Reading about wartime.

From the book I'm reading today for my major field, Charles Richie's The Siren Years: Undiplomatic Diaries, 1937-1945 (London: Macmillan, 1974). It is a collection -- you guessed it -- of diary entries from the time Richie worked at the Office of the High Commissioner for Canada in London during the Second World War:

"I suppose once the war gets under way we shall get back to more normal conditions." (1 September 1939, p. 43)

"Prisoners [of war] without their guns and helmets have the look of having suffered an amputation, as if they were deprived of a vital limb or had been castrated." (2 June 1940, p. 55)

"Our standards are being overturned. What is brought home to me is my existence as a member of a community in a way that I never dreamed of before. I rather fancied myself as a cosmopolitan who laughed at blimpish patriotism. Now I subscribe to all the old cries -- 'My country right or wrong,' I could have my room plastered with these cracker mottoes which have now become for me eternal truths. Meanwhile we [men on the homefront] are all waiting, almost longing for these bombs." (6 June 1940, p. 56)

The memoirs, diaries, other reminiscences, and fictional writings from wartime(s) that I've read are awesome. Some other recommendations: Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth, Roméo Dallaire's Shake Hands with the Devil, Chris Hedges's War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, and George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. There are many others. Which ones have moved you?