D-Day

by Martin Gilbert

Overview

"The Allied landings in 1944 had all the prospects for disaster. Churchill thought he would be woken up to be told of massive casualties. Eisenhower prepared a somber broadcast announcing that the enterprise had failed.

The specter of failure was always present. After a failed landing the Nazi regime would have regained the ascendant. New, terrifying bombs and rockets were ready to be launched. Long-distance submarines were in the final stage of development. The last million Jews of Europe were listed for deportation and death.

Failure at Normandy could have given Hitler the chance of continuing to rule western Europe, particularly if the United States, bloodied and defeated in Normandy, had decided-after two and a half years of focusing on Europe-to turn all its energies to the ever-growing demands of the Pacific, leaving Europe to its own devices. Had that happened, I doubt if I would have been alive to write this book, or free to express my opinions without fear of arrest."
--Martin Gilbert

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781118130940
Publisher:	Trade Paper Press
Publication date:	05/12/2011
Series:	Turning Points in History , #19
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Martin Gilbert offers fresh information on the Allies' use of double agents and phantom armies to fool Hitler and his generals into believing that the Normandy landings were a mere diversion to mask a far larger assault elsewhere. He reveals how British codebreakers provided astonishingly accurate information on German strategy and troop movements, and, with twenty-seven new maps and vivid, firsthand British, American, and Canadian accounts of the horror and heroism of D-Day, Gilbert sheds new light on one of the greatest achievements in military history.

Martin Gilbert is the author of more than eighty books, including the official biography of Winston Churchill. His other books include In Search of Churchill, The First World War, and The Second World War.

Read an Excerpt

Click to read or download

Table of Contents

Preface.

Acknowledgments.

List of Maps.

1. The Genesis of a Plan.

2. Adversaries and Allies.

3. Toward Overlord.

4. Preparations Intensify.

5. Planning and Deception.

6. The Mounting Costs.

7. The Month of May.

8. The First Five Days of June.

9. D-Day: From Midnight to Dawn.

10. D-Day: Fighting on Land: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword.

11. Establishing the Beachhead.

12. Beyond the Point of No Return.

Maps.

Bibliography of Works Consulted.

Index.

Editorial Reviews

The finest short overview of Operation Overlord—the greatest amphibious assault in the history of warfare—is undoubtedly Sir Martin Gilbert’s D-Day, a stunningly impressive account. As might be expected from Churchill’s biographer, Gilbert is masterly on the grand strategic vision behind the Allied invasion of Normandy, but he also concentrates on the tremendous human story on the ground. Two sentences from this book actually moved me to tears when I read them, coming soon after a harrowing description of the often hand-to-hand fighting two miles behind the Sword and Gold beaches.”
—Andrew Roberts, Evening Standard (London)

From the Publisher