On June 6, 1944, American and British troops staged the greatest amphibious landing in history to begin Operation Overlord, the battle to liberate Europe from the scourge of the Third Reich. With gut-wrenching realism and immediacy, Hastings reveals the terrible human cost that this battle exacted.
Moving beyond just the storming of Omaha beach and D-Day, he explores the Allies’ push inward, with many British and American infantry units suffering near 100 percent casualties during the course of that awful summer. Far from a gauzy romanticized remembrance, Hastings details a grueling ten week battle to overpower the superbly trained, geographically entrenched German Wehrmacht. Uncompromising and powerful in its depiction of wartime, this is the definitive book on D-Day and the Battle of Normandy.
Chapter 1 » ‘Much the greatest thing we have ever attempted’
Chapter 2 » Preparations - Commanders
Chapter 3 » To the Far Shore - The overture
Chapter 4 » The British Before Caen - Closing the lines
Chapter 5 » The Americans Before Cherbourg - The bocage
Chapter 6 » The German Army: Stemming the Tide - Soldiers
Chapter 7 » The Battlefield - From the beachhead to the front
Chapter 8 » Crisis of Confidence - The fall of Caen
Chapter 9 » The Breakout - COBRA
Chapter 11 » The Road to Falaise
Appendix A: Chronology of the Normandy Campaign
Appendix B: Allied Order of Battle
Appendix C: Forces available in ETO for Operation OVERLORD, D-Day, 6 June 1944
Appendix D: German land forces encountered by the Allies in Normandy
Appendix E: Some British administrative statistics
Bibliography and a note on sources