The D-Day Invasion

This Time-Life effort succeeds with useful photo's and readable prose. Author Douglas Botting begins with a solid description of the planning and preparations, including the disastrous Dieppe raid - which yielded valuable lessons, and German efforts to strengthen the Atlantic wall. We see the varied allied efforts to fool the Germans that the invasion would come near Calais, the logistial headaches of launching this invasion, and Allied concerns over the weather. The author does a nice job describing the early airborne assaults, the naval appraoch, and the first waves to hit the beaches. Readers get a strong sense the tenousness of the Allied footholds that first day. The author even asks what might have occurred had Rommel not left for his wife's birthday and/or the Panzers counterattacked immediately. Would the Allies have been thrown into the sea, or would their air forces have chewed up the attacking columns? The answers aren't really here - that may be subject for a more indepth book. Still, this is a pretty good overview for most readers.

This book discribes D-day with the numerous Time-Life Photos taken before, during and after the event. The book makes clear what an impact Time-Life has had on our vision on D-Day. Most of the pictures in the book are well known by almost everybody. The story which accompanies the pictures is a somewhat incomplete and superficicial if you compare them with books from Ambrose, Keegan and Ryan. All together it a good book to have if you want to get a picture about the event.