D-Day: The Invasion of Normandy, 1944 [The Young Readers Adaptation]

by Rick Atkinson

Overview

Adapted for young readers from the #1 New York Times–bestselling The Guns at Last Light, D-Day captures the events and the spirit of that day—June 6, 1944—the day that led to the liberation of western Europe from Nazi Germany's control. They came by sea and by sky to reclaim freedom from the occupying Germans, turning the tide of World War II. Atkinson skillfully guides his younger audience through the events leading up to, and of, the momentous day in this photo-illustrated adaptation. Perfect for history buffs and newcomers to the topic alike!

This thoroughly-researched and documented book can be worked into multiple aspects of the common core curriculum.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250062918
Publisher:	Square Fish
Publication date:	05/05/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	167,690
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	NC1290L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Rick Atkinson is the bestselling author of An Army at Dawn (winner of the Pulitzer Prize for history), The Day of Battle, and The Guns at Last Light, among others. His many other awards include a Pulitzer Prize for journalism, the George Polk Award, and the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award. A former staff writer and senior editor at The Washington Post, he lives in Washington, D.C.

Read an Excerpt

THE GATHERING

MAY 5, 1944

 

 

IN THIS ROOM, the greatest Anglo-American military leaders of World War II gathered to rehearse the deathblow intended to destroy Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. It was the 1,720th day of the war. Admirals, generals, field marshals, logisticians, and staff by the score climbed from their limousines and marched into a Gothic building of St. Paul’s School. American military policemen—known as Snowdrops for their white helmets, white pistol belts, white leggings, and white gloves—looked closely at the 146 engraved invitations and security passes distributed a month earlier. Then six uniformed ushers escorted the guests, later described as “big men with the air of fame about them,” into the Model Room, a cold auditorium with black columns and hard, narrow benches reputedly designed to keep young schoolboys awake. The students of St. Paul’s School had long been evacuated to rural England—German bombs had shattered seven hundred windows across the school’s campus.

Top-secret charts and maps now lined the Model Room. Since January, the school had served as headquarters for the British 21st Army Group, and here the detailed planning for Operation OVERLORD, the Allied invasion of France, had gelled. As the senior officers found their benches in rows B through J, some spread blankets across their laps or cinched their overcoats against the chill. Row A, fourteen armchairs arranged elbow to elbow, was reserved for the highest of the mighty, and now these men began to take their seats. The prime minister of England, Winston Churchill, dressed in a black coat and holding his usual Havana cigar, entered with U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose title, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, signaled his leadership over all of the Allied forces in Europe. Neither cheers nor applause greeted them, but the assembly stood as one when King George VI strolled down the aisle to sit on Eisenhower’s right. Churchill bowed to his monarch, then resumed puffing his cigar.

As they waited to begin at the stroke of ten A.M., these big men with their air of importance had reason to rejoice in their joint victories and to hope for greater victories still to come in this war.

Since September 1939, war had raged across Europe, eventually spreading to North Africa and as far east as Moscow, capital of the Soviet Union. Germany, a country humiliated after World War I, had seen the rise of Adolf Hitler, a dictator who had dreams of conquering the continent. Beginning with Poland, his armies had crushed one nation after another, destroying cities and killing or enslaving millions of people. His collaborators in the Axis alliance, particularly Japan and Italy, pushed their own campaigns of aggression in Asia and Africa.

Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, and Japan’s attack in December of that year on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, led to a grand alliance determined to stop the Axis. The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union were the major Allied powers, but they were supported by dozens of other countries. At an enormous cost in blood, Soviet armies pushed the German invaders back through eastern Europe, mile by mile. German casualties there exceeded three million, and in 1944 nearly two-thirds of Hitler’s combat power remained tied up in the east.

The United States and Britain, meanwhile, had defeated German and Italian forces in North Africa. They then moved north across the Mediterranean Sea to conquer much of Italy, which surrendered and abandoned the Axis. The Third Reich, as Hitler called his empire, was ever more vulnerable to air attack. Allied planes flying from Britain, Italy, and Africa dropped thousands of tons of bombs on Germany and on German forces along various battle fronts. City by city, factory by factory, Germany was a country increasingly in flames. Although they paid a staggering cost in airplanes and flight crews, the U.S. Army Air Forces, Britain’s Royal Air Force, and the Canadian Air Force had won mastery of the European skies, even as Allied navies controlled the seas.

By the late spring of 1944, the Allies were ready to attempt something that had long seemed impossible: to invade what the Germans called “Fortress Europe” and begin the final campaign that would free citizens who had been enslaved since Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. The hour of liberation had nearly arrived.

 

 

Copyright © 2014 by Rick Atkinson

Table of Contents

List of Maps

Assault on Normandy, June 1944 10

Final Overlord Plan, June 6, 1944 56

Map Legend vii

Allied Countries and Chain of Command viii

Axis Countries and Chain of Command xi

World War II Timeline xii

Key Players xvi

A Note to Readers xix

The Plan xx

The Invasion 50

Epilogue: The Days That Followed 159

The United States Declaration of War on Germany 172

The Five Greatest Tanks of the War 174

The Largest Battleships of the War 175

The Most Effective Bombers of the War 176

Weapons Carried By U.S., U.K., Canadian, and German Ground Troops 178

Carrier Pigeons 179

Operation Fortitude: The Inflatable Army 180

Caring for the Wounded 181

Clothing and Equipment Issued to a New GI in 1943 182

Monthly Pay for an American GI in 1940 182

What they Carried-U.S. Airborne Divisions 183

What they Carried-U.S. Ground Assault Troops 184

K Rations: Food on the Go for American Troops 185

Numbers Tell Part of the Story 186

Operation Overlord Timeline 188

Glossary 190

Places to Visit 193

For More Information 195

An Interview with Rick Atkinson 196

Discussion Guide 201

Sneak Peek of Battle of the Bulge 203

Bibliography 210

Image Credits 211

Index 212

Editorial Reviews

Adapted from Atkinson's adult history of the latter part of WWII, The Guns at Last Light, this is a brisk, busy, gutsy look at modern warfare's most famous offensive.” —Booklist

“This fine adaptation of Atkinson's adult The Guns at Last Light is a readable, and even suspenseful, account of the final preparations for and successful execution of the D-Day invasion.” —School Library Journal, starred review

“This version of the much-admired The Guns at Last Light for younger audiences focuses on the drama and the astonishing scale of one of World War II's pivotal operations: the D-Day invasion. . . . A grand and significant tale told with dash and authority.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A magnificent book . . . Though the story may seem familiar, I found surprising detail on every page. . . . Atkinson's account of D-Day is both masterly and lyrical. . . . [He] is an absolute master of his material.” —Max Hastings, The Wall Street Journal

“A tapestry of fabulous richness and complexity . . . Atkinson is a master of what might be called ‘pointillism history,' assembling the small dots of pure color into a vivid, tumbling narrative. . . . The Liberation Trilogy is a monumental achievement . . . densely researched but supremely readable.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Breathtaking, unforgettable . . . Atkinson provides us with especially poignant descriptions in a blaze of writing and research that matches the drama and significance of the moment, all without peer in modern history. . . . This volume is a literary triumph worthy of the military triumph it explores and explains.” —The Boston Globe

From the Publisher

At just 200 or so pages, with photos on nearly every spread, D-Day has the look of a book for young readers. But it isn't written like one. Much of the text is taken unchanged from Atkinson's adult trilogy…This high tone works well because it respects the intelligence of its audience. The best children's books are never written for readers of a specific age, anyway…I'm confident that even students battered by textbooks into believing that history is boring can still be won over. The thing is, you can't just tell kids that history is cool; you have to prove it, and Atkinson does.

The New York Times Book Review - Steve Sheinkin

Atkinson has adapted his adult book THE GUNS AT LAST LIGHT for young readers, and narrator Jason Culp’s authoritative tone works well for this audience. It’s no easy task to cover the events critical to the end of WWII. The story of the Normandy Invasion has an extensive cast—from Churchill to Rommel—a plethora of dramatic events transpiring in multiple countries, and astounding statistics like the 301,000 Allied vehicles gathered for the invasion and the 3,000 tons of maps. Culp assumes accents successfully and reads dramatically. Atkinson’s research is thorough, his writing suspenseful. Still, covering each event fully creates a narrative so jam-packed with details that, despite the best efforts of author and narrator, the audio is sometimes overwhelming. It may work better on the page, where pictures provide relief and chapters give more clarity. S.W. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

MAY 2014 - AudioFile

2014-03-17
This version of the much-admired The Guns at Last Light (2013) for younger audiences focuses on the drama and the astonishing scale of one of World War II's pivotal operations: the D-Day invasion. Having plainly done his research, Atkinson seats readers at secret meetings of the Allied commanders, ejects them with paratroopers over the foggy French countryside, puts them into landing craft to hear soldiers barf and exclaim, and sends them out to die bloodily on beaches wracked with enemy fire. Along the way, he also drops almost-unimaginable numbers: 301,000 Allied vehicles gathered for the invasion, 3,000 tons of maps, nearly 700 GIs killed in a single training exercise. He also provides fascinating sidelights, from the fiendishly clever disinformation campaign preceding the invasion to the contents of K-rations. For all its scope, the story is largely told from the Allied point of view, as most of the German side of the event is confined to a single chapter. Furthermore, all the rest of the war in Europe is likewise squeezed into a chapter around two lengthy congratulatory messages from (then) Gen. Eisenhower. Within its limits, a grand and historically significant tale told with dash and authority. (maps, charts, lists of major armies and figures, weaponry, personal supplies, timelines, photos) (Nonfiction. 11-13)

Kirkus Reviews