Wait, who marched on whom?
Everything I know about WWII, I know from Connie Willis' masterful duology, Blackout/All Clear. That is true both before and after reading this book, because almost the entire thing is just numbers of troupes and names of Russian cities and marching, marching, marching.
Also, at one point he is like (I'm paraphrasing because I had to return my copy before I could write stuff down), So and so was carrying on an affair and then he was nearly bombed so he ended the affair and went back to his wife and family. Also, the girl was apparently quite ugly.
Seriously, though, that's kind of not relevant.
I thought I wanted to learn about WWII but it turns out I just wanted to re-read Blackout/All Clear.
Five caterpillars.