WW II: Cross Channel Attack

If you only read one book on D-Day, read this one. No other book comes close to explaining the planning and run up to June 6, 1944. Most books on war do not contain enough maps for the reader to follow the action. This book contains loads of maps, and detailed maps at that. Other books are more readable (The Longest Day, etc), but no book can beat this one for intense detail. Please don't get me wrong, the book is very readable;however, it is not full of personal stories about D-Day. It is filled with the discussions of the top leaders from Casablanca on, and the details of how the generals put the overall plans into action. If you are interested in the Normandy invasion, get this book. AD2

Gordon A. Harrison's "Cross-Channel Attack" is part of the multi-volume official history of the U.S. Army in World War II. "Cross-Channel Attack" was first published in 1951, but holds up remarkably well as an operational level history of the planning and execution of Operation Overlord. Harrison's prose is remarkably readable for an official publication. His discussion of the long struggle to define and plan D-Day is relatively easy to follow. Harrison drew on the official records and on interviews with American, British, and German participants when D-Day was still fresh in memory. The first half of the book describes the long, painful planning process for D-Day, in which American enthusiasm for a direct strike at Hitler's Germany competed with British wariness over the risks and required resources of such an operation. Harrison's discussion of the long and contentious dialogue is frank but fair to the concerns of both American and British plannners. The book offers considerable insight into the slowly maturing planning capabilities of the U.S. participants and into the inherent difficulties of plannning such a major operation. The second half of the book describes the D-Day operation and its immediate aftermath, up through the capture of Cherbourg. The focus is on the actions of the U.S. First Army. Harrison sketches portions of the tactical action, for example the struggle of the 101st Airborne Division to take the key town of Carentan, to illustrate the difficulties faced by American forces in taking the Utah and Omaha beachheads and then expanding into the interior of Normandy. Harrison provides appropriate narrative on the German challenges in organizing the defense of northwest France and in attempting to counteract the invasion after 6 June 1944. It becomes clear in the course of the narrative that the Allies did a remarkable job pulling off an exceptionally difficult operation and that the Germans did themselves few favors in planning and executing their defense. The hardcover version of this book is nicely illustrated with official photos and diagrams of the Normandy area. This is a book for the dedicated student of the Second World War. The casual reader is likely to find it a long and densely detailed read.