Nothing but Courage
The 82nd Airborne's Daring D-Day Mission--and Their Heroic Charge Across the La Fière Bridge
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
From the bestselling author of Shoot for the Moon and A Terrible Glory comes the dramatic story of the courageous paratroopers and glidermen of the 82nd Airborne, who risked their lives to seize and secure a small, centuries-old bridge in France that played a pivotal role in the success of D-Day.
In June 1944, German and American forces converged on an insignificant bridge a few miles inland from the invasion beaches. If taken by the Nazis, the bridge might have gone down in history as the reason the Allies failed on D-Day.
The narrow road over it was each side’s conduit to victory. Continued Nazi control over the bridge near an old manoir known as La Fière—one of only two bridges in the region capable of supporting tanks and other heavy armor—would allow the Germans to reinforce their defenses at Utah Beach, one of the five landing areas chosen for Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Nazi-held Europe. But because control of the bridge was also essential to moving U.S. troops inland and off the beach, it could not simply be destroyed: it had to be taken—and held—by the Allies.
This was part of the formidable mission of the 82nd Airborne, whose lightly armed but superbly trained troopers had dropped behind—and into—German lines five hours before the seaborne assault on Utah. While blocking enemy reinforcements, they had to seize and secure avenues of approach from the beaches to the interior of Normandy, including two bridges over the modest Merderet River and the key crossroads village of Sainte Mère Église. Failure would give Hitler enough time, and the opportunity, to build up the resources necessary to defeat the invasion and turn the tide for the Nazis. The village was taken early on D-Day, and the 82nd endured repeated attacks by much larger German forces. But the bridge at La Fière became a bloody three-day standoff against tanks and artillery that culminated in a near-suicidal charge across it and the narrow 500-yard causeway beyond—straight into the teeth of a fierce German defense ordered to hold it to the last man.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Donovan (Shoot for the Moon) provides a straight-shooting account of how parachutists and gliders from the 82nd Airborne slipped behind Axis lines in Normandy just before the start of the D-Day invasion in June 1944. Citing interviews with survivors and their kin, he chronicles how the mission—which had been labeled suicidal by the British—secured key roadways and the La Fière Bridge, preventing German reinforcements from arriving to rebuff the Allies' amphibious attack. Donovan spotlights dozens involved, including mission leader Gen. Matthew Ridgway, whom he describes as "smart, charismatic," and possessing "a hawklike visage often likened to a Roman emperor's." With one of the few working radios and a jeep that had been sent in on a glider, Ridgway set up headquarters in a farmhouse surrounded by the enemy. His men were scattered, many having missed their landing points: one group of parachutists descended to their deaths in a French town that was entirely aflame; others were shot by German guns while still in the air or were taken prisoner as soon as they landed. Donovan's terse style recreates the sheer chaos as German tanks advanced, "mortar shells continued to fall," and "57 percent of the 82nd's combat personnel" were wounded or killed over 33 days of fighting. This plunges readers into the thick of battle.
