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D- DAY
Even Stalin was awed by D-Day.'In the whole history of war,' he wrote to Churchill, 'there has never been such an undertaking.' Those who took part in the great cross-Channel invasion, whether soldier, sailor or airman, would never forget the sight. It was by far the largest invasion fleet ever known. Nor, of course, would the German defenders alerted at the last moment on the Normandy coasts.The very scale of the undertaking and its meticulous planning were unprecedented, but although the beachheads were established as planned, it soon became clear that the next stage of the battle would be far more difficult than anyone had imagined. The thick hedgerows of Normandy were ideal for the defender, and the Germans, especially the Waffen-SS divisions, fought with cunning and a desperate ferocity. As they made their way inland, the British, Canadian and American forces became involved in battles whose savagery was often comparable to the Eastern Front.Casualties began to mount and so did the tension between the principal commanders on both sides. French civilians, caught in the middle of these battlefields or under Allied bombing, endured terrible suffering. Even the joys of Liberation had their darker side. The war in northern France marked not just a generation but the whole of the post-war world, profoundly influencing relations between America and Europe.Making use of overlooked and new material from over thirty archives in half a dozen countries, D-Day is the most vivid and well-researched account yet of the battle of Normandy. As with Stalingrad and Berlin - The Downfall, Antony Beevor's gripping narrative conveys the true experience of war.
541 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2009
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About the author
Antony Beevor
40 books2,603 followersSir Antony James Beevor is a British military historian. He has published several popular historical works, mainly on the Second World War, the Spanish Civil War, and most recently the Russian Revolution and Civil War.
Educated at Abberley Hall School, Winchester College, and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Beevor commanded a troop of tanks in the 11th Hussars in Germany before deciding in 1970 to leave the army and become a writer. He was a visiting professor at Birkbeck, University of London, and the University of Kent. His best-selling books, Stalingrad (1998) and Berlin: The Downfall 1945 (2002), have been acclaimed for their detailed coverage of the battles between the Soviet Union and Germany, and their focus on the experiences of ordinary people. Berlin proved very controversial in Russia because of the information it contained from former Soviet archives about the mass rapes carried out by the Red Army in 1945.
Beevor's works have been translated into many languages and have sold millions of copies. He has lectured at numerous military headquarters, staff colleges and establishments in Britain, the US, Europe, and Australia. He has also written for many major newspapers.
Educated at Abberley Hall School, Winchester College, and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Beevor commanded a troop of tanks in the 11th Hussars in Germany before deciding in 1970 to leave the army and become a writer. He was a visiting professor at Birkbeck, University of London, and the University of Kent. His best-selling books, Stalingrad (1998) and Berlin: The Downfall 1945 (2002), have been acclaimed for their detailed coverage of the battles between the Soviet Union and Germany, and their focus on the experiences of ordinary people. Berlin proved very controversial in Russia because of the information it contained from former Soviet archives about the mass rapes carried out by the Red Army in 1945.
Beevor's works have been translated into many languages and have sold millions of copies. He has lectured at numerous military headquarters, staff colleges and establishments in Britain, the US, Europe, and Australia. He has also written for many major newspapers.
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June 7, 2019
"Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one..."
- General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, June 6, 1944
Christmas break, my sophomore year in college, I went to England and France with my brother, my dad, and my dad’s new girlfriend. If the traveling party seemed a little uncomfortable – well, free trip to Europe.
The trip featured just about what you’d expect from a trip to Europe in late December. Cold, dank, miserable weather. A lack of crowds. A lack of things that were open. And of course, in true Clark Griswold fashion, my dad insisted on wearing a beret. (I was past the age of being mortified by him, and well into the age of being constantly irritated with him. I could go on, but you’re not my therapist).
Our excursion is mostly memorable for the low points. The bleak melancholy of a post-Christmas, wintry London. New Year’s Eve spent in a slummy motel outside Paris, with no booze and no television. My dad’s beret.
The high point, at least for me, was our trip to Normandy. Because it was off-season, Bordeaux felt deserted. We stayed in one of the few hotels taking lodgers. We drove to the D-Day landing beaches on empty roads. The weather was bone-achingly cold, and charmed by wind-whipped sleet. When he walked onto Omaha Beach, near Colleville-sur-Mer, we experienced something quite unexpected: solitude. We were absolutely alone on one of the most famous battlefields in human history.**
The beach seemed remarkably small, an effect perhaps heightened by the position of the tide. Even allowing for that, it was sometimes hard to imagine the epic struggle that took place on this sand, amid the grass-swept dunes and craggy heights. The fates of nations balanced here one day – I thought it would be bigger.
You don’t really understand the titanic nature of the battle until you climb the bluffs overlooking Omaha and reach the American cemetery (a French concession, over-flown by the American flag and administered by the United States). There, 9,000 crosses and Stars of David lay before you in terrible, beautiful symmetry. Standing there, alone in the rain, was an impressive experience that ranks high among the historical pilgrimages I’ve made. You think you know 9,000; then you see it spread before you in mathematically precise rows.
The dead who lay beneath white stone did not all fall during the first day of the D-Day invasion. Despite the triumphal images associated with the landings (and the triumphalism of, for example, Cornelius Ryan’s classic The Longest Day), World War II did not end on the evening of June 6, 1944. In terms of blood, it really began.
Antony Beevor’s D-Day: The Battle for Normandy tells the story of D-Day and the many hard days after. Its focus can be found in its subtitle: the ferocious inland push against a determined German foe. The American and British contributions to World War II have long been denigrated vis-à-vis the contributions made by the Soviet Union. Contrarians love to point out how the USSR fought bigger battles, lost more men, and drained the Third Reich like an enormous leech.
Russia’s contribution to Allied victory can’t be overstated (though it’s helpful to remember that they were as awful as the Nazis in almost every way). But as Beevor points out, in statistical, per capita terms, the fighting in Normandy was as costly and vicious as the battles in the East.
D-Day: The Battle for Normandy is a sturdy, well-constructed history. I’ve read Beevor’s Stalingrad and sensed a vague disjointedness to the narrative. That is not an issue here. This book is straightforward, chronological, and thorough. Though the book’s focal point is not simply the landing, Beevor still gives it an extended look, with individual chapters devoted to the airborne drops, and each of the beach assaults (Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword). Though the subject is well-trod, Beevor attempts to present different viewpoints than those already published. (The amazing thing I’ve recognized in reading a wide variety of D-Day books is that there are enough anecdotes to fuel a thousand books without using the same ones twice).
Once the beachhead is established, the book follows the American forces as they moved west along the Cotentin Peninsula, and the British under Bernard Montgomery, as they struggle to take Caen in the east. Hard fighting follows among the hedgerows, at Saint-Lô, and in the Falaise Pocket. Beevor ends his tale with the liberation of Paris.
Intermixed with the military history are sharp character sketches and fascinating side conversations that cover varied topics, such as P.O.W. treatment, war crimes, and the conundrum that was the French. There is also a chapter devoted to the July 20th plot against Adolf Hitler. I enjoyed seeing this oft-told event placed in its wider context. It was not simply a move by patriotic Germans who wanted to rid themselves of an obvious evil; it was a reaction to Hitler’s glaringly poor responses to the Allied invasion.
When you read a lot of World War II books, you start to notice an odd tension: near-constant criticism of Allied forces coupled with grudging (and sometimes not-so-grudging) admiration of the fighting capabilities of the Wehrmacht. This manifests itself in severe critiques of the martial abilities of men like Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower, and Omar Bradley. The oddness, of course, is that the Allies won the war, with this reality attributed to some vaguely defined inevitability.
A great example of this is the Falaise Pocket. This was an envelopment of Germany Army Group B (which Hitler had not allowed to retreat) by converging American and British forces. By any measure, it was a great Allied victory: many Germans were killed; many more were captured. But Allied actions at the Pocket are often criticized because not enough Germans were killed; not enough were captured.
To be sure, Beevor has some harsh words for many of the Allies, particularly Montgomery (whose reputation was always questioned, but who has taken an even more severe beating in the postwar years). But Beevor, unlike, say, Max Hastings, is more charitable in his observations, and more cognizant that war is an imperfect practice, and that battles are not fought on maps, with pushpins, but on physical terrain, amongst human beings.
Beevor is a well-respected historian of World War II. When you read one of his books, you know you are in good hands. He is not as beautiful a writer or as gifted a storyteller as Rick Atkinson, who recently covered this same time period in his magisterial The Guns at Last Light. He also does not have the acid tongue or contrarian instincts of Max Hastings. This is not a criticism, by any means, since Atkinson and Hastings are two of the best. But it is a way of saying that Beevor – in terms of literary merit, at least – works with a lower ceiling.
With that said, Beevor is one of the best, and he does a wonderful job of covering all the days after “the longest day.”
**Since this experience, off-holiday vacations have become an obsession with me. I strive to avoid crowds by going places at the time of year that the least number of people are visiting. So, not only are we constantly traveling to distant battlefields, but the weather is always terrible. Needless to say, this will likely become a separate article in the divorce proceedings my wife eventually files against me.
- General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, June 6, 1944
Christmas break, my sophomore year in college, I went to England and France with my brother, my dad, and my dad’s new girlfriend. If the traveling party seemed a little uncomfortable – well, free trip to Europe.
The trip featured just about what you’d expect from a trip to Europe in late December. Cold, dank, miserable weather. A lack of crowds. A lack of things that were open. And of course, in true Clark Griswold fashion, my dad insisted on wearing a beret. (I was past the age of being mortified by him, and well into the age of being constantly irritated with him. I could go on, but you’re not my therapist).
Our excursion is mostly memorable for the low points. The bleak melancholy of a post-Christmas, wintry London. New Year’s Eve spent in a slummy motel outside Paris, with no booze and no television. My dad’s beret.
The high point, at least for me, was our trip to Normandy. Because it was off-season, Bordeaux felt deserted. We stayed in one of the few hotels taking lodgers. We drove to the D-Day landing beaches on empty roads. The weather was bone-achingly cold, and charmed by wind-whipped sleet. When he walked onto Omaha Beach, near Colleville-sur-Mer, we experienced something quite unexpected: solitude. We were absolutely alone on one of the most famous battlefields in human history.**
The beach seemed remarkably small, an effect perhaps heightened by the position of the tide. Even allowing for that, it was sometimes hard to imagine the epic struggle that took place on this sand, amid the grass-swept dunes and craggy heights. The fates of nations balanced here one day – I thought it would be bigger.
You don’t really understand the titanic nature of the battle until you climb the bluffs overlooking Omaha and reach the American cemetery (a French concession, over-flown by the American flag and administered by the United States). There, 9,000 crosses and Stars of David lay before you in terrible, beautiful symmetry. Standing there, alone in the rain, was an impressive experience that ranks high among the historical pilgrimages I’ve made. You think you know 9,000; then you see it spread before you in mathematically precise rows.
The dead who lay beneath white stone did not all fall during the first day of the D-Day invasion. Despite the triumphal images associated with the landings (and the triumphalism of, for example, Cornelius Ryan’s classic The Longest Day), World War II did not end on the evening of June 6, 1944. In terms of blood, it really began.
Antony Beevor’s D-Day: The Battle for Normandy tells the story of D-Day and the many hard days after. Its focus can be found in its subtitle: the ferocious inland push against a determined German foe. The American and British contributions to World War II have long been denigrated vis-à-vis the contributions made by the Soviet Union. Contrarians love to point out how the USSR fought bigger battles, lost more men, and drained the Third Reich like an enormous leech.
Russia’s contribution to Allied victory can’t be overstated (though it’s helpful to remember that they were as awful as the Nazis in almost every way). But as Beevor points out, in statistical, per capita terms, the fighting in Normandy was as costly and vicious as the battles in the East.
D-Day: The Battle for Normandy is a sturdy, well-constructed history. I’ve read Beevor’s Stalingrad and sensed a vague disjointedness to the narrative. That is not an issue here. This book is straightforward, chronological, and thorough. Though the book’s focal point is not simply the landing, Beevor still gives it an extended look, with individual chapters devoted to the airborne drops, and each of the beach assaults (Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword). Though the subject is well-trod, Beevor attempts to present different viewpoints than those already published. (The amazing thing I’ve recognized in reading a wide variety of D-Day books is that there are enough anecdotes to fuel a thousand books without using the same ones twice).
Once the beachhead is established, the book follows the American forces as they moved west along the Cotentin Peninsula, and the British under Bernard Montgomery, as they struggle to take Caen in the east. Hard fighting follows among the hedgerows, at Saint-Lô, and in the Falaise Pocket. Beevor ends his tale with the liberation of Paris.
Intermixed with the military history are sharp character sketches and fascinating side conversations that cover varied topics, such as P.O.W. treatment, war crimes, and the conundrum that was the French. There is also a chapter devoted to the July 20th plot against Adolf Hitler. I enjoyed seeing this oft-told event placed in its wider context. It was not simply a move by patriotic Germans who wanted to rid themselves of an obvious evil; it was a reaction to Hitler’s glaringly poor responses to the Allied invasion.
When you read a lot of World War II books, you start to notice an odd tension: near-constant criticism of Allied forces coupled with grudging (and sometimes not-so-grudging) admiration of the fighting capabilities of the Wehrmacht. This manifests itself in severe critiques of the martial abilities of men like Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower, and Omar Bradley. The oddness, of course, is that the Allies won the war, with this reality attributed to some vaguely defined inevitability.
A great example of this is the Falaise Pocket. This was an envelopment of Germany Army Group B (which Hitler had not allowed to retreat) by converging American and British forces. By any measure, it was a great Allied victory: many Germans were killed; many more were captured. But Allied actions at the Pocket are often criticized because not enough Germans were killed; not enough were captured.
To be sure, Beevor has some harsh words for many of the Allies, particularly Montgomery (whose reputation was always questioned, but who has taken an even more severe beating in the postwar years). But Beevor, unlike, say, Max Hastings, is more charitable in his observations, and more cognizant that war is an imperfect practice, and that battles are not fought on maps, with pushpins, but on physical terrain, amongst human beings.
Beevor is a well-respected historian of World War II. When you read one of his books, you know you are in good hands. He is not as beautiful a writer or as gifted a storyteller as Rick Atkinson, who recently covered this same time period in his magisterial The Guns at Last Light. He also does not have the acid tongue or contrarian instincts of Max Hastings. This is not a criticism, by any means, since Atkinson and Hastings are two of the best. But it is a way of saying that Beevor – in terms of literary merit, at least – works with a lower ceiling.
With that said, Beevor is one of the best, and he does a wonderful job of covering all the days after “the longest day.”
**Since this experience, off-holiday vacations have become an obsession with me. I strive to avoid crowds by going places at the time of year that the least number of people are visiting. So, not only are we constantly traveling to distant battlefields, but the weather is always terrible. Needless to say, this will likely become a separate article in the divorce proceedings my wife eventually files against me.
March 20, 2024
Written by renowned British historian, Antony Beevor, this book describes events of the decision of when to launch the Normandy invasion, the experiences of the multinational troops upon making that harrowing attack, the effects on the French people, how the German army reacted to it and the push on to the liberation of Paris.
It lightly covers the invasion of southern France as well, but what I liked best were the side stories that were more personal in nature. The gruesomeness of war is depicted throughout.
Maps that show actual troop movements were very helpful.
Highly recommended for WWII readers.
It lightly covers the invasion of southern France as well, but what I liked best were the side stories that were more personal in nature. The gruesomeness of war is depicted throughout.
Maps that show actual troop movements were very helpful.
Highly recommended for WWII readers.
May 6, 2019
Renowned historian Antony Beevor’s D-Day The Battle For Normandy is an easy to read book written in populist style that should appeal to the first time reader or those that who have little knowledge on the subject. Copious footnotes, good maps and a very useful bibliography. The footnotes are not numbered, I wish they had been. 3 sections of plates. Obviously well researched.
My biggest complaint was that nearly half the book was not about D-Day nor the battle for Normany but covered events after the breakout. I also caught a few typos and the River Rance was at one point called the River Cance. My edition is the 70th anniversary edition and I would have thought that a few minor corrections would have been noted and corrected.
I found the criticism of the various commanders both Allied and Axis interesting. The effect on the Norman civilian population made very sad reading. The little covered (or cared about) treatment of civilian population is in my opinion not covered well enough in the vast majority of military history. The treatment of women accused of Collaboration Horizontale is an unfortunate stain on the French nation and I agreed with the authors comment that it was "jealousy masquerading as moral outrage" considering that vast majority of the populace really did little to hinder the invaders.
In the end a good read for me without reaching great heights.
My biggest complaint was that nearly half the book was not about D-Day nor the battle for Normany but covered events after the breakout. I also caught a few typos and the River Rance was at one point called the River Cance. My edition is the 70th anniversary edition and I would have thought that a few minor corrections would have been noted and corrected.
I found the criticism of the various commanders both Allied and Axis interesting. The effect on the Norman civilian population made very sad reading. The little covered (or cared about) treatment of civilian population is in my opinion not covered well enough in the vast majority of military history. The treatment of women accused of Collaboration Horizontale is an unfortunate stain on the French nation and I agreed with the authors comment that it was "jealousy masquerading as moral outrage" considering that vast majority of the populace really did little to hinder the invaders.
In the end a good read for me without reaching great heights.
August 23, 2009
After having read a number of Steven Ambrose's books on the battle for Normandy, Anthony Beevor's version is a relief in that it has much cooler analysis, more maps (which every book on warfare should have more of) and manages to include the German, Canadian, Polish and French side of the equation to a much larger extent. (for instance, he points out that more French civilians died as a result of the war in Normandy, particularly the bombing and shelling, than died during the blitz in London). Beevor is somewhere between Ambrose (who provides much more detail on the experience of the individual soldiers, particularly infantry) and Liddell Hart and Keegan, who take a more professional, tactical and strategic view. The balance is good
However, the book adds little new knowledge, as far as I can tell, aside from more detail on the rivalry between the various commanders, as well as a good account of the liberation of Paris, with all the political machinations and posturing that went on before it. Beevor is sharply critical of Montgomery, seeing his egocentricity and lack of imagination as a diplomatic and political failure as well as tactically costly. He does point out, however, that Montgomery was facing a more heavily defended part of the front, except at the beachhead. Beevor is also critical of the use of bombers as infantry support, and points out numerous tactical and strategic errors which cost lives and time.
In all, most generals seem to make more errors than good decisions - which, I suppose, is primarily an effect of having to take decisions all the time, with imperfect knowledge. The book manages to give an impression of both the large and the small view of war, and points out how the slaughter in Normandy spared the rest of France a protracted war. For that reason, if you are going to read just one book on D-Day, this is probably it.
However, the book adds little new knowledge, as far as I can tell, aside from more detail on the rivalry between the various commanders, as well as a good account of the liberation of Paris, with all the political machinations and posturing that went on before it. Beevor is sharply critical of Montgomery, seeing his egocentricity and lack of imagination as a diplomatic and political failure as well as tactically costly. He does point out, however, that Montgomery was facing a more heavily defended part of the front, except at the beachhead. Beevor is also critical of the use of bombers as infantry support, and points out numerous tactical and strategic errors which cost lives and time.
In all, most generals seem to make more errors than good decisions - which, I suppose, is primarily an effect of having to take decisions all the time, with imperfect knowledge. The book manages to give an impression of both the large and the small view of war, and points out how the slaughter in Normandy spared the rest of France a protracted war. For that reason, if you are going to read just one book on D-Day, this is probably it.
April 6, 2024
I felt confusion when Beevor explained the invasion, a confusing event, but I felt a clear lack of narrative cohesion. The book really hits its stride once the allies are moving towards the glorious liberation of Paris. Montgomery comes off very badly.
November 5, 2025
― “Bradley felt that “Gee” Gerow, who had not yet commanded a large formation in battle, had been given command of the corps only because of his friendship with Eisenhower. Gerow, however, feared that the bombing and naval bombardment might not work, and he remained unconvinced even after Eisenhower assured him that ‘the greatest firepower ever assembled on the face of the earth’ would be supporting him. Events were to prove Gerow right. He shared his concerns with the military analyst Basil Liddell Hart ‘about whether the importance of the unexpected was sufficiently considered in our planning’.”
― Antony Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy
Unquestionably, the Normandy landings that occurred on June 6, 1944 were a pivotal moment in World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history led to the liberation of France and the rest of Western Europe. The invasion of northern France proved to be the most significant victory of the Western Allies in the Second World War. American, British and Canadian forces established a foothold on the shores of Normandy, but they had to engage in a costly campaign to reinforce their gains before breaking out into the French interior and making their headlong advance toward Germany.
Germany had poured huge resources into the building of their Atlantic Wall defenses. The allies would need massive aerial and naval firepower to soften the beach defenses, as well air superiority to allow forces to advance beyond the beachheads. However, the inaccuracy of the Allied aerial bombing and naval bombardment, among other failures, meant that the Americans suffered significant losses on Omaha Beach, just as General Gerow had rightly feared. Even after the beaches were secured, the invasion became a costly struggle against a tenacious and often more experienced enemy who had the advantage of terrain well-suited to defense.
― “Even though Allied casualties on D-Day were far lighter than the planners’ estimates, that did not in any way reduce the shock of the first wave’s slaughter at Omaha.”
― Antony Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy
The now infamous hedgerows of Normandy proved to be a significant challenge for the Allied forces, providing strategic defensive positions for the Germans. The structure and layout of the hedges in Normandy proved particularly unfavorable to the Allies, limiting views of the terrain, hiding the lines of fire, and providing the Germans with a strong defensive position. The German mobile artillery batteries wisely used the hedges to camouflage their positions from Allied aircraft.
― “Wehrmacht losses in Normandy up to 25 June had reached 47,070 men, including six generals. Yet their effectiveness in defense provoked bitter admiration among their opponents.”
― Antony Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy
The coverage of D-Day (June 6) probably takes up no more than 20 percent of the book. Beevor rightly covers the fighting in Normandy, including the post-invasion operations, such as Operations Goodwood, Cobra and Totalize. The coverage of the invasion ends with the surrender of the German garrison in Paris on August 25, 1944.
While we celebrate the great Allied victory, Beevor rightly points out in his epilogue, titled “Aftermath”, the terrible human costs of the Battle for Normandy. Altogether 19,980 French civilians were killed and an even larger number seriously injured, mostly by Allied bombing. Whole towns and villages were flattened by bombing. In the French department of Calvados in Normandy alone, 76,000 people lost their homes. The Germans suffered 240,000 casualties and 200,000 taken prisoner. The combined Allied forces (American, British and Canadian) suffered more than 225,000 casualties. Sadly, the Allies also suffered casualties from Allied bombing due to poor communication between ground forces and air units.
One of British military historian Antony Beevor’s greatest strengths is his ability to reduce dense historical data into an accessible narrative. His command of a huge range of sources is combined with a fine eye for place and detail in order to create a highly readable account of the pivotal campaign of the Second World War. Though he is British, Beevor doesn't hold back on his criticism of the unbearable General Bernard Montgomery.
― Antony Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy
Unquestionably, the Normandy landings that occurred on June 6, 1944 were a pivotal moment in World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history led to the liberation of France and the rest of Western Europe. The invasion of northern France proved to be the most significant victory of the Western Allies in the Second World War. American, British and Canadian forces established a foothold on the shores of Normandy, but they had to engage in a costly campaign to reinforce their gains before breaking out into the French interior and making their headlong advance toward Germany.
Germany had poured huge resources into the building of their Atlantic Wall defenses. The allies would need massive aerial and naval firepower to soften the beach defenses, as well air superiority to allow forces to advance beyond the beachheads. However, the inaccuracy of the Allied aerial bombing and naval bombardment, among other failures, meant that the Americans suffered significant losses on Omaha Beach, just as General Gerow had rightly feared. Even after the beaches were secured, the invasion became a costly struggle against a tenacious and often more experienced enemy who had the advantage of terrain well-suited to defense.
― “Even though Allied casualties on D-Day were far lighter than the planners’ estimates, that did not in any way reduce the shock of the first wave’s slaughter at Omaha.”
― Antony Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy
The now infamous hedgerows of Normandy proved to be a significant challenge for the Allied forces, providing strategic defensive positions for the Germans. The structure and layout of the hedges in Normandy proved particularly unfavorable to the Allies, limiting views of the terrain, hiding the lines of fire, and providing the Germans with a strong defensive position. The German mobile artillery batteries wisely used the hedges to camouflage their positions from Allied aircraft.
― “Wehrmacht losses in Normandy up to 25 June had reached 47,070 men, including six generals. Yet their effectiveness in defense provoked bitter admiration among their opponents.”
― Antony Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy
The coverage of D-Day (June 6) probably takes up no more than 20 percent of the book. Beevor rightly covers the fighting in Normandy, including the post-invasion operations, such as Operations Goodwood, Cobra and Totalize. The coverage of the invasion ends with the surrender of the German garrison in Paris on August 25, 1944.
While we celebrate the great Allied victory, Beevor rightly points out in his epilogue, titled “Aftermath”, the terrible human costs of the Battle for Normandy. Altogether 19,980 French civilians were killed and an even larger number seriously injured, mostly by Allied bombing. Whole towns and villages were flattened by bombing. In the French department of Calvados in Normandy alone, 76,000 people lost their homes. The Germans suffered 240,000 casualties and 200,000 taken prisoner. The combined Allied forces (American, British and Canadian) suffered more than 225,000 casualties. Sadly, the Allies also suffered casualties from Allied bombing due to poor communication between ground forces and air units.
One of British military historian Antony Beevor’s greatest strengths is his ability to reduce dense historical data into an accessible narrative. His command of a huge range of sources is combined with a fine eye for place and detail in order to create a highly readable account of the pivotal campaign of the Second World War. Though he is British, Beevor doesn't hold back on his criticism of the unbearable General Bernard Montgomery.
October 12, 2023
Once more, late with my review. My apologies. In any case, my uncle, Warren Nelson, was 101st Airborne and jumped on D-Day and Market Garden, and would be wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. (His best friend has a cameo, when the friend dies, in Band of Brothers.) Last month I finally visited Normandy and Omaha Beach, and this history was the prefect companion. I had it with me as I visited many of the sites near the Seine between Omaha and Paris.
November 22, 2014
A good book to go to for a detailed account of D-Day and follow-up stages, with a fair balance between the perspective of generals and soldiers. I appreciated the critical perspective on Montgomery’s performance and elucidation of the fateful divergence of understanding of realities between Rommel and Hitler. Though the book might satisfy the cautious historian, but for me it didn’t bring to life the role of the personalities and strategies of key leaders in the way that writers like Stephen Ambrose does for me.
March 27, 2017
Excellently written book by an excellent author. Spends equal time on the British, Canadian, French, German and US forces but also involves the various political attitudes behind them all and how they interacted. Offers an unblinking look at the atrocities committed by both the Allies and the Germans during this campaign. At times hard to put down, and at times hard to read (due to the honest look at the atrocities). Everything a good history book should be in my opinion.
February 7, 2021
I read one of Anthony Beevor's other books Stalingrad while I was bicycling and traveling by train across Turkey.
Maybe it was a combination of the amazing context and the quality of the book, but Stalingrad absolutely blew me away. I literally could not put it down.
I elected to miss some of the worlds most interesting scenery and cultural experiences in order to burry my nose in a book, and I have absolutely no regrets about that.
Reading Stalingrad was one of those A+ reading experiences that you emerge from a changed person.
After I finished Stalingrad, I desperately wanted to read another book by this author, but there was literally zero chance of finding any of his other books in English where I was. So after a protracted mourning period, I moved on. That was 8 years ago.
I recently discovered (via referral from my best bro) Dan Carlin's Hard Core History podcast. And it reignited the slumbering passion I have for WWII history. Since then I have been binge reading WWII stuff and it has been a truly enriching experience.
I finally made my way to D-Day after working through some of the big picture WWII histories and I have to say, it was a bit of a dud. Not awful, actually really good, just not excellent like I expected.
It's hard to say weather my experience is tempered by being a bit burnt out on WWII at this point, or if my high expectations have colored my opinion. But from my current perspective, his book was a little dry and it never managed to spin the facts into a narrative with arc and momentum like the really good histories do.
I have to say that I found much of the book to be absolutely valuable. Particularly the stuff on Patton and Eisenhower. You'd have to be lacking a pulse not to love those odd bedfellow characters. And the wealth of information from the German perspective was also wonderful. Not to mention all of the fabulous information about all of the Allied players. All in all reading this book this was an amazing learning experience.
But......
It just wasn't as good as Stalingrad. I guess it took me that long to just come out and say it.
For all I know this book is pearls before my swine eyes. Perhaps I just don't know what I'm looking at. But I have to go with my gut and give this one a 4/5 star review.
Maybe it was a combination of the amazing context and the quality of the book, but Stalingrad absolutely blew me away. I literally could not put it down.
I elected to miss some of the worlds most interesting scenery and cultural experiences in order to burry my nose in a book, and I have absolutely no regrets about that.
Reading Stalingrad was one of those A+ reading experiences that you emerge from a changed person.
After I finished Stalingrad, I desperately wanted to read another book by this author, but there was literally zero chance of finding any of his other books in English where I was. So after a protracted mourning period, I moved on. That was 8 years ago.
I recently discovered (via referral from my best bro) Dan Carlin's Hard Core History podcast. And it reignited the slumbering passion I have for WWII history. Since then I have been binge reading WWII stuff and it has been a truly enriching experience.
I finally made my way to D-Day after working through some of the big picture WWII histories and I have to say, it was a bit of a dud. Not awful, actually really good, just not excellent like I expected.
It's hard to say weather my experience is tempered by being a bit burnt out on WWII at this point, or if my high expectations have colored my opinion. But from my current perspective, his book was a little dry and it never managed to spin the facts into a narrative with arc and momentum like the really good histories do.
I have to say that I found much of the book to be absolutely valuable. Particularly the stuff on Patton and Eisenhower. You'd have to be lacking a pulse not to love those odd bedfellow characters. And the wealth of information from the German perspective was also wonderful. Not to mention all of the fabulous information about all of the Allied players. All in all reading this book this was an amazing learning experience.
But......
It just wasn't as good as Stalingrad. I guess it took me that long to just come out and say it.
For all I know this book is pearls before my swine eyes. Perhaps I just don't know what I'm looking at. But I have to go with my gut and give this one a 4/5 star review.
August 3, 2013
This is a well-written account of the D-Day landings in June, 1944. The author is successful at giving the broad overall view of the struggle, but he also presents poignant pictures at the ground level of individual soldiers on both sides of the conflict. We also feel the joy and the pain of the French people of Normandy who suffered tremendously and paid such a high cost for their liberation. As exemplified by the pictures, many Normandy towns were obliterated by bombing raids. Atrocities were committed by both the Allies and the Germans; however the Germans vented their frustrations on the innocent people they were occupying.
Interestingly the author compares the savagery of the Normandy campaign as being on the same level as on the Eastern Front. The numbers of casualties were similar. Perhaps the only difference would be in combat fatigue. It exemplifies well the difference between the democracies versus the Nazi and the Stalinist regimes – where “combat fatigue” was unknown (not tolerated).
Mr. Beevor paints Montgomery as being self-serving – angering not only American commanders, but British ones as well. American forces would seem to have been more resilient and quicker to learn and adapt. But they were new to war and had many more soldiers in reserve compared to the British and Canadians. The Allies were indeed multi-national with not only U.S., British and Canadian troops, but Poles, French, Dutch and many more of the exile countries from Nazi-occupied Europe.
As the author points out the total air dominance of the Allies was probably their supreme advantage through-out the long Normandy campaign. It continually created destruction and chaos in the German front and behind in their supply lines. This book takes us up to the liberation of Paris during August. It’s an excellent and enthralling read of one of the greatest military endeavours of modern history.
Interestingly the author compares the savagery of the Normandy campaign as being on the same level as on the Eastern Front. The numbers of casualties were similar. Perhaps the only difference would be in combat fatigue. It exemplifies well the difference between the democracies versus the Nazi and the Stalinist regimes – where “combat fatigue” was unknown (not tolerated).
Mr. Beevor paints Montgomery as being self-serving – angering not only American commanders, but British ones as well. American forces would seem to have been more resilient and quicker to learn and adapt. But they were new to war and had many more soldiers in reserve compared to the British and Canadians. The Allies were indeed multi-national with not only U.S., British and Canadian troops, but Poles, French, Dutch and many more of the exile countries from Nazi-occupied Europe.
As the author points out the total air dominance of the Allies was probably their supreme advantage through-out the long Normandy campaign. It continually created destruction and chaos in the German front and behind in their supply lines. This book takes us up to the liberation of Paris during August. It’s an excellent and enthralling read of one of the greatest military endeavours of modern history.
November 26, 2019
Beevor narrates the Normandy Campaign - by which he means the landings on D-Day until the liberation of Paris on 25th August 1944 - with his usual historical vigor and rich, creamy prose. The ground has been gone over so many times that one wonders if another book about Normandy is needed but, as usual, Beevor has much to add and observe about the military decisions and the men who made them, especially Montgomery, who Beevor skewers with his sharp observations. His descriptions of the battles and their attendant horrors are unsurpassed. One of Beevor's specialties is the sufferings of the civilians caught up in the battles he writes about, and the Normans suffered greatly as the battles and bombardments swept through their homes, cities and farms (Caen endured a particularly horrible fate), but he is right to point out (as did De Gaulle) that the civilian casualties inflicted in Normandy by the Allies saved lives in the rest of France. I suppose the maps could have been better, but that is to quibble. A very good book about the decisive battle in Western Europe in World War II.
Want to read
September 18, 2015Got myself a nice hardcover copy.
June 13, 2025
This is an excellent addition to the plethora of books written about D-Day and the Normandy campaign, and benefits from Antony Beevor's crisp and fast-moving narrative style. He begins with the postponement from the 5th to the 6th of June, and switches between strategic and tactical level views throughout the book. As is typical in a Beevor book, he liberally illustrates his narrative with relevant personal stories and testimony, and he makes effective use of maps to explain the movement of troops through the campaign. He also captures the savagery of much of the fighting in Normandy, which was just as fierce as that on the Eastern Front, albeit on a smaller scale: "The ferocity of the fighting in north-west France can never be in doubt. And despite the sneers of Soviet propagandists, the battle for Normandy was certainly comparable to that of the Eastern Front. During the three summer months, the Wermacht suffered nearly 240,000 casualties and lost another 200,000 men to Allied captivity."
Beevor does tread some well-worn tracks when he concludes that the German soldiers and equipment were generally superior to their Allied equivalents. And similar to d'Este, Hastings and others, Montgomery stands out and is portrayed in a pretty negative light: "Montgomery placed himself at the centre of the post-war storm mainly because of his preposterous assertions that everything had gone according to his master plan. He felt that he should be seen on a par with Marlborough and Wellington and implicitly denigrated his American colleagues. Almost single-handedly, he had managed in Normandy to make most senior American commanders anti-British at the very moment when Britain's power was waning dramatically. His behaviour thus constituted a diplomatic disaster of the first order." I'm not sure how much I buy this given the sheer number of British staff officers and others who had contact with these same American commanders (right up to the level of Tedder, Eisenhower's deputy), but Montgomery was undoubtedly a difficult and unpleasant character.
Unlike many books about D-Day / the Normandy campaign, he continues his narrative after the closing of the Falaise Gap and includes the liberation of Paris. This provides a fine bookend to the destruction unleashed in Normandy, as Beevor comments, "The cruel martyrdom of Normandy had indeed saved the rest of France...it is a sobering thought that 70,000 French civilians were killed by Allied action during the course of the war, a figure which exceeds the total number of British killed by German bombing."
What isn't in doubt is the eventual outcome of the Normandy campaign, which was the liberation of France and the defeat of the bulk of the occupying German forces. Antony Beevor has written a lucid and accessible account of these events, and I highly recommend it.
Beevor does tread some well-worn tracks when he concludes that the German soldiers and equipment were generally superior to their Allied equivalents. And similar to d'Este, Hastings and others, Montgomery stands out and is portrayed in a pretty negative light: "Montgomery placed himself at the centre of the post-war storm mainly because of his preposterous assertions that everything had gone according to his master plan. He felt that he should be seen on a par with Marlborough and Wellington and implicitly denigrated his American colleagues. Almost single-handedly, he had managed in Normandy to make most senior American commanders anti-British at the very moment when Britain's power was waning dramatically. His behaviour thus constituted a diplomatic disaster of the first order." I'm not sure how much I buy this given the sheer number of British staff officers and others who had contact with these same American commanders (right up to the level of Tedder, Eisenhower's deputy), but Montgomery was undoubtedly a difficult and unpleasant character.
Unlike many books about D-Day / the Normandy campaign, he continues his narrative after the closing of the Falaise Gap and includes the liberation of Paris. This provides a fine bookend to the destruction unleashed in Normandy, as Beevor comments, "The cruel martyrdom of Normandy had indeed saved the rest of France...it is a sobering thought that 70,000 French civilians were killed by Allied action during the course of the war, a figure which exceeds the total number of British killed by German bombing."
What isn't in doubt is the eventual outcome of the Normandy campaign, which was the liberation of France and the defeat of the bulk of the occupying German forces. Antony Beevor has written a lucid and accessible account of these events, and I highly recommend it.
December 2, 2010
Noted WWII author Antony Beevor brought much to bear in his previous works on the Battles of Stalingrad and Berlin, but comes up a bit short in his most recent work, "D-Day--The Battle for Normandy." Perhaps the author had too much ground to cover in too little time. The book is still a good read, but may gloss over parts of the story that have gotten more attention in other works.
Correctly, Beevor scales his work to cover more than just the June 6th landings. He takes in the attrition battles before Caen; the bleak, bloody slog through the hedgerow country of Normandy, the dizzying breakout at St. Lo and the joyous liberation of Paris. The context is right, but the book reads a little too quickly, making one wonder if the author is glossing over some details despite his best efforts to enliven the narrative with the smaller, human scale details.
Interesting to note is Beevor taking Montgomery to task for his unimaginative generalship and his egotistical refusal to admit error. America authors love pounding on Montgomery, who had an obnoxious knack for rubbing everybody the wrong way. So it is a bit surprising to see the British Beevor being very critical about Montgomery while giving Patton his due.
Also notable is DeGaulle's presence. While the British, Americans and Germans had to puzzle how to win on the French battlefield, DeGaulle had to find a way to exploit events beyond his control to ensure that his faction of the resistance claimed credit for France's resurrection under non-Communist/non-fascist governance. Beevor accords the French more space in his telling of the tale. And why not? It's their country. That seems "bloody obvious," but the French side often gets short shrift. In a military history, that lone Free French armored division gets lost in the clash of armies and corps.
Let me stress that this is a good book, not a great book. Beevor deserves credit for trying to tell the story from the American, British, French, German and Russian points of view. He touches on the Russian critique of D-Day as a lesser effort compared to the monster battles of the Eastern Front. But here the paragraph has to suffice where a couple of pages of analysis would have been better. Was this book 50-100 pages short? Could it have been a little deeper and slower in places? The points are there and the dots are connected. I just wished there were more of them to make a painting of the story instead of giving us a good picture.
Correctly, Beevor scales his work to cover more than just the June 6th landings. He takes in the attrition battles before Caen; the bleak, bloody slog through the hedgerow country of Normandy, the dizzying breakout at St. Lo and the joyous liberation of Paris. The context is right, but the book reads a little too quickly, making one wonder if the author is glossing over some details despite his best efforts to enliven the narrative with the smaller, human scale details.
Interesting to note is Beevor taking Montgomery to task for his unimaginative generalship and his egotistical refusal to admit error. America authors love pounding on Montgomery, who had an obnoxious knack for rubbing everybody the wrong way. So it is a bit surprising to see the British Beevor being very critical about Montgomery while giving Patton his due.
Also notable is DeGaulle's presence. While the British, Americans and Germans had to puzzle how to win on the French battlefield, DeGaulle had to find a way to exploit events beyond his control to ensure that his faction of the resistance claimed credit for France's resurrection under non-Communist/non-fascist governance. Beevor accords the French more space in his telling of the tale. And why not? It's their country. That seems "bloody obvious," but the French side often gets short shrift. In a military history, that lone Free French armored division gets lost in the clash of armies and corps.
Let me stress that this is a good book, not a great book. Beevor deserves credit for trying to tell the story from the American, British, French, German and Russian points of view. He touches on the Russian critique of D-Day as a lesser effort compared to the monster battles of the Eastern Front. But here the paragraph has to suffice where a couple of pages of analysis would have been better. Was this book 50-100 pages short? Could it have been a little deeper and slower in places? The points are there and the dots are connected. I just wished there were more of them to make a painting of the story instead of giving us a good picture.
June 10, 2019
I'd say the title of this book is a bit misleading as only around a third of the text deals with D-Day and the rest covers the Allied operations to break out of the Normandy beachhead and then liberate Paris. However, that doesn't change the fact this is a really good book on the Allied campaign to liberate Europe, with lots of great little stories from those who were involved.
While the book doesn't really go into great detail on any aspects of the D-Day invasion and subsequent fighting, Beevor does a really good job of covering the campaign, and for once, there are several really good maps in just the right places to help the reader!
Definitely worth reading!
While the book doesn't really go into great detail on any aspects of the D-Day invasion and subsequent fighting, Beevor does a really good job of covering the campaign, and for once, there are several really good maps in just the right places to help the reader!
Definitely worth reading!
December 24, 2020
Bis Seite 187 gelesen und dann abgebrochen, da ich mich für meine Arbeit ausschließlich auf die Planung und die Landung in der Normandie konzentriere. Bis zu diesen gelesenen Seiten habe ich das Werk spannend und als gut verständlich gefunden und vergebe dafür trotzdem 4 Sterne. Ich habe noch bis zur Schlacht von Carentin weitergelesen und würde vorsichtig behaupten, dass es so–mit weiteren Schlachten um die Befreiung Frankreichs–spannend weitergehen wird.
July 23, 2011
“Tous aux barricades!” A remarkably sobering and viscerally honest rendering of D-Day and the early European front, which probably could not have been released before this decade. This is no black and white account of saintly Allies versus bloodthirsty Nazis but a granular and nuanced account; and the 527-page tome is for the WWII-phile rather than those casually interested in the subject. Beevor makes Band of Brothers look like Hollywood, and as a fan of the BOB book and mini-series, that is saying something.
Most striking and unique in Beevor’s account is his broad coverage of the non-American and non-British contributions to the war, which are sadly (and in my opinion unfairly), often overlooked or only peripherally mentioned in so many other recounts of WWII. I have been moved to tears in small towns in Normandy and Benelux when confronted by the tenderly maintained gravesites of the “other” Allied contributors, buried where they fell, yet barely footnotes in most popular books, movies, and TV shows. Beevor covers the significant Free French contribution to the war (dismissed by Old Guts And Glory in typical Patton-esque terms as “better than expected and less than advertised”), as well as the very competent and critical regiments consisting of Belgians, Poles, Czechs, Yugoslavians, German Jews, Norwegians, New Zealanders, Russians, South Africans, and Australians. Ernest Hemingway even makes a brief and typically macho cameo, as a war correspondent (courting the fourth Mrs. Hemingway at the time), perhaps rivaling only Patton in his ill-timed and gauche machismo. The chess-like political maneuvering, posturing, and feather-displaying of talented, heroic – and egomaniacal – men, including Patton, Churchill, Eisenhower, Roosevelt, De Gaulle, Rommel, and Stalin, is both fascinating and nauseating.
The book is rife with detail, including but not limited to the still-perplexing decision of the Nazi commanders in Paris to defy Hitler’s direct orders to destroy the city – even though the entire city was wired to blow at the touch of a button. Beevor also refuses to shy away from detailing a military study suppressed by Monty, which proved that most soldiers, contrary to the Hollywood-manufactured myth, would be paralyzed by shock, descending into total psychological breakdowns, or resort to desertion or self-inflicted wounds when faced with battle(and who wouldn’t? you have to ask yourself). When you’re watching the 101st Airborne in the Spielberg/Hanks amazing Band of Brothers) hurl themselves into battle behind enemy lines, you are seeing – as it were – an anomaly – though Beevor covers equally anomalous shows of extreme courage. He conveys the crucial convictional difference between an indoctrinated army fighting against the perceived total annihilation of its homeland (a myth manufactured by Goebbels’s lethally effective propaganda ministry) versus an army which overwhelmingly came from a peaceful, democratic country. In battle, it turned out, this made all the difference, and largely accounted for the incredible resilience of the vastly outnumbered German soldiers. Most profound, is Beevor’s refusal to canonize the Allies (which of course, is why this book could not have been released during the initial rapture of victory or indeed while many unarguably heroic survivors were still alive). The inhumanity, the revenge-killings, the sadistic streak in soldiers and civilians alike is served up by Beevor sans sugar, but also sans judgment. More than anything, this book left me with a sense that I would never know, could never know what the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians of all nationalities and creed suffered through and gave, during this horrific, savage, eternally-fascinating war. Like Churchill said, "never was so much owed by so many to so few."
Most striking and unique in Beevor’s account is his broad coverage of the non-American and non-British contributions to the war, which are sadly (and in my opinion unfairly), often overlooked or only peripherally mentioned in so many other recounts of WWII. I have been moved to tears in small towns in Normandy and Benelux when confronted by the tenderly maintained gravesites of the “other” Allied contributors, buried where they fell, yet barely footnotes in most popular books, movies, and TV shows. Beevor covers the significant Free French contribution to the war (dismissed by Old Guts And Glory in typical Patton-esque terms as “better than expected and less than advertised”), as well as the very competent and critical regiments consisting of Belgians, Poles, Czechs, Yugoslavians, German Jews, Norwegians, New Zealanders, Russians, South Africans, and Australians. Ernest Hemingway even makes a brief and typically macho cameo, as a war correspondent (courting the fourth Mrs. Hemingway at the time), perhaps rivaling only Patton in his ill-timed and gauche machismo. The chess-like political maneuvering, posturing, and feather-displaying of talented, heroic – and egomaniacal – men, including Patton, Churchill, Eisenhower, Roosevelt, De Gaulle, Rommel, and Stalin, is both fascinating and nauseating.
The book is rife with detail, including but not limited to the still-perplexing decision of the Nazi commanders in Paris to defy Hitler’s direct orders to destroy the city – even though the entire city was wired to blow at the touch of a button. Beevor also refuses to shy away from detailing a military study suppressed by Monty, which proved that most soldiers, contrary to the Hollywood-manufactured myth, would be paralyzed by shock, descending into total psychological breakdowns, or resort to desertion or self-inflicted wounds when faced with battle(and who wouldn’t? you have to ask yourself). When you’re watching the 101st Airborne in the Spielberg/Hanks amazing Band of Brothers) hurl themselves into battle behind enemy lines, you are seeing – as it were – an anomaly – though Beevor covers equally anomalous shows of extreme courage. He conveys the crucial convictional difference between an indoctrinated army fighting against the perceived total annihilation of its homeland (a myth manufactured by Goebbels’s lethally effective propaganda ministry) versus an army which overwhelmingly came from a peaceful, democratic country. In battle, it turned out, this made all the difference, and largely accounted for the incredible resilience of the vastly outnumbered German soldiers. Most profound, is Beevor’s refusal to canonize the Allies (which of course, is why this book could not have been released during the initial rapture of victory or indeed while many unarguably heroic survivors were still alive). The inhumanity, the revenge-killings, the sadistic streak in soldiers and civilians alike is served up by Beevor sans sugar, but also sans judgment. More than anything, this book left me with a sense that I would never know, could never know what the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians of all nationalities and creed suffered through and gave, during this horrific, savage, eternally-fascinating war. Like Churchill said, "never was so much owed by so many to so few."
January 16, 2019
A short review. If you're really interested in a more in-depth examination of Mr. Beevor's work see my review of Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble. I'll just say that Mr. Beevor's work is just as good here as in his other works. Well researched, fair-minded, balanced and sympathetic towards the pain that the catastrophe of war inflicts; not just on military personnel, but the civilians who are unfortunate enough to live in a war zone. I do need to add one thing. Most accounts of "D-Day" (June 6, 1944) focus on the months leading up to the invasion and then either the first day or .perhaps, the first week. Mr. Beevor's account looks at the entire Normandy Campaign (6 Jun 44 - 24 Jul 44) as well as part of the Northern France Campaign (25 Jul 44 - 14 Sep 44). If you're expecting an in-depth look at the first twenty-four hours Mr. Beevor's book is not the one to read. I suggest Ambrose Burnside's D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Battle for the Normandy Beaches or Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day. Both books are excellent accounts of the first day of the invasion and I strongly recommend them. If you're interested in both the day and the weeks that followed I also recommend this work.
September 11, 2016
-Título algo engañoso, por más que sea cierto en parte.-
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Con el subtítulo La batalla de Normandía y tras un breve repaso de los acontecimientos previos a nivel de las personalidades que decidirían la ejecución de Overlord en la Segunda Guerra Mundial, descripción de la operación, de los combates posteriores y el avance de las tropas aliadas en distintas fases, hasta la toma de París algo menos de tres meses después.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
https://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com...
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Con el subtítulo La batalla de Normandía y tras un breve repaso de los acontecimientos previos a nivel de las personalidades que decidirían la ejecución de Overlord en la Segunda Guerra Mundial, descripción de la operación, de los combates posteriores y el avance de las tropas aliadas en distintas fases, hasta la toma de París algo menos de tres meses después.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
https://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com...
September 4, 2018
A lengthy read. But worth the every page and word I read.
The book lays out the plannings that preceded D-day landings, incidents that took place on that particular day and throughout the battle in France till the events of post-liberated France.
It particularly lines out the main battles between the allies and the German soldiers, the many fractious relationships between the higher commands of the allied armies and the events from the Germans perspective who were facing the allied onslaught.
The only thing I thought that was lacking was the Germans perspective during the D-day landings at its initial few hrs/day. The longest day by Cornelius Ryan is a book that gives a much more better insight into this stage of the landings.
But overall, it was painstakingly and meticulously researched material put together with brilliant setting and writing as per usual. Antony Beevor can do no wrong.
The book lays out the plannings that preceded D-day landings, incidents that took place on that particular day and throughout the battle in France till the events of post-liberated France.
It particularly lines out the main battles between the allies and the German soldiers, the many fractious relationships between the higher commands of the allied armies and the events from the Germans perspective who were facing the allied onslaught.
The only thing I thought that was lacking was the Germans perspective during the D-day landings at its initial few hrs/day. The longest day by Cornelius Ryan is a book that gives a much more better insight into this stage of the landings.
But overall, it was painstakingly and meticulously researched material put together with brilliant setting and writing as per usual. Antony Beevor can do no wrong.
June 12, 2018
I recently read and really enjoyed 'D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944' and that made me want to read more about D Day. I've really enjoyed the other books I've read by Antony Beevor (Staingrad, Berlin, Crete) and so thought I'd be in safe hands with D-Day: The Battle for Normandy.
It's splendid. Moving from the initial drama about adverse weather forecasts, to surveillance of the assault beaches, to individual accounts of each beach, to the breakout for Paris, the action never lets up. Beevor follows personalities from one location to another, and I learned so much about this particular conflict.
Where it really brings the battle for Normandy, and more generally the liberation of France, to life, is through the extensive use of quotations.
It's a genuinely exciting and absorbing book - indeed everything I had hoped for.
4/5
It's splendid. Moving from the initial drama about adverse weather forecasts, to surveillance of the assault beaches, to individual accounts of each beach, to the breakout for Paris, the action never lets up. Beevor follows personalities from one location to another, and I learned so much about this particular conflict.
Where it really brings the battle for Normandy, and more generally the liberation of France, to life, is through the extensive use of quotations.
It's a genuinely exciting and absorbing book - indeed everything I had hoped for.
4/5
July 20, 2011
This was a great book! It covers a period of WWII from just prior to the invasions of the Normandy Coast on June 6, 1944, to the liberation of Paris (Silly French think that their army liberated Paris). Beevor has done a thorough job researching and retelling stories of the campaign for Normandy. This time period is one of my favorites from WWII. Not that war is a good thing, or enjoyable. War brings out the best and worst in people. It is the stories when people are at their best that I enjoy. There are quite a few books out there treating this same time frame. Beevor does a very good job. It is interesting to read, and many books have corroborated this, that the majority of the German army (I have heard quotes of up to 80%) wanted to surrender and be done with the war at this point. They had been at war for 5 years already. German technology, training, weaponry, etc., were all more advanced than the allies. We couldn’t stand up to their Tiger and Panther tanks, their MG 42 machine guns, and their cutting edge Me 262 jet aircraft. Hitler really was a buffoon, and didn’t have the genius to employ these tools properly. The Allies did have several advantages, those being industrial production (sheer number of equipment) and the largest gasoline powered supply system in the world. The Germans were still heavily relying on horse drawn equipment. However, I think the bottom line is the Germans just wanted to be done and get back to the normal way of life. Even the high commanders, such as Rommel (the great tank commander of the Northern Africa campaign), was trying to convince Hitler to surrender. Once the will to fight is gone, the war is over. I don’t blame them. Overall it was an excellent book.
December 18, 2018
A classic Beevor presentation. He starts with the preparation in England, follows through with the landings, attrition, breakout and ends with the capture of Paris. The battles are covered from all sides with lots of records from participants at all levels including civilian. Overall the focus is on the land portion with information on the air and navy actions only where they supported the land activities. Reads well. 4.5 stars.
March 31, 2019
Anthony Beevor is a prolific historian. His works include; STALINGRAD, THE BATTLE OF ARNHEM, ARDENNES 1944, THE FALL OF BERLIN, 1945, THE BATTLE FOR SPAIN, and CRETE, 1941. His works have achieved critical acclaim by military historians and the general public and one of his earlier books, D-DAY: THE BATTLE FOR NORMANDY written in 2009 is very timely today. On June 6th the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the invasion will be held on the northern French coast and after reading Beevor’s account of the allied crossing of the English Channel one has to marvel at the logistical achievement and the courage of allied soldiers as they would land on the Normandy beaches and face the brunt of the Nazi military machine. Beevor, a former commissioned officer in the British Army’s account encompasses more than just the invasion of Normandy which is covered in half the narrative, but the author continues with the breakout from Normandy, the opposition to Hitler and the July 1944 attempt on his life, the closing of the Falaise Gap through the liberation of Paris. There are many books on D-Day from Cornelius Ryan’s classic, THE LONGEST DAY, Max Hasting’s OVERLORD, the works of John Keegan, Carlo D’Este, and Stephen Ambrose, and the latest book on the topic, Giles Milton’s SOLDIER, SAILOR, FROGMAN, SPY, AIRMAN, GANGSTER, KILL OR DIE: HOW THE ALLIES WON ON D DAY all of which Beevor’s effort compares quite nicely.
Beevor’s approach is quite simple; provide the reader with the experience of being a witness to the daily decision making by allied strategists, and to a lesser extent what the Germans were planning. He takes the reader inside the thoughts of SHAEF Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, Generals Omar T. Bradley, George S. Patton, Lt. General Sir Miles Dempsey, General Sir Bernard Montgomery, Field Marshall Sir Alan Brooke, among many others. We are exposed to their opinions of each other as well as their approach to warfare. There are many candid comments be it President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s and Eisenhower’s low opinion of French General Charles de Gaulle, or the views of American generals concerning the lack of progress due to Montgomery’s poor leadership. Beevor’s comments are very insightful particularly labeling Montgomery as suffering from an Adlerian inferiority complex and his description of General Teddy Roosevelt, Jr. is priceless.
Beevor begins his narrative with a careful analysis of the allied approach to launching D Day. Weather evaluation became the key to success and when it was not cooperative it caused a one-day postponement. Later, Eisenhower would be extremely thankful when 110-mile winds buffeted parts of the French coast on June 19, lasting to the 22nd which caused massive destruction and incalculable damage to the beaches which had been transitioned to a supply base and center for further action. The resulting delay hampered the evacuation of casualties, hindered air operations, but the allies would recover and take the key port of Cherbourg by June 26th.
The author is at his best when describing the preparation and resulting battlefield action. His description of the preparation of the 82nd and 101st Airborne as they trained and were about to land behind German lines before the invasion commenced is fascinating. Beevor focuses on the experience of soldiers in combat from facing German Panzer Tiger Tanks and 88 mm. artillery, actual paratroop jumps, the need to dig fox holes quickly, the “black humor” soldiers resorted to as a coping method, and the terrain they had to navigate, i.e.; the bocage or hedgerows that dominated the French landscape as allied troops broke out into the French countryside. He concentrates on the obstacles that allied troops would face preparing for the landing as well as the fighting that resulted i.e., the weight of their packs and the amount of equipment that they carried. For some over 100 pounds which made it difficult to wade in the Channel without drowning, jump out of airplanes, or marching to the next engagement with the Germans.
Beevor provides maps of the battlefield and statistics that make the reader in awe when thinking about what took place in June 1944. Beevor’s intimate knowledge of daily occurrences reflects an inordinate amount of research from interviewing allied survivors of the war, immersing himself in the work of unit historians as battles took place, traveling to 12 countries and examining 30 archives, as well as consulting many primary and secondary materials.
Perhaps Beevor’s best chapters come early as he deals with what appear to be scenes from the film, “Saving Private Ryan” as he describes what occurred on Utah and Omaha Beaches. Beevor provides numerous stories of bravery and fortitude as chaos reigned on Omaha Beach in particular; “a mass of junk, men, and materials,” as well as the damage inflicted by the proliferation of German land mines on the beaches. His evaluations are extremely accurate as he states the British army was woefully unprepared for infantry-tank operations, and the poor preparation of the Germans which allowed the allies to remain on the beaches. Beevor also spends a great deal of time dissecting the attempts to take the city of Caen and the final success in doing so. He accurately points out that the initial failure to take the city created a rift between American and British commanders as it seemed they both had their own agendas. Beevor’s evaluation of battlefield tactics are exceptional as well as the commanders involved. He describes numerous lost opportunities on both sides pointing to the German ambush of British Cromwell tanks on June 14 at Hill 213 outside the village of Villars-Bocage. In the end the RAF would flatten the village after earlier being greeted as liberators.
The key to success was American organization as within a week after D Day, Omaha Beach “resembled Coney Island on a hot Sunday.” The Omaha Beach command was made up of 20,000 soldiers, the bulk of which were from the 5th and 6th Engineer Brigades. But there were many problems that arose as the battles proceeded. What to do with German POWS, shoot them or send them back to England? How to transport casualties at the same time transporting POWS on the same LSTs. What approach should be taken to thwart Hitler’s savior, the V-1 rockets as they began to reign on London and the English shore line? How should commanders deal with combat exhaustion, more commonly known today as shock or PTSD? What allowances should be made because of troop shortages and the lack of training of replacements?
Beevor is very concerned with the humanitarian aspects of the war. The death of French civilians due to allied bombing is well covered as is the French resentment against the British who they blamed for most of the Allied bombing errors. As Beevor points out the French villagers paid a hefty price for their liberation. Speaking of bombing errors, Beevor recounts more incidents than I was aware of pertaining to allied friendly fire. Be it American, British, Canadian, Polish or French soldiers they all paid a hefty price for pilot or intelligence errors throughout Beevor’s narrative.
The German high command receives a thrashing from Beevor as he points out that they did not have a central command in France at the time of D Day. They relied on a ridiculous system of sharing command between General Field Marshall Edwin Rommel and General Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt. Hitler’s over reliance on his “Atlantic Wall” is covered in detail and his micro managing that only impeded the German war effort. The frustration would boil over after Rundstedt is relieved of his command and a group of officers realize they are losing the war resulting in the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt of the Fuhrer. Amazingly 20% of German forces in France in 1944 were made up of non-Germans, mostly Poles and Russians.
Beevor should be commended for showing his readers the heroism of the Soviet Army. What the Russian people and soldiers experienced on the eastern front was horrendous, but Beevor is correct in arguing that Soviet propaganda put out by Stalin that Normandy was a side show to events in the east was wrong. The battle for Normandy was comparable in its intensity to the fighting on the eastern front. The Germans would suffer over 250,000 casualties during the 90 days of summer in 1944 and lost another 200,000 as POWS captured at a rate higher than on the eastern front.
The last third of the book is spent on the rush to liberate Paris, which was not part of the original D Day plan. Bevor takes the reader through a series of operations and what stands out is German doggedness, particularly the Waffen-SS’s refusal to make life for allied soldiers any easier and the vengeance they meted out to French civilians, Resistance fighters, and Jews. Another aspect that dominates is Montgomery’s constant attempts to assuage his own ego by launching and/or suggesting certain operations which would be counterproductive. Another final component deals with internal French issues be it how collaborators were treated, De Gaulle’s battle with the Communists and the role of the Resistance. Beevor joins Max Hastings as producing one of the most thorough accounts of D-Day and it should be read by anyone seeking the experience of what occurred, the personalities involved, and its effect on civilians caught in the cauldron of total war.
Beevor’s approach is quite simple; provide the reader with the experience of being a witness to the daily decision making by allied strategists, and to a lesser extent what the Germans were planning. He takes the reader inside the thoughts of SHAEF Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, Generals Omar T. Bradley, George S. Patton, Lt. General Sir Miles Dempsey, General Sir Bernard Montgomery, Field Marshall Sir Alan Brooke, among many others. We are exposed to their opinions of each other as well as their approach to warfare. There are many candid comments be it President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s and Eisenhower’s low opinion of French General Charles de Gaulle, or the views of American generals concerning the lack of progress due to Montgomery’s poor leadership. Beevor’s comments are very insightful particularly labeling Montgomery as suffering from an Adlerian inferiority complex and his description of General Teddy Roosevelt, Jr. is priceless.
Beevor begins his narrative with a careful analysis of the allied approach to launching D Day. Weather evaluation became the key to success and when it was not cooperative it caused a one-day postponement. Later, Eisenhower would be extremely thankful when 110-mile winds buffeted parts of the French coast on June 19, lasting to the 22nd which caused massive destruction and incalculable damage to the beaches which had been transitioned to a supply base and center for further action. The resulting delay hampered the evacuation of casualties, hindered air operations, but the allies would recover and take the key port of Cherbourg by June 26th.
The author is at his best when describing the preparation and resulting battlefield action. His description of the preparation of the 82nd and 101st Airborne as they trained and were about to land behind German lines before the invasion commenced is fascinating. Beevor focuses on the experience of soldiers in combat from facing German Panzer Tiger Tanks and 88 mm. artillery, actual paratroop jumps, the need to dig fox holes quickly, the “black humor” soldiers resorted to as a coping method, and the terrain they had to navigate, i.e.; the bocage or hedgerows that dominated the French landscape as allied troops broke out into the French countryside. He concentrates on the obstacles that allied troops would face preparing for the landing as well as the fighting that resulted i.e., the weight of their packs and the amount of equipment that they carried. For some over 100 pounds which made it difficult to wade in the Channel without drowning, jump out of airplanes, or marching to the next engagement with the Germans.
Beevor provides maps of the battlefield and statistics that make the reader in awe when thinking about what took place in June 1944. Beevor’s intimate knowledge of daily occurrences reflects an inordinate amount of research from interviewing allied survivors of the war, immersing himself in the work of unit historians as battles took place, traveling to 12 countries and examining 30 archives, as well as consulting many primary and secondary materials.
Perhaps Beevor’s best chapters come early as he deals with what appear to be scenes from the film, “Saving Private Ryan” as he describes what occurred on Utah and Omaha Beaches. Beevor provides numerous stories of bravery and fortitude as chaos reigned on Omaha Beach in particular; “a mass of junk, men, and materials,” as well as the damage inflicted by the proliferation of German land mines on the beaches. His evaluations are extremely accurate as he states the British army was woefully unprepared for infantry-tank operations, and the poor preparation of the Germans which allowed the allies to remain on the beaches. Beevor also spends a great deal of time dissecting the attempts to take the city of Caen and the final success in doing so. He accurately points out that the initial failure to take the city created a rift between American and British commanders as it seemed they both had their own agendas. Beevor’s evaluation of battlefield tactics are exceptional as well as the commanders involved. He describes numerous lost opportunities on both sides pointing to the German ambush of British Cromwell tanks on June 14 at Hill 213 outside the village of Villars-Bocage. In the end the RAF would flatten the village after earlier being greeted as liberators.
The key to success was American organization as within a week after D Day, Omaha Beach “resembled Coney Island on a hot Sunday.” The Omaha Beach command was made up of 20,000 soldiers, the bulk of which were from the 5th and 6th Engineer Brigades. But there were many problems that arose as the battles proceeded. What to do with German POWS, shoot them or send them back to England? How to transport casualties at the same time transporting POWS on the same LSTs. What approach should be taken to thwart Hitler’s savior, the V-1 rockets as they began to reign on London and the English shore line? How should commanders deal with combat exhaustion, more commonly known today as shock or PTSD? What allowances should be made because of troop shortages and the lack of training of replacements?
Beevor is very concerned with the humanitarian aspects of the war. The death of French civilians due to allied bombing is well covered as is the French resentment against the British who they blamed for most of the Allied bombing errors. As Beevor points out the French villagers paid a hefty price for their liberation. Speaking of bombing errors, Beevor recounts more incidents than I was aware of pertaining to allied friendly fire. Be it American, British, Canadian, Polish or French soldiers they all paid a hefty price for pilot or intelligence errors throughout Beevor’s narrative.
The German high command receives a thrashing from Beevor as he points out that they did not have a central command in France at the time of D Day. They relied on a ridiculous system of sharing command between General Field Marshall Edwin Rommel and General Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt. Hitler’s over reliance on his “Atlantic Wall” is covered in detail and his micro managing that only impeded the German war effort. The frustration would boil over after Rundstedt is relieved of his command and a group of officers realize they are losing the war resulting in the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt of the Fuhrer. Amazingly 20% of German forces in France in 1944 were made up of non-Germans, mostly Poles and Russians.
Beevor should be commended for showing his readers the heroism of the Soviet Army. What the Russian people and soldiers experienced on the eastern front was horrendous, but Beevor is correct in arguing that Soviet propaganda put out by Stalin that Normandy was a side show to events in the east was wrong. The battle for Normandy was comparable in its intensity to the fighting on the eastern front. The Germans would suffer over 250,000 casualties during the 90 days of summer in 1944 and lost another 200,000 as POWS captured at a rate higher than on the eastern front.
The last third of the book is spent on the rush to liberate Paris, which was not part of the original D Day plan. Bevor takes the reader through a series of operations and what stands out is German doggedness, particularly the Waffen-SS’s refusal to make life for allied soldiers any easier and the vengeance they meted out to French civilians, Resistance fighters, and Jews. Another aspect that dominates is Montgomery’s constant attempts to assuage his own ego by launching and/or suggesting certain operations which would be counterproductive. Another final component deals with internal French issues be it how collaborators were treated, De Gaulle’s battle with the Communists and the role of the Resistance. Beevor joins Max Hastings as producing one of the most thorough accounts of D-Day and it should be read by anyone seeking the experience of what occurred, the personalities involved, and its effect on civilians caught in the cauldron of total war.
June 21, 2019
Antony Beevor gives a very thorough account of D-Day, the battles in Normandy, as seen by the Allied Forces as well as the Germans and the liberation of Paris. He doesn't hold back and besides the victories, he also describes the cock-ups and which generals made mistakes. A lot more lives could have been saved if there had been better communication between the air force and the ground troops and if certain generals had done a better job. The German side had to deal with a supreme commander who really hadn't a clue (named Adolf Hitler). Beevor goes into great detail about all the battles and it takes concentration to keep track of it all. That's why I had to stop a few times and read something else in between. The book shows the troop movements and the moving front lines on maps and has three sections of black-and-white photos. Footnotes are at the bottom of the page (which I like. I hate having to look them up in the back of a book constantly.) and there are abbreviations and other notes, including a select bibliography and an index at the back of the book.
January 20, 2023
El Día D cambió el rumbo de la WWII. Fue el inicio de una de las mayores operaciones militares de la historia. Comenzó la liberación de Europa ante la ocupación nazi en una campaña que implicó fuerzas terrestres, navales y aéreas.
El libro de Beevor es una obra total sobre la experiencia de una guerra con estudios documentados. Comienza con la planificación del desembarco, sus problemas logísticos, y la difícil decisión de donde y cuando. Describe la disciplinada resistencia alemana, el terrible enfrentamiento en las playas y el penoso avance de las unidades en suelo francés.
No sólo se limita al famoso día. La obra continúa con la descripción de las batallas posteriores, el sufrimiento de los civiles franceses que fueron masacrados por ambos bandos y los disensos en la cúpula militar.
Manifiesta la relevancia que tuvo la fuerza aérea en la resolución del conflicto. Miles de toneladas de explosivos sobre rivales y propios provocaron heridos y muertes a granel. La edición se acompaña con mapas que complementan un libro muy interesante.
El libro de Beevor es una obra total sobre la experiencia de una guerra con estudios documentados. Comienza con la planificación del desembarco, sus problemas logísticos, y la difícil decisión de donde y cuando. Describe la disciplinada resistencia alemana, el terrible enfrentamiento en las playas y el penoso avance de las unidades en suelo francés.
No sólo se limita al famoso día. La obra continúa con la descripción de las batallas posteriores, el sufrimiento de los civiles franceses que fueron masacrados por ambos bandos y los disensos en la cúpula militar.
Manifiesta la relevancia que tuvo la fuerza aérea en la resolución del conflicto. Miles de toneladas de explosivos sobre rivales y propios provocaron heridos y muertes a granel. La edición se acompaña con mapas que complementan un libro muy interesante.
May 3, 2024
Oh my beloved European Theatre, you will forever be my historical special interest 🫶
April 22, 2020
Ha a hadtörténet az én kis szégyellnivaló lektűröm, akkor ebből az következik, hogy Beevor az én Fejős Évám, Lakatos Leventém és Agatha Christie-m egy személyben. (Ez – még ha elsőre nem is nyilvánvaló – egy bók akart lenni. De lehet, hogy még dolgoznom kell rajta kicsit.) Egész egyszerűen hihetetlen, Beevor milyen káprázatosan kombinálja a szigorú tényszerűséget és a szemtanúk visszaemlékezéseit az epikus történelmi regényekre jellemző drámai ívvel. Pörgős, olvasmányos kötet, a székhez szegezi az olvasót, ami mondjuk nem annyira praktikus, ha a munkahelyemen olvasom, és valamelyik vevő meg kérdezni akar valamit. Jó, hát hadosztályszámok jó sűrűn vannak benne, az igaz, de hát ha valakit ez zavar, akkor ne olvasson hadtörténetet, hanem várja meg, amíg kijön DVD-n.
A partraszállás személyes véleményem szerint a II. világháború legfontosabb eseménye, még Sztálingrádnál is fontosabb, már csak azért is, mert ha kudarcba fúl, akkor a Vasfüggöny alighanem teljesen máshol húzódott volna végig Európán – de még az is lehet, hogy az Atlanti-óceánban lettek volna kénytelenek felhúzni a felek. Az meg nem volna jó. Már csak a víz miatt se. És emellett még szerintem az egyik legnagyobb hadtörténeti bravúr is – egy olyan katonai-logisztikai fegyvertény, amire csak és kizárólag a nyugati hatalmak lehettek képesek a maguk elképesztő ipari teljesítményével. Nagy kár, hogy a D-nap amúgy vitán felül pazar teljesítményét beárnyékolta az a meglehetősen… khm… változatos teljesítmény, amit a szövetségesek utána nyújtottak. Nem igazán gondoltak bele, hogy a partraszállást követően nekik még ki kell vergődni valahogy Normandiából, mégpedig a felettébb rút bocage-okon keresztül. Valószínűleg úgy voltak vele, hogy ha már megvetették a lábukat a kontinensen, akkor a németek előbb-utóbb úgyis hasra fogják vágni magukat brutális túlerejük, és már-már abszurd légi- és tüzérségi fölényük előtt*. Ebben amúgy később igazuk lett, mert bár a Harmadik Birodalom veszettül védekezett, de hát ez összességében csak a közös veszteséglista növelésére volt jó.
Összességében állíthatjuk, hogy a szövetségesek jó nagy ráhagyással terveztek, aminek köszönhetően még sűrű hibáik sem torolták meg úgy magukat, mint amennyire mondjuk ’40-ben. Ám sajna a háború olyan, hogy a hibákat emberéletekben mérik.
* Amúgy a klasszikus hadvezetés szabályai szerint ez lett volna logikus - ahogy a szövetsegesek megszilárdították a hídfőt, és nyilvánvalóvá tették, nem hagyják magukat a tengerbe szorítani, Hitlernek kutya kötelessége lett volna megadnia magát. De ekkor már Hitler és a valóság köszönőviszonyban sem volt egymással. A Führer inkább a német néphez fordult, és azt mondta: "Dögöljünk meg együtt, meglátjátok, jó lesz." Amire a német népnek azt kellett volna mondania, hogy "Csak utánad, ó, nagy vezérünk", de nem ezt mondta.
A partraszállás személyes véleményem szerint a II. világháború legfontosabb eseménye, még Sztálingrádnál is fontosabb, már csak azért is, mert ha kudarcba fúl, akkor a Vasfüggöny alighanem teljesen máshol húzódott volna végig Európán – de még az is lehet, hogy az Atlanti-óceánban lettek volna kénytelenek felhúzni a felek. Az meg nem volna jó. Már csak a víz miatt se. És emellett még szerintem az egyik legnagyobb hadtörténeti bravúr is – egy olyan katonai-logisztikai fegyvertény, amire csak és kizárólag a nyugati hatalmak lehettek képesek a maguk elképesztő ipari teljesítményével. Nagy kár, hogy a D-nap amúgy vitán felül pazar teljesítményét beárnyékolta az a meglehetősen… khm… változatos teljesítmény, amit a szövetségesek utána nyújtottak. Nem igazán gondoltak bele, hogy a partraszállást követően nekik még ki kell vergődni valahogy Normandiából, mégpedig a felettébb rút bocage-okon keresztül. Valószínűleg úgy voltak vele, hogy ha már megvetették a lábukat a kontinensen, akkor a németek előbb-utóbb úgyis hasra fogják vágni magukat brutális túlerejük, és már-már abszurd légi- és tüzérségi fölényük előtt*. Ebben amúgy később igazuk lett, mert bár a Harmadik Birodalom veszettül védekezett, de hát ez összességében csak a közös veszteséglista növelésére volt jó.
Összességében állíthatjuk, hogy a szövetségesek jó nagy ráhagyással terveztek, aminek köszönhetően még sűrű hibáik sem torolták meg úgy magukat, mint amennyire mondjuk ’40-ben. Ám sajna a háború olyan, hogy a hibákat emberéletekben mérik.
* Amúgy a klasszikus hadvezetés szabályai szerint ez lett volna logikus - ahogy a szövetsegesek megszilárdították a hídfőt, és nyilvánvalóvá tették, nem hagyják magukat a tengerbe szorítani, Hitlernek kutya kötelessége lett volna megadnia magát. De ekkor már Hitler és a valóság köszönőviszonyban sem volt egymással. A Führer inkább a német néphez fordult, és azt mondta: "Dögöljünk meg együtt, meglátjátok, jó lesz." Amire a német népnek azt kellett volna mondania, hogy "Csak utánad, ó, nagy vezérünk", de nem ezt mondta.
August 3, 2024
As with most anything by Beevor, you're guaranteed a good book, if not a great one. Countless books have been written about the Normandy campaign. This is a strong survey which goes from just before the landings to just after the liberation of Paris, looking at each of the major beaches and fronts in turn.
Beevor uses the wide survey to make several points. The first is about the overall brutality of the combat. The Allies were extremely liberal in their use of high explosives, both artillery and air, which leveled major cities and killed tens of thousands of French civilians. This grinding attrition was faced against a dense concentration of Nazi firepower. Roughly 10 divisions, including multiple SS Panzer divisions, on a 60 mile front, as compared to the same number on a 600 mile front in Russia.
Nazi soldiers fought skillfully and fanatically in defense, using the local tactical superiority of Tiger tanks and the FlaK 88 to dreadful effect. The Allied soldiers were often unwilling to push aggressively in close contact, with a desire to survive the war. Infantry suffered high casualties nevertheless, exceeding 70% for the branch as a whole, and over 200% for some units. While all sides had failures both tactical and strategic, Beevor has especially harsh criticism for the British, who's line troops had a "not my problem" attitude that e.g. burnt out vehicles in the road were for the infantry, or that an assault could pause to brew tea. While all generals made errors in judgement, Montgomery's perennial shifting objectives, failure to communicate with Eisenhower, and egotism proved a particular problem for the Allies, all out of proportion to his military or political skills. De Gaulle was a pain in the ass, but it would have been hard to liberate France with French opposition.
There were a couple of points that could have used some editing, like repetitions on the ineffectiveness of tactical air support compared to claimed kills, or hard ciders filling Sherman tanks, but overall this is a solid work that is likely the baseline for WW2 histories.
Beevor uses the wide survey to make several points. The first is about the overall brutality of the combat. The Allies were extremely liberal in their use of high explosives, both artillery and air, which leveled major cities and killed tens of thousands of French civilians. This grinding attrition was faced against a dense concentration of Nazi firepower. Roughly 10 divisions, including multiple SS Panzer divisions, on a 60 mile front, as compared to the same number on a 600 mile front in Russia.
Nazi soldiers fought skillfully and fanatically in defense, using the local tactical superiority of Tiger tanks and the FlaK 88 to dreadful effect. The Allied soldiers were often unwilling to push aggressively in close contact, with a desire to survive the war. Infantry suffered high casualties nevertheless, exceeding 70% for the branch as a whole, and over 200% for some units. While all sides had failures both tactical and strategic, Beevor has especially harsh criticism for the British, who's line troops had a "not my problem" attitude that e.g. burnt out vehicles in the road were for the infantry, or that an assault could pause to brew tea. While all generals made errors in judgement, Montgomery's perennial shifting objectives, failure to communicate with Eisenhower, and egotism proved a particular problem for the Allies, all out of proportion to his military or political skills. De Gaulle was a pain in the ass, but it would have been hard to liberate France with French opposition.
There were a couple of points that could have used some editing, like repetitions on the ineffectiveness of tactical air support compared to claimed kills, or hard ciders filling Sherman tanks, but overall this is a solid work that is likely the baseline for WW2 histories.
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