An interesting read about the campaigns of the Durham Light Infantry from their rearguard action at Dunkirk, through North Africa, Italy to the gates of Belsen. A proud regiment with a proud history.

This collection of true accounts from the soldiers of the Durham Light Infantry is truly awe inspiring, and terrifying at the same time. From the defeat at Dunkirk, the bitter battles for Sicily and Italy, to the Normandy invasion of D-day, the long march across France, Belgium, into Germany. And the discovery of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and its liberation demonstrated the horrors of the Third Reich's final solution.
These accounts, put together by John Saddler, give a glimpse of the awful experiences the soldiers faced, their resilience and their perseverance in the face of adversity.
I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in military history.

The book covers the many campaigns that the Durham Light Infantry was actively involved in during WW2.
From a military history perspective, it is always better to hear or read eyewitness accounts of various battles, rather read than a historians' dry view of events seen from their own perspective. I am so pleased that these personal accounts have been captured for posterity, especially as most of the participants are in their twilight years or have already passed away.
I cannot comprehend how appalling it must have been for the front line troops to be faced day after day with unbelievable horrors and the death of their close friends. The sheer bravery of these troops is somewhat obscured by the unassuming nonchalance of their accounts. One soldier blasely recounts trying to hold his intestines in his stomach before the medical orderly's arrived, as though it was an everyday event!
Particularly moving is the account of the DLI liberating Belsen. Even the most battle-hardened soldiers were shocked by the level of dreadful brutality and extermination of swathes of innocent civilians, their only crimes being seen as undesirables by the Nazi party.
Overwhelmingly, most of the DLI soldiers had great respect for their German foes, except for the SS units involved in the horrors of Belsen. Conversely, many seemed to hate the Japanese following the campaign in Burma and their exposure to the Japanese atrocities against the Allies and the civilian populations.
My only affiliation with the DLI is through my son who was attached to them through the Officer Training Corps whilst studying at Durham University. The soldiers that he came in contact with seem no different from those voices from the past in Sadler's book. They were tough, loyal, had a deep sense of duty and showed a high level of professionalism. .
Congratulations to John Sadler, the author, in capturing and editing these incredible accounts of extremely brave soldiers. I am delighted that their memories have been captured forever.

Dunkirk to Belsen by John Sadler was an amazing novel filled with the dramatic stories from soldiers that served in the Second World War. I absolutely loved this novel as it reduced me to tears more than once.

Nonfiction can be too dry for me but this writer was incredibly engaging and the subject was fascinating as well. Excellent book!

It's one thing to read about World War II in history books, slogging through the long descriptions and tales of Churchill and Hitler.
It's a whole other thing to read about the war from the perspective of the soldiers.
Dunkirk to Belsen follows the tale of World War II from the eyes of the Durham Light Infantry of the British Army, taking us from training camp to the battlefield. Many different voices pick up the threads of the narrative to all tell one story of a war that Britian fought to keep their country from the grip of the Soviet Union.
While descriptions are violent, they are eye-opening, revealing the feelings of the soldiers and the realities of war. It is also interesting, from the perspective of an American, to see the war from the viewpoint of British soldiers, something we would never have learned in school.
One battle after another, with terrifying, mind-numbing, and sometimes even funny moments are detailed in a personal way, with poems and marching songs interspersed throughout the pages to add a sense of pride for queen and country.
Sadler does an amazing job giving life to a well-known tale, and bringing sympathy and appreciation for the soldiers that fought to keep Britain safe.
I would recommend this book to any who love history, war stories, or are searching for a fresh angle on the world's most well-known war.

"From Dunkirk to Belsen" is an incredibly detailed account of what happened to the Durham Light Infantry throughout World War II. Reading of eyewitness accounts of various battles in my country has been especially hard. The book is well researched, and even if those stories are not in a strict chronological order, it won't matter really. Each chapter features a different place and time: France in 1940, the Mareth Line in 1942, Sicily in 1943-1944, Belsen in 1945 are the ones I truly loved more than the others.
It surprised me of how comprehensive and detailed the book is though, at some point I felt like I was on the bridge with those soldiers looking for German troops and it scared me a little bit, I read a lot of WWII books, but this is the first time, in a long time, I truly immersed myself in the story to the point where I forgot where I was.
There is also an excellent bibliography at the end of the book that I'm going to use soon, and I knew about 1/10 of these books, so that was a pleasant surprise!

Very heartfelt book to read. You really can’t possibly imagine going through this for real. It was well written. Very interesting to read. Just sad it’s based on real life

This book chronicles the Durham Light Infantry throughout the Second World War, and because they were deployed in so many areas of that theatre, it chronicles the War itself.

Each chapter tackles one area where the DLI served - from the Phoney War, the Dunkirk evacuation, Italy, Libya, then back into Europe and the final push in France. The DLI were the first to liberate Belsen concentration camp, then they moved to Burma and the final chapter covers the role of the Home Guard and the Durham lads there.

It is a comprehensive study, well researched and with enough background information to enable the reader to visualise where the lads were serving. I found the early chapters more disjointed - the voices of the men did not shine through as well as in later chapters. Also, the author tended to refer to endnotes which meant if the reader wanted to know who was speaking, they had to keep referring back to the end of the book, which interrupted the flow. Later on he adopts a more standard approach of introducing who is speaking before giving their quote, and you began to build a relationship with these extraordinary men.

And extraordinary they were - incredibly brave, keeping a sense of humour and proportion. As someone summed up in the book, if you were in a hopeless situation you'd most want the Durhams alongside.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lume Books for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book offers a perspective of the Second World War from the experiences of soldiers serving in the Durham Light Infantry. Like all similar efforts to convey a real sense of soldiers’ lives during wartime it is at its best when providing witness accounts from the individual soldiers who were there. But like many similar efforts to make a coherent narrative from a wide range of individual contributions it is hugely dependent upon the skill and style of the writer whose job it is to incorporate such a mass of individual detail. In this respect, the book, perhaps, struggles. There is a degree of scene setting that may be superfluous, or at least overplayed, in such a book and which serves to dilute the impact of the many undoubtedly authentic individual accounts. A tendency in some chapters to resort to a somewhat chauvinistic or ‘gung ho’ writing style sets this book apart from the best examples from this genre that avoid such approaches.

Notwithstanding these reservations, the book’s strengths that rely on the individual contributions are also its saving graces as they tell of the many individual and small group actions that, put together, make up the awful but, in many cases, inspiring reality of war.