On the basis of 1,400 oral histories from the men who were there, Eisenhower biographer and World War II historian Stephen E. Ambrose reveals for the first time anywhere that the intricate plan for the invasion of France in June 1944, had to be abandoned before the first shot was fired. The true story of D-Day, as Ambrose relates it, is about the citizen soldiers - junior officers and enlisted men - taking the initiative to act on their own to break...

In burnished, driving prose, John Keegan chronicles the 1944 invasion of Normandy, from D-Day to the liberation of Paris. At the same time, he furthers his exploration of the “role which warfare and its institutions play in social life” by showing how each of the six armies, while resembling one another in purpose and authority, is a mirror of its own nation's values. Each army is shown at successive stages of the invasion in a battle sequence...

Balkoski is in top form in this groundbreaking analysis of the other half of America's D-Day.-Dennis Showalter, author of Patton and Rommel

D-Day, June 6, 1944: it was the biggest amphibious operation in history. German Field Marshal Rommel, declared, "the enemy must be annihilated before he reaches our main battlefield," the Allied Forces undertook a massive invasion of the German-occupied coast of Normandy, France. First, there was the aerial onslaught by British and American airborne divisions, then the landing of the American, British, and Canadian seaborne troops. Over 150,000 Allied...

On June 6, 1944 the greatest armada in history stood off Normandy and the largest amphibious invasion ever began as 107, 000 men aboard 6, 000 ships pressed toward the coast. Among this number were 18, 000 Canadians, who were to land on a five-mile long stretch of rocky ledges fronted by a wide expanse of sand. Code named Juno Beach. Here, sheltered inside concrete bunkers and deep trenches, hundreds of German soldiers waited to strike the first assault...

Relive D-Day for the first time! From the opening reports of paratroop landings by German broadcasters to the evening prayer of President Roosevelt, listen to each heart-stopping hour of live broadcasting from one of the most momentous days of the twentieth century. The Allies have landed at Normandy! A 4,000-ship armada! Heavy bombardments! Paratroopers! You will hear twenty-four full hours of crackling reports from London Radio; Eisenhower's Order...

Fighting Them on the Beaches tells the story of one of the largest and most meticulously organized seaborne invasions in the history of warfare - the Allied Landings of June 6, 1944: D-Day. As the parachutists and glider troops of the US and British airborne divisions went in on the night of June 5, Allied shipping began massing out in the Channel. As dawn broke on June 6, waves of assault craft hit the Normandy beaches. British, American, Canadian,...

For 70 years the myths have lived on unchallenged. Myths about what went wrong on D-Day June 6, 1944 – the "surprise" storm, the air and naval bombardment that "missed", the "surprise" quality of the defending German forces, and the "surprise" of the bocage fields. Yet, until now some very fundamental questions about the nature of the D-Day Combat Plan have remained hidden and unchallenged. One of the most obvious of these questions is: Why did...