Caen, Anvil of Victory

Accurate account and well written.

I read a lot of military history. Much of what I read is from the American point of view, and of course I like to try and get things from other perspectives, too. Of course when I do that, I often find myself disagreeing with what's written, because I am an American, after all. So I read on, and come across this book. Alexander McKee served with the British army during the Normandy campaign, and then about two decades later wrote this book. It's the sort of thing that couldn't be constructed now, because the author interviewed dozens of participants on both sides of the fighting. The blurb on the back says he interviewed Americans while writing the book, but in reality only a few were consulted. Instead, this book recounts in pretty sharp detail the fighting on the British side of the Normandy beaches, and most of his interview subjects are British, Canadian, French, and German. There are a surprising number of interviews of the last, given that the book was written so close to the war itself. These interviews are really the heart of the book, and frankly they give it an immediacy that books written afterwards won't have, unless they quote from it. McKee talked to a number of individuals, and at times he talked to participants on both sides of the same action, and told you how they misinterpreted what was going on on the other side of the fighting. This creates a very good narrative, one that gives the reader a great understanding of the course of events on the British side of the Normandy beaches. I will comment that the author is very British. His verbiage and usage might be a bit confusing to some American readers, and his opinions about Montgomery, Eisenhower, and Bradley, are very in tune with the British military community in the early 60s. All three men were still alive, and so criticism of them was somewhat muted. Monty still had considerable influence in British military circles, and used it pretty ruthlessly to enforce the view of him that he liked: he never had a battle that didn't go exactly according to plan. This book hews to that line pretty closely, and in some places appears to blame the American army for the casualties suffered by the British in the fighting. Even so, this is an extremely valuable book, because of the authenticity of the accounts of the fighting, and the detail with which they are presented. The author rarely tries to analyze anything. There's no summation chapter or or conclusion, epilogue, anything like that. He simply concludes his account of the battle on the last page. That account is extremely worthwhile.

It has been twenty or thirty years since I first read this account of the Caen battles and I still re-read it every couple of years. It is that good. There would have been no Max Hastings' 'Overlord' or John Keegan's 'Six Armies in Normandy' without Alex Mckee - he laid the ground work for all that.In addition to giving a well crafted account of the fighting and what it felt like to be a British or Canadian soldier in Normandy he provides lots of information and first person accounts from the German side as well.There are books with more technical detail but this is one upon which all subsequent accounts of Normandy can be based. McKee writes as a man who was there (and not so long ago as of original publication date) and incorporates his own prejudices into his account which for me gave the work verisimultude.I find myself sharing his frustration as one bloody blunder follows another, and both sides heaped up more than their share of blunders. After reading this book one becomes aware of just how big a debt the Allies owed to Adolf Hitler for pushing his troops into a trap (Falaise) from which less than half broke free.This book is to me, like an old friend, and I'd recommend it to anyone with an interest in military history in general or the Normandy battles in particular

At last a book that tells what really happened on the British/Canadian sectors of the Normandy Beachhead. Mr McKee vividly decribes the savage fighting before Caen. He mixes grand strategy with the ordinary British or Canadian soldier's experiences of the carnage on the ground. The narrative flows well and is engrossing. McKee does not neglect the German perspective either, he frequently includes remeniscences from the opposition. I would reccommend this book to anyone, for readers on the western side of the Atlantic it may come as a surprise that the tardy Brits didn't just sit and drink tea while the yanks did all the fighting. All in all an excellent read

It is a terrible pity that this book is out of print, both in Australia and in the USA. This is probably the best account of a battle that I've read, along with A Bridge Too Far. The descriptions of the horrors of the Caen battlefield - particularly the Battle of the Falaise Gap - are excellently done. One gets a good feel for small unit tactics in the British Army, especially tank actions. They ought to make a movie out of this!!! McKee also does not hold back on stories of Allied war crimes, with the English, Canadians and Scottish mistreating and executing prisoners, especially SS-troops. It certainly gives a dark side to the story, especially the Canadians, who seemed to have been especially venegful (many were descended from Frenchmen). This is stuff I never read before in the history books...