by David Safford, 2007, Little, Brown and Company, New York

This book is about the final few months of World War II, covering April of 1945 through June.  To show the various events, the author uses the personal experiences of six individuals, ranging from an infantryman fighting his way up the Italian peninsula to a reilef worker arriving in Northern France.  The events are drawn from interviews with the individuals as well as their diaries.

The book portrays the historical and military events that occured during this period interspersed with the personal events of the individuals.  Some of the historical events covered are quite surprising, such as the fact that the local German government was left in place to run things for quite a few weeks after VE Day in such areas as Schleswig-Holstein and Holland until the allies were able to take control.  Other information in the book such as Hitler’s death and the rounding up of the Nazi leaders has been told before but is interesting nonetheless.

The book’s treatment of the individual stories seems to lack focus, however.  The historical events that are occuring during that period seem to overwhelm the individual stories in their significance and continually moving from one individual story to another seems to give the book a sense of choppiness.

Much of the material in the book, other than the individual stories, has no doubt been documented elsewhere, so I think the claim that this book represents the missing final chapter of World War II is a bit of a stretch.  Overall, however, the book is worth reading.