If you are looking for an up-todate, factual book, with explanations, and descriptions of what happened when and where, and what were the outcomes of each action/decision, this is the book for you. I have read a few books about D-Day, but this is the first one to answer all my questions.

Anyone who thinks that once the allies had landed on the Normandy beaches that it was inevitable that the Germans would be defeated should read this book. The Allies had to fight for every inch of territory until the Germans were caught in the Falaise pocket several months later. Casualties on both sides were enormous-and tragically the civilians paid a heavy price for liberation with villages and towns flattened and some 70,000 killed mainly by allied bombing. Beevor’s book is a very detailed and systematic account of the battle and because of this it is in places hard to follow and despite his attempts to clarify the battle movements it’s difficult to know which division belongs to whom. This is not helped by the fact that some of the US commanders had German names. D day is no doubt one of the most authoritative and objective books on the subject but lacks Max Hasting’s fine analysis in Overlord published 30 years ago. Hastings managed to get into the minds of the commanders especially the Germans. In trying to get a view from the ground up, Beevor’s observations and quotes from soldiers seem a little contrived and a bit weak in places not adding much to the scene they are describing; the quotes in Hasting’s Overlord in contrast are relevant and insightful. It does not come across clearly in Beevor’s D-Day that Rommel was holding back his forces in the north because he was convinced that a second invasion was imminent in the Pas de Calais region- which was a major factor in the Allies success. Hastings also dispels the idea that Rommel was a “good German” when he describes the latter’s devotion to Hitler. Rommel probably had very little involvement in the assassination attempt and his suicide was forced on him because of false rumours of that he was having secret talks with the Allies.

Military history used to be viewed with disdain but Antony Beevor is one of a small band of historians who have greatly enhanced the prestige of the subject and made the subject much more readily accessible for the general reader. D-Day: The Battle for Normandy confirms Beevor's reputation as the master of compelling narrative, the telling detail and the informative anecdote. The sheer scale of the operation to liberate Europe was staggering: nearly 5,000 landing ships and assault craft were escorted by six battleships, four monitors, twenty-three cruisers, 104 destroyers, 152 escort vessels and 277 minesweepers. Even Stalin in a letter to Churchill admitted to being impressed. D-Day was originally scheduled for Monday 5 June. Dr James Stagg, the UK's leading meteorologist, carried an immense burden of responsibility: he had to analyse the complex metrological data to avoid rough seas, low cloud and bad visibility. The operation was postponed for twenty-four hours because of adverse weather conditions and was very nearly postponed for a fortnight. If the operation had been postponed until 19-22 June the invasion force would have sailed into the most violent storm in the English Channel for forty years. Amphibious operations are notoriously difficult. The British were haunted by the fear of failure and a repetition of the grim disaster at Dieppe. The Americans, though more bullish, had been obliged to learn many harsh lessons in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. Hitler believed he could defeat the invasion and knock the British and Americans out of the war and concentrate his attention on the war in the east. The Führer placed great faith in the so-called Atlantic Wall whereas Rundstedt, the German Commander-in-Chief West, was much closer to the mark when he described it as 'just a piece of cheap bluff'.Most battle plans do not survive the initial encounter with the enemy and the battle for Normandy was not an exception. The break-out from the beachheads proved much more difficult and costly than expected. Indeed, the battle for Normandy made the casualties suffered on D-Day appear light in comparison. The bocage - the Norman word for the local terrain of mixed woodland and pasture with tortuous side-roads and lanes bounded on both sides by banks surmounted with high thick hedgerows - greatly assisted the German defenders. A trooper in the Sherwood Foresters told a newly arrived colleague: 'You'll get a shock after the desert. We could see the buggers and they could see us. Here they can see us but I'll be buggered if we can see them'. Furthermore, the Germans, especially the ideologically-driven Waffen-SS divisions, fought with great cunning and ferocity. An American officer bitterly observed: 'The Germans haven't much left but they sure as hell know how to use it'. British officer casualties were very high. The 50th Division lost two brigadiers, twelve commanding officers and a very high proportion of company officers. A British major told young replacement officers: 'Gentlemen, your life expectancy from the day you join your battalion will be precisely three weeks'. French civilians suffered grievously too: 19,890 were killed during the liberation of Normandy. An even larger number were seriously injured. D-Day neatly dovetails with another of Beevor's books (written with his wife, Artemis Cooper), Paris after the Liberation 1944-1949. It is sobering to reflect that if the invasion Europe had failed, as it might well have done if, for example, it had coincided with violent storm of 19-22 June, the Red Army might have advanced beyond the Oder-Neise line and reached not only the Rhine but the Atlantic seaboard. The map and history of post-war Europe would have been radically different. Such is the importance of the story Beevor splendidly recounts.

The Beevor treatment does not work quite so well applied to a battle which was fought and intrigued on from so many fronts. The experiences of the US, British/Canadian and French invading forces seem to have been so different.This leads to a feeling that this should have been five books, one for the Americans, one for the British/Canadians, one for the French (the insufferable De Gaulle, Free French forces and the inhabitants, who suffered more than has been remembered) and one for the Germans, who undoubtedly lost the battle in part because of their bizarre command structure and a crazy mix of SS and East European conscript armies. The fifth book is for the Allied politics and high level military staff and their intrigues and squabbles. May be it is the subject, but quite a bit is half remembered from so many other works and films and there is a slight sense of deja-vu about the events.

Max Hastings's Overlord was an outstanding book, but Beevor's is better at capturing the small, vivid details that bring events alive. I would recommend it to anyone at all interested in the Second World War.