D-Day: June 6, 1944. The
Battle for the Normandy Beaches,
by
Stephen E. Ambrose.
Originally published in 1994.
ISBN-10: 1471158268
ISBN-13: 978-1471158261
Description from back
cover:
D-Day is the epic story
of men at the most demanding moment of their lives, when the horrors,
complexities, and triumphs of life are laid bare. Distinguished historian
Stephen E. Ambrose portrays the faces of courage and heroism, fear and
determination — what Eisenhower called “the fury of an aroused democracy” — that
shaped the victory of the citizen soldiers whom Hitler had disparaged.
Drawing on more than
1,400 interviews with American, British, Canadian, French, and German veterans,
Ambrose reveals how the original plans for the invasion had to be abandoned,
and how enlisted men and junior officers acted on their own initiative when they
realized that nothing was as they were told it would be.
The action begins at
midnight, June 5/6, when the first British and American airborne troops jumped
into France. It ends at midnight June 6/7. Focusing on those pivotal
twenty-four hours, it moves from the level of Supreme Commander to that of a
French child, from General Omar Bradley to an American paratrooper, from Field
Marshal Montgomery to a German sergeant. Ambrose’s D-Day is the finest account
of one of our history’s most important days.
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