Forgotten Voices of World War II A New History of World War II in the Words of the Men and W... Book

I enjoyed this in parts--the section on the Normandy landings was fab. But overall I found that despite over 300-some "contributors," there is only ONE "voice" that emerges, which is that of Max Arthur, who put the book together. Every speaker sounds the same. Many of their stories are moving, but they do not come across as individuals (despite the insertion of the word "wee" instead of "little" here and there to indicate Scottishness).

Also, because the overwhelming majority of the contributors are British soldiers and airmen, the stories told are mostly of combat. There are scarcely any tales of civilian life, resistance, hiding, the concentration camps, the Eastern Front... The atomic bombings of Aug. 1945 are represented solely through the eyes of one British radio operator who happened to be in Nagasaki at the time. An interesting viewpoint, but it seems like this really deserves a bit MORE. A nurse, a teacher, a Japanese pilot, maybe? Don't their voices count? Throughout the book, I can't recall any Russians or Burmese represented, despite the detailed descriptions of the Far Eastern theater of war. Elsewhere we find a sprinkling of Americans and Poles and maybe one or two French/Italians--maybe one Japanese. The occasional token appearance of 1) a civilian girl or 2) a German pilot is jarring and tantalizing and frustrating all at once. WHERE ARE THE OTHERS??? Isn't this supposed to be a catalogue of "forgotten" voices? What are Edward Ardizzone and Lord Louis Mountbatten doing here? Um, hello, I know who they are.

Now, we all know that I am prejudiced Flygirl-wise, but I think a case in point is the single contibution recorded here (on p. 473, after the war is over), of Margaret Gore of the AIR TRANSPORT AUXILIARY--ie, a woman who was one of some not-quite-200 female ferry pilots in Britain and the ONLY women pilots flying with the Western Allies. Here's the sum total of her "forgotten voice" as quoted in this volume:

"I think that in Britain, the black market had undermined people's honesty, and I think as a society, we were much less honest afterwards. I think it all started because we did scrounge petrol and nylons, and extra butter and so on. I think it all started in the war."

Now, CALL ME BIASED, but I think that a female ATA Ferry Pilot might actually have a More Interesting Contribution to make to a book titled "Forgotten Voices of the Second World War" than 50 words grumbling about her perceived postwar dishonesty in British society.

(Ironically, Lettice Curtis's book about the women of the ATA is called The Forgotten Pilots.)