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Summary
Summary
The #1 internationally bestselling history of D-Day is now enhanced with rare video footage from the NBC News Archives for the ultimate narrative of the battle for Normandy.
The definitive account of the Normandy invasion by the bestselling author of Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945
From critically acclaimed world historian, Antony Beevor, this is the first major account in more than twenty years to cover the whole invasion from June 6, 1944, right up to the liberation of Paris on August 25. It is the first book to describe not only the experiences of the American, British, Canadian, and German soldiers, but also the terrible suffering of the French caught up in the fighting. More French civilians were killed by Allied bombing and shelling than British civilians were by the Luftwaffe.
The Allied fleet attempted by far the largest amphibious assault ever, and what followed was a battle as savage as anything seen on the Eastern Front. Casualties mounted on both sides, as did the tensions between the principal commanders. Even the joys of liberation had their darker side. The war in northern France marked not just a generation, but the whole of the postwar world, profoundly influencing relations between America and Europe. Beevor draws upon his research in more than thirty archives in six countries, going back to original accounts, interviews conducted by combat historians just after the action, and many diaries and letters donated to museums and archives in recent years.
D-Day will surely be hailed as the consummate account of the Normandy invasion and the ferocious offensive that led to the liberation of Paris.
Author Notes
British historian Antony Beevor was born on December 14, 1946. He was educated at Winchester College and Sandhurst and studied under the well-known World War Two historian, John Keegan. Beevor was an officer with the 11th Hussars for five years before becoming a writer.
His works have received awards including the Runciman Prize, the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History, and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature. The French government made him a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1997, and in 2008 the president of Estonia awarded him the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana. In 1999 Beevor was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He received the 2014 Pritzker Military Museum and Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. In 2015 he made The New Zealand Best Seller List with his title Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Beevor has established a solid reputation as a chronicler of WWII's great eastern front battles: Stalingrad and Berlin. In addressing D-Day, he faces much wider competition with historians like Stephen Ambrose and Max Hastings, who also use his method of integrating personal experiences, tactical engagements, operational intentions and strategic plans. Beevor combines extensive archival research with a remarkable sense of the telling anecdote: he quotes, for example, an officer's description of the "bloody mass of arms and legs and heads, [and] cremated corpses" created by artillery fire as the Germans tried to escape the Allied breakout. He is sharply critical of senior commanders on both sides: Bernard Montgomery's conceit; Adolf Hitler's self-delusion; Dwight Eisenhower's mediocrity. His heroes are the men who took the invasion ashore and carried it forward into Normandy in the teeth of a German defense whose skill and determination deserved a better cause. The result was a battle of attrition: a "bloody slog" that tested British and American fighting power to the limit-but not beyond. Beevor says that it wasn't Allied forces' material superiority but their successful use of combined arms and their high learning curve that were decisive in a victory that shaped postwar Europe. Maps, illus. (Oct. 13) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
The success of the Normandy campaign was no sure thing, despite meticulous planning, numerical superiority, and virtually complete command of the air. Many things could go wrong, and many of them did. The weather was unpredictable; precise timetables and coordination between air, land, and sea forces often broke down; and the Allied high command was plagued by internal bickering and political meddling. Beevor traces the campaign from the embarkation from English ports through the landings, the breakout, and de Gaulle's triumphal entry into liberated Paris. Of course, we know how the story ends, but Beevor is a superb storyteller who captures the sweep of a massive effort while enriching his narrative with the experiences of ordinary soldiers. He is particularly effective in describing the strains within the alliance. Churchill and de Gaulle intensely disliked each other, and British general Montgomery constantly disagreed with both Eisenhower and other American commanders. Ultimately, their success owed much to the valor and adaptability of soldiers on the ground as well as good luck. This is an outstanding, comprehensive account, ideal for general readers.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2009 Booklist
Choice Review
Beevor (Univ. of London) has written a powerful history of the battle for Normandy in WW II. His detailed narrative covers the entire campaign from General Dwight Eisenhower's decision to launch the invasion in June 1944 all the way to the liberation of Paris on August 25, 1944. His research has taken him to more than 30 archives in six countries. The result is a major account of the Normandy invasion, in which Beevor follows the Allied forces in their campaign from Normandy to Paris. In his narrative, he describes the Normandy campaign as seen not only by the US, British, French, and German forces, but also by the French people who suffered from the Allied bombing and shelling. Beevor's history is enhanced by an excellent series of maps and illustrations. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. K. Eubank emeritus, CUNY Queens College
Guardian Review
In the early hours of 6 June 1944, the allies launched the greatest amphibious assault of the second world war. Assisted by bombers and airborne troops, Operation Neptune, the first phase of Overlord, was the precursor to a campaign intended to drive the Germans out of France and the Low Countries. The attack took place during a brief break in unseasonally bad weather. Antony Beevor begins his account of this now almost mythic narrative five days earlier, by describing the head of the allied weather forecasting team, James Stagg, receiving a broadside from General Harold Bull, assistant chief of staff to the supreme commander, Dwight D Eisenhower. Stagg's meteorologists could not agree whether the weather for the invasion, originally planned for 5 June and various dates in May, would be suitable: "For heaven's sake, Stagg," Bull exploded. "Get it sorted out by tomorrow morning before you come to the supreme commander's conference. General Eisenhower is a very worried man." One of the many strengths of Beevor's book is his presentation of the nervous but philosophic personality of Eisenhower in the face of the "appalling responsibility" of deciding at what point he should trust the views of these meteorologists and give the order to go (in the event, a "very great risk" was taken with the weather, as Churchill said later in parliament). But although many other characters are equally well portrayed, from Churchill himself to US generals Bradley - with his specs and "hayseed expression" - and Patton, famous for his profanity, to Montgomery with his terseness and conceit, and De Gaulle with his arrogance and his long arms, it is the personal narratives of ordinary servicemen that drive this book. This is the same approach Beevor took in his justly acclaimed Stalingrad , Berlin: The Downfall and other books. Once again a gripping narrative is the result. But with D-Day he was faced with a great problem, in that many more writers have tackled the subject previously. What has he found new that Chester Wilmot, John Keegan (under whom Beevor studied), Max Hastings and Carlo D'Este didn't? Though it is hard to match Hastings's Overlord in particular, the fact is that Beevor has indeed added to the account. Accruing greater detail, he has made use of overlooked and new material from more than 30 archives in half a dozen countries. His skill with German archives (a former Hussars officer, he served in the British Army of the Rhine) is especially evident. He addresses controversies in military history - were the British in Normandy tired out from fighting elsewhere? How badly were the Canadians led? Was Montgomery a hero or a hindrance? - and other questions with balance and judgment. The main reasons for allied success are pinpointed as the speed of advance by US motorised divisions and Hitler's refusal to allow a flexible defence. The pleasure of this book lies in the vividness of an episodic narrative, backed up by judicious use of quotation. Moving from the weather drama to surveillance of the assault beaches, to individual accounts of each beach, to the breakout for Paris, the action never lets up. Beevor follows person alities from one location to another. One moment we are with Captain Scott-Bowden swimming ashore from a midget submarine to Omaha Beach to take a soil sample, armed only with a commando knife, a Colt .45 and an auger, the next we are seeing him make his report to an intimidating room full of generals back in Whitehall: "Sir, I hope you don't mind me saying but this beach is a very formidable proposition indeed and there are bound to be tremendous casualties." So it would prove, with the ramps of landing craft dropping and German machine guns opening fire so that "men were tumbling just like corn cobs off a conveyor belt". Many of the assault troops knew this was to be their fate, not least because their officers kept telling them so. Beevor is very good on how heavily the burden of premonition weighed on men. A large number took their minds off what lay ahead with frenetic betting, first with dubious-looking invasion money ( une fausse monnaie as De Gaulle sneeringly called it), then with saved dollars and pound notes. Other eve of battle rituals included shaving heads, with some Americans deciding "to leave a strip of hair down the middle in Mohican style". This contrib uted to the German idea that US troops were recruited from Sing-Sing. The Germans themselves are fairly treated throughout, with a proper view of the difference between those who retained a moral sense and those in whom it had long disappeared. There is a wonderful vignette of an old, one-legged, one-eyed Prussian general called Erich Marcks refusing whipped cream at dinner: "I do not wish to see this again as long as our country is starving." Equally, there are many depictions of the brutality of retreating SS troops. A former novelist (it is now often forgotten that before concentrating on his historical work in the 1990s, this author published four works of fiction), Beevor is very good on what might in a novel or film be called the kitbag scene, in which equipment is assembled, in this case in preparation for jumping from the C-47 aircraft that would deliver paratroopers to the assault zone: "Dog tags were taped together to prevent them making a noise. Cigarettes and lighters, together with other essentials, such as a washing and shaving kit, water-purifying tablets, 24 sheets of toilet paper and a French phrase book, went into the musette bag slung around the neck, along with an escape kit consisting of a map printed on silk, hacksaw blade, compass and money." This was only a tiny part of the burden that airborne troops carried. Once weapons and other equipment were taken into account, they often needed help to get up the steps of the planes, "almost like knights in armour trying to mount their horses". Such a telling phrase is typical, whether it relates to grand strategy (on the eve of invasion "Churchill sent a signal to Stalin with the feeling that the blood debt which the western allies owed the Soviet people was being paid at last") or to domestic feeling on the home front once the assault was under way: "People in their nightclothes went out into their gardens to stare up at the seemingly endless air armada silhouetted against the scudding clouds. 'This is it' was their instinctive thought." Landing in thickly hedged country known as bocage , often separated from their units, paratroopers resorted in vain to artificial duck calls or cheap children's "clickers" (familiar from the film The Longest Day ). Many planes were flying too low, and those paratroopers who had landed successfully witnessed the sickening sound of bodies hitting the ground around them, which they compared to "watermelons falling off the back of a truck". As well as the grotesque, there were moments of comedy, such as when an allied soldier asked a French farmer " Ou es Alamon? " "He shrugged and pointed north, then south, east and west." Against these humorous moments must be set strange ones, such as watching heavy shells fired from offshore battleships create a vacuum in their wake, causing the water to "rise up and follow the shells in and then drop back into the sea". And, of course, there are many pictures of horror, including a description of cleaning human remains from the inside of a tank with a mess tin and spoon. The last third of the book is concerned mainly with the rush to Paris, which was not in the original plan for the campaign. It is almost impossible for a reader not to get caught up in the excitement. The historian must always make a choice between the work of depiction and the work of analysis. Even though Beevor is well capable of the latter, we should be glad he has chosen the former. By doing so he has overleaped the barrier of hindsight, getting us as near as possible to experiencing what it was like to be there, that fateful summer, 65 years ago. Giles Foden's Turbulence is published next week by Faber. Antony Beevor is at the Hay festival today. Caption: article-beevor.1 One of the many strengths of [Antony Beevor]'s book is his presentation of the nervous but philosophic personality of [Dwight D Eisenhower] in the face of the "appalling responsibility" of deciding at what point he should trust the views of these meteorologists and give the order to go (in the event, a "very great risk" was taken with the weather, as Churchill said later in parliament). But although many other characters are equally well portrayed, from Churchill himself to US generals Bradley - with his specs and "hayseed expression" - and Patton, famous for his profanity, to Montgomery with his terseness and conceit, and De Gaulle with his arrogance and his long arms, it is the personal narratives of ordinary servicemen that drive this book. The pleasure of this book lies in the vividness of an episodic narrative, backed up by judicious use of quotation. Moving from the weather drama to surveillance of the assault beaches, to individual accounts of each beach, to the breakout for Paris, the action never lets up. Beevor follows person alities from one location to another. One moment we are with Captain Scott-Bowden swimming ashore from a midget submarine to Omaha Beach to take a soil sample, armed only with a commando knife, a Colt .45 and an auger, the next we are seeing him make his report to an intimidating room full of generals back in Whitehall: "Sir, I hope you don't mind me saying but this beach is a very formidable proposition indeed and there are bound to be tremendous casualties." So it would prove, with the ramps of landing craft dropping and German machine guns opening fire so that "men were tumbling just like corn cobs off a conveyor belt". As well as the grotesque, there were moments of comedy, such as when an allied soldier asked a French farmer " Ou es Alamon? " "He shrugged and pointed north, then south, east and west." Against these humorous moments must be set strange ones, such as watching heavy shells fired from offshore battleships create a vacuum in their wake, causing the water to "rise up and follow the shells in and then drop back into the sea". And, of course, there are many pictures of horror, including a description of cleaning human remains from the inside of a tank with a mess tin and spoon. - Giles Foden.
Kirkus Review
The grand Allied invasion of Normandy had myriad ways to go wrong, writes historian Beevor (The Mystery of Olga Chekhova, 2004, etc.) in this skilled account. Miraculously, it did not. "Everyone in Britain knew that D-Day was imminent," the author writes, "and so did the Germans." What kept the Germans from knowing the exact details of the attack is the stuff of legendand a massive program of disinformation and double-agenting, which Beevor deftly relates. The larger outlines of the story are well-known; historians and journalists from John Keegan to Cornelius Ryan have had their say about the matter. To this Beevor adds sharp observations derived from the archives, among them the unsettling fact that just before the invasion almost every American unit involved was rated "unsatisfactory," most having never experienced combat before. Fortunately, the Germans across the English Channel were divided in how to respond. As the author notes, Erwin Rommel wanted to concentrate his troops near the landing sites, while his superior officers wanted to assemble a mighty counterattack in the woods north of Paris. Elements of both strategies were hastily assembled as needed, and in either event they cost the Allies plenty. One of the strongest elements of the book is Beevor's inclusion of sometimes overlooked and discounted actors, including French Resistance forces and veterans of the Polish army who had made their way west, and who told their French counterparts, "You will be liberatedbut we will be occupied for years and years." As the author writes, the Germans had an international army, too, including Cossack forces that were mowed down as they rode into battle. His account of atrocities on both sides, of errors committed and of surpassing bravery makes for excellentthough often blood-soakedreading. Beevor gets better with each book. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
The story of operation Overlord and the French-coast landings on D-day, June 6, 1944, has been recounted many times both in print and on the big screen. It is certainly a story worth retelling, and Beevor (Stalingrad) does it well, combining contemporary accounts with a moving narrative, beginning on June 2, 1944, and ending with the liberation of Paris in August. He relates the operation from all points of view, from the commanders to the men on the beaches, giving equal time to all participants and including, more unusually, the experiences of the French civilians involved. Civilian casualties ran into the tens of thousands, a fact either ignored or given short shrift in most books. Beevor shifts perspectives smoothly, enabling the reader to follow along without confusion, from the U.S. landings on Omaha and Utah beaches to the British and Canadians landings on Sword and Juno beaches, to the airborne incursion and the German response. Verdict Beevor has written an in-depth campaign history, comparable to Max Hastings's Overlord and Carlo D'Este's Decision in Normandy, that should be read by beginners and experts alike. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/09.]-David Lee Poremba, Windermere, FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
