D-Day: The Battle for Normandy

An absoute stellar account of not only the beach invasion, but the months to come. I loved the mix of military history and anecdotes from soldiers. This book is not only informative, but will make you reflect heavily on life. Also, surprisingly, there were more than a few moments of humor that made this beefer of a book an enjoyable and quick read.

This has been one of the better if not best treatments of the subject of the Normandy invasions and following battles that I have ever read (counting roughly 6-10 books on the subject). The author's style is very readable and flows smoothly from the political to the strategic to the tactical without so much as a hiccup. The narrative begins a few days before the actual invasion and ends in late August 1944 after the liberation of Paris. Broken up along the logical phases of the battle and various fronts, the author traces the events using numerous maps to show the landings and breakout, attacks and counter attacks of this conflict. I value a little personal observation and interpretation to flavor the raw details of the events and the author obliges readily with commentary on the general staff and leadership on both sides. I am a strong proponent of the philosophy that you cannot get true history by reading one or even two books on a subject, but must read thoroughly to even start to piece together the truth of any period or event. But, if I were to recommend any single book on the subject of D Day, this would certainly be it. P-)

In April and May of 1944, I frequently flew over southern England on my way to bomb targets on the other side of the Channel. The sight below me would strike awe in anyone. There were miles of parked tanks, artillery guns, and trucks. Tents housing soldiers stretched to the horizon. They were all part of the greatest invasion force in history, an invasion so ably described by Antony Beevor in D-Day. In early June, the troops were ready, ships were ready, and air forces were ready, but the weather was not. We see the maddening wait for acceptable weather, with each hour of delay threatening detection by the German forces. Fortunately for the Allies, Adolf Hitler was a great help, as he insisted that the invasion would occur at the Pas de Calais instead of Normandy. The Allies were happy to help his belief by placing dummy equipment and activity opposite that coast. Several times, I flew to the Pas de Calais, fooled around for a short time, and returned to my base. Then, a brief period of good weather opened, and the massive invasion struck against tough, German defenses. The main characteristic of a battle is utter confusion, and Beevor describes it perfectly. Much of the fighting was between small groups of Allies or Germans all over Normandy. Many soldiers became lost and died by blundering into the enemy. A surprising number broke down in the savage violence of battle. Death and destruction were everywhere. Beevor's descriptions are the best I have seen. A huge help for the Allied ground forces was the overwhelming presence of their air forces overhead. They had already destroyed most of the German Air Force, and they attacked German troops and tanks without letup. Still, the going was very tough, and the author describes the battle's effects on soldiers and on French civilians, many of whom died during the desperate fighting. We hear of tiffs between commanders, especially involving General Montgomery. We see how the Allied forces fought their way inland until they blasted a gap in the German defenses, and their troops, especially those of General Patton, poured through. British and American troops destroyed much of the German army in France in the Falaise pocket and swiftly reached Paris. Again, we see confusion, as Allied forces enter, and German forces struggle to leave the city, General De Gaulle and the small French force ignore the Allies who got them to Paris. The book is a pleasure to read. I had the feeling that I was right there with the troops. This is the result of Beevor's fine writing.

Mr. Beevor usually writes about the Eastern Front of World War II, so this new book is somewhat of a departure for him. Even so, he brings the same scholarship and meticulous writing to the invasion of Normandy and its aftermath. Usually books on Overloard go into detail about the invasion and basically stop when it is successful. Mr. Beevor, however, follows the Allies through the entire fight up to and including the liberation of Paris. He covers a lot fo the ground written about in "Six Armies In Normandy", a book I read several years ago and enjoyed very much. This book is written in a style more conducive to easier reading and comprehension. The author appears to fault Montgomery's pride and insobordination for some of the less than stellar results of the battle for Normandy after the success of the invasion. That is an approach fairly agreed upon by historians, and the upshot of it is that if Montgomery weren't so intent on following his own agenda, many more German soldiers could have been trapped in the Falaise "pocket". His failure to close the "pocket" enabled many Germans to escape, and the Allies would see a lot of them again during the Battle of the Bulge. This is excellent historical writing, and it gets down to the level of individual soldiers in the field. I'm most proud of General Gavin, who was born and raised in my home town of Mount Carmel, PA, one of our local heroes. You can never read too much about D-Day, and this book is an excellent place to learn more about it and what happened beyond.

There have been many books written about D-Day, starting with Cornelius Ryan's "The Longest Day", and one (this one anyway) wondered whether there would be anything new to say about the momentous events of 6 June 1944. In short, the answer is no. Mr. Beevor relates all the familiar stories of the build-up and the great stories of D-Day - Pegasus Bridge, the Merville Battery, Pointe du Hoc and Omaha Beach - in relatively abbreviated fashion. The stories are told better elsewhere. However, what is not told better elsewhere, and what makes this book so different and interesting, is signalled by the subtitle "The Battle for Normandy". Whereas many others stop at the successful establishment of the Normandy beachhead, Mr. Beevor takes us further - much further. He takes us into the hedgerows of Normandy and the bloody and difficult fighting that took place there, to the breakthrough, leading to the great turkey shoot of the Falaise Gap, where the Allied air forces and artillery caused staggering carnage among the Germans trying to escape the closing Allied pincers. The story ends with the liberation of Paris. Many (myself included) have discounted D-Day and the Western Front as a drop in the bucket, compared to the titanic struggles of the Eastern Front, but Mr. Beevor convincingly shows that the Normandy effort was no mere sideshow. The Allies faced difficult terrain, a determined enemy (including fanatical SS divisions) with often vastly superior equipment (the 88mm gun, the Tiger and Panther tanks and the MG42 light machine gun), and incompetence, one-upmanship and dissension in the Allied upper ranks (the arrogant, difficult, prickly and often downright infuriating Montgomery and the vain, gung-ho, glory-hunting "Blood and Guts" Patton get special attention here). The subject of prickliness brings up the Free French. Winston Churchill famously said that, of all the crosses he had to bear, the heaviest was the cross of Lorraine (the emblem of the Free French). Charles de Gaulle and the Free French military were afraid that the Resistance, of which a large part was ardently Communist, would seek to form a government once the Germans had been defeated, and were prepared to step on as many toes as necessary to ensure that this didn't happen. On the helpful French side, Mr. Beevor gives its due the tremendous work done by the Resistance in handicapping the Germans' effort to get men and matériel to the front. This success provoked some of the more vicious German reprisals, notably the acts of the Das Reich SS Division in Tulle and Oradour-sur-Glane. In terms of viciousness, the savagery of the fighting in Normandy was often on a par with that in the East. Thankfully, the many mistakes and misjudgements on the Allied side were more than compensated by those of the German side even without being hamstrung by the tactical and strategic genius of Corporal Adolf Hitler. In addition, the Allies had almost complete air superiority from Day One, and, give

Some may simply ignore this book, yet another look at the Normandy invasion that has been seemingly done to death. But what makes it good is that it was researched and written by well-known historian Antony Beevor, author of 'Stalingrad.' Beevor does an incredible job of interweaving the stories of soldiers involved in the invasion along with the decisions made at the top. He finds a good deal of fault with his own countrymen, namely General Montgomery, who he finds reacted much too slowly to German counterattacks and even hints that the Brits may have been suffering from a bit of war exhaustion. Like Cornelius Ryans' classic 'The Longest Day,' Beevor explores the actions and reactions of each side, including the Brits, Americans, Germans, and the French. There was something of a controversy when the book was released in Britain after Beevor asserted that the bombing of Caen by the Brits before D-Day was "very close to a war crime." Many felt Beevor made the statement to help sell books. I don't think that was the case because I don't believe Dr. Beevor will have trouble selling this book, nor do I feel this statement is hardly controversial. Many of the bombings during the war could come close to being considered war crimes, especially when civilians were made to suffer, but each side was guilty of this. Also, with hindsight, this is an easy statement to make. The Brits did have a rough time taking Caen after German panzer reinforcements reached the town and held it against Montgomery's forces. I also enjoyed a section where Beevor discussed the highly controversial replacement system of the American army during the war. Many green soldiers were sent to the front lines simply as "bodies" to fill a space left by a dead or wounded GI. Beevor claims that the word "replacements" was done away with later in the campaign by the brass and changed to "reinforcements." That was news to me. I have spoken with many American veterans of the war that only ever referred to the "replacement" system, and none of them ever had anything good to say about it. His chapter on the fighting in the bocage is also well written and interesting. The book does not reveal much new information or break any new ground, but the writing is excellent and the maps are very well done. Since I had an uncorrected proof of the book, I do not know what photographs will appear in it, but I suspect there won't be many that the public has not already seen. Beevor did a fantastic job of breaking the action up by chapter in sequential order as the invasion and later fighting in Normandy unfolded. I wish he had spent a little more time on the battles themselves, such as the battle at Pointe-du-Hoc or for the port city of Cherbourg, but overall this is a small complaint. I feel Beevor also did a commendable job of discussing the confusion that seemed to wrack the German High Command during the campaign, mostly due to Hitler, as well as the bravery and toughness of the Allied soldiers and t