Our Finest Day: D-Day, June 6, 1944

by Mark Bowden, Stephen E. Ambrose (Foreword)

D-Day is one of the significant turning points in wartime history and was the largest single military operation ever launched. In Our Finest Day, best-selling author Mark Bowden reveals the human faces behind this brutal battle, using reproductions of original documents. Included in these pages are personal letters and poignant journal entries from soldiers, secret dispatches and pages from code books, and strategic battle plans and maps. These removable artifacts-from the collection of the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans-allow readers to hold a piece of history in their hands. Imagine holding a replica of the last letter written home by a soldier as he waited nervously for the attack to begin, or the message sent to Allied headquarters in England informing them that the beaches had been taken. From the commanders of Operation Overlord to the airborne troopers and resistance fighters, Our Finest Day introduces readers to the brave men who risked their lives and triumphed over Hitlers Germany.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War, World War II

32 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2002

About the author

Mark Bowden is an American journalist and writer. He is a former national correspondent and longtime contributor to The Atlantic. Bowden is best known for his book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (1999) about the 1993 U.S. military raid in Mogadishu, which was later adapted into a motion picture of the same name that received two Academy Awards.
Bowden is also known for the books Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw (2001), about the efforts to take down Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, and Hue 1968, an account of the Battle of Huế.

Reviews

[Valzebub · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicely designed and a fun little book on D-Day. By no means an exhaustive history but I did learn a few things I hadn't read before.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent illustrations married to easy to read information.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. God bless the boys who gave their lives to save the world. I hope we were worth it.

[Christie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice but short overview of the D-Day invasion published in cooperation with the National D-Day Museum located in New Orleans. I am a big fan of the "Museum-in-a-Book" series as they provide facsimile documents from history that can be removed and reviewed. It makes for a much more personal and hands on experience when you can touch the reproductions of the maps, operational orders, invasion plans, and journal accounts rather than seeing and reading them on the printed page. The one recollection described in the book that really moved me was from a paratrooper who had landed on Utah Beach and was injured in the fighting and awaiting transport to one of the hospital ships offshore. Hassenzahl recalled:
"The wind was blowing across the beach. I had a blanket over me. The wind blew the blanket off me and it was very cold, but I didn't have the strength to reach the blanket. Then a very odd thing happened to me. An arm reached across my body and pulled that blanket up and tenderly tucked it around me, The arm belonged to a German POW who had been wounded and was lying on the stretcher next to me. I didn't say a word to him, but I was able to move my head a little and looked over at him. I looked in his eyes, he looked at me, neither one of us said a word, but mentally I might have said 'Thank you' with my eyes and he might have said, 'You're welcome' with his." page 29
This exchange shows that even in war, there can be moments of compassion and human decency between enemy combatants. That passage alone made the book worthwhile to me.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I re-read this after watching “Saving Private Ryan” (SPR) on Memorial Day and finished on the anniversary of D-Day. Produced in cooperation with the National D-Day Museum, this book is appropriate for the general public. Bowden draws from Stephen Ambrose’s books on D-Day and the WWII generation, going about as in depth as a trip to the D-Day museum or a Normandy beaches would be. Written after SPR’s release it does share some gory details of casualties but compared to the first 30mins of SPR, this book could be called a children’s story.

Includes replicas of battle maps, journals, invasion plans and other documents for an interesting interactive experience.

[Michael Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Title: Our Finest Day: D-Day, June 6, 1944
Lexile: ?
I really liked reading this book because I learned a lot more than what I already knew about D-Day and World War II. For example, this book explained how the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions attempted to land and secure key roads. Another example of what the book explained is how the allied forces landed and battled to invade France.
My favorite part of the book is how the book also includes pull-outs of different types of information that the allies used for the invasion of D-Day. I would recommend this book to people who like to read about the history of World War II and the D-Day invasion.

[Olivia J.H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

has neat little artifacts to examine. nothing new about d-day, but loved it for the closer look at the day-to-day paraphernalia of soldier's lives.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple short book about the d-day landing, kinda fun.