Book Review: Bizarre Tales from World War II by William Breuer

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Bizarre Tales from World War II is an interesting and fun book to read for the many anecdotes it contains.  It is essentially a Ripley’s of WWII stories illustrating that adage that often “the truth is stranger than fiction.”

Strange things happen in war and WWII, being the largest war in human history had more than its fair share of strange things occur.  This book brings together in one place a recounting of many anecdotes of odd and unexplainable things that happened in the six years of WWII.

The book itself is 203 pages of text separated into six chronological parts/chapters with 11 pages of notes and an index.  The stories don’t seem to follow a pattern except in the time period when they occurred.

The only complaint, and it is minor, that I could possibly level against the book is that it seems to favor stories from the European theater over the Pacific.  Given that the war in the Pacific took place over just as large, if not a larger area, than that in Europe I find it difficult to believe there are not more strange tales to come out of the Pacific.

This is an entertaining read and the format of unconnected short tales of strangeness lends itself well to reading when you are pressed for time.  The average story is only 2-3 pages long and took me less than five minutes to read.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the vagaries of fate in wartime or just in WWII itself.  This book offers a little something for everyone interested in histories largest and deadliest war.