseph Goebbels, Benito Mussolini, Christabel Bielenberg, Noel Coward, Robert Capa, Airey Neave, George Patton, Hermione Ranfurly, Fitzroy Maclean, Arthur Koestler, James Lees-Milne, Martha Gellhorn, Evelyn Waugh, Sophia Loren and Primo Levi.


There are memoirs by more than three hundred of those who participated in the struggle on every side and in all its forms, be it aboard a U-boat, attacking a machine-gun nest in the Philippines or enduring the firestorm of Dresden. A record of the first truly global conflict, The Voice of War presents a portrait of humanity at war that is sometimes shocking, often inspiring and always compelling. Sixty years on, the events of 1939-45 and their consequences continue to shape the modern world, while its lessons have lost none of their importance.


Guy says

During the course of researching my WWII thrillers, I read many memoirs by those who were actually there. It occurred to me that what was needed was a comprehensive anthology of the entire war, although the sheer scale of the project put me off. It was not until I met my co-editor James Owen at a wedding in Paris on September 1st 2001 (Germany 1, England 5) that The Voice of War took shape. He suggested countless books that I should consider, many of which I had never heard of. It seemed obvious that the project should be a joint one, and soon James and I found ourselves immersed in the thousands of wartime memoirs held by the incomparable London Library. I spent a fortune on amazon buying obscure volumes, but the end result was well worth the time and investment. The Voice of War certainly taught us a lot, and I hope it does the same to its readers.


















 

Published

October 2004 (UK)



Praise

A powerful reminder...

Most of human life and

death is here.


                The Scotsman


Hugely varied, endlessly fascinating, remarkable.

I got the feeling that this

is how it really was; that

this is what really happened.

I can think of no higher

compliment to pay the

editors.


The Sunday Herald



Revelatory...offers a vivid and multi-faceted account of the war.


The Independent


The literature available on the second world war is vast, and Owen and Walters seem to have trawled through most of the published memoirs, diaries and letters to create this extraordinary anthology of first-hand accounts of it. Reflecting the global nature of the conflict, their selection ranges from Churchill recalling his first meeting with Stalin to the memories of the leader of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, from a conscience-stricken Panzer driver confronting the realities of war in Russia to a Gurkha officer contemplating the destruction of the medieval monastery of Monte Cassino. Well-known writers such as Evelyn Waugh and Martha Gellhorn share the pages with more anonymous but equally eloquent witnesses. 


                        The Sunday Times


Owen and Walters pick on

some of the crucial instants

of war. For example, they quote a biplane Swordfish

pilot who torpedoed

Bismarck, as well as two German sailors who survived her sinking; they quote a leading pilot who took part

in the attack on Pearl

Harbor, as well as two Americans who endured it below; they quote Gibson’s account of the dambuster

raid in which he earned his Victoria Cross... thoroughly readable by anyone who

wants to know what it felt

like to be engaged in a

world war.


The Spectator



Some of the finest writing of the Second World War has been collected in this utterly compelling volume...Every page contains writing of unsettling quality, the raw power of experience...There are no easy answers to the questions we must ask about war, but this book is a worthy place in which to look for them.


Anthony Stone, Focus




Multimedia
















Buy

















from

GUY WALTERS BOOKSHOP

from amazon.co.uk

from amazon.com

from amazon.fr

from amazon.co.jp

Listen to an extract! Hear Piers Gibbon read Mike Calvert’s classic account of wrestling a Japanese officer in the River Chindwin in 1942