D-Day (Enhanced Edition)
The Battle for Normandy
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- €8.99
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- €8.99
Publisher Description
This enhanced ebook contains scores of fascinating additional material, including astonishing black & white and colour footage taken at the time of the events:
- Video introduction by Antony Beevor
- 26 embedded film clips, including footage of the Normandy landings, firefights in the deadly bocage hedgerows, Allied bombing raids, Allied commanders, the liberation of Paris
- Rarely seen original NBC and Universal newsreels and radio broadcasts announcing the invasion
- Rare colour footage shot by the journalist Jack Lieb
The Normandy landings that took place on D-Day involved by far the largest invasion fleet ever known. The scale of the undertaking was simply awesome. What followed them was some of the most cunning, ferocious and savage fighting of the war.
As casualties mounted, so too did tensions between the commanders on both sides. Meanwhile, French civilians caught in the middle of the fighting endured terrible suffering; even the joys of Liberation had their dark side. The war in northern France marked the whole of the post-war world, profoundly influencing relations between Europe and America.
Making use of overlooked and new material from more than 30 archives in 6 countries, D-Day is the most vivid and well-researched account yet of the battle of Normandy. As with Stalingrad and Berlin, Antony Beevor's gripping narrative conveys the true experience of war.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Beevor has established a solid reputation as a chronicler of WWII's great eastern front battles: Stalingrad and Berlin. In addressing D-Day, he faces much wider competition with historians like Stephen Ambrose and Max Hastings, who also use his method of integrating personal experiences, tactical engagements, operational intentions and strategic plans. Beevor combines extensive archival research with a remarkable sense of the telling anecdote: he quotes, for example, an officer's description of the "bloody mass of arms and legs and heads, cremated corpses" created by artillery fire as the Germans tried to escape the Allied breakout. He is sharply critical of senior commanders on both sides: Bernard Montgomery's conceit; Adolf Hitler's self-delusion; Dwight Eisenhower's mediocrity. His heroes are the men who took the invasion ashore and carried it forward into Normandy in the teeth of a German defense whose skill and determination deserved a better cause. The result was a battle of attrition: a "bloody slog" that tested British and American fighting power to the limit but not beyond. Beevor says that it wasn't Allied forces' material superiority but their successful use of combined arms and their high learning curve that were decisive in a victory that shaped postwar Europe. Maps, illus.
