Scan barcode
A review by mburnamfink
D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor
4.0
As with most anything by Beevor, you're guaranteed a good book, if not a great one. Countless books have been written about the Normandy campaign. This is a strong survey which goes from just before the landings to just after the liberation of Paris, looking at each of the major beaches and fronts in turn.
Beevor uses the wide survey to make several points. The first is about the overall brutality of the combat. The Allies were extremely liberal in their use of high explosives, both artillery and air, which leveled major cities and killed tens of thousands of French civilians. This grinding attrition was faced against a dense concentration of Nazi firepower. Roughly 10 divisions, including multiple SS Panzer divisions, on a 60 mile front, as compared to the same number on a 600 mile front in Russia.
Nazi soldiers fought skillfully and fanatically in defense, using the local tactical superiority of Tiger tanks and the FlaK 88 to dreadful effect. The Allied soldiers were often unwilling to push aggressively in close contact, with a desire to survive the war. Infantry suffered high casualties nevertheless, exceeding 70% for the branch as a whole, and over 200% for some units. While all sides had failures both tactical and strategic, Beevor has especially harsh criticism for the British, who's line troops had a "not my problem" attitude that e.g. burnt out vehicles in the road were for the infantry, or that an assault could pause to brew tea. While all generals made errors in judgement, Montgomery's perennial shifting objectives, failure to communicate with Eisenhower, and egotism proved a particular problem for the Allies, all out of proportion to his military or political skills. De Gaulle was a pain in the ass, but it would have been hard to liberate France with French opposition.
There were a couple of points that could have used some editing, like repetitions on the ineffectiveness of tactical air support compared to claimed kills, or hard ciders filling Sherman tanks, but overall this is a solid work that is likely the baseline for WW2 histories.
Beevor uses the wide survey to make several points. The first is about the overall brutality of the combat. The Allies were extremely liberal in their use of high explosives, both artillery and air, which leveled major cities and killed tens of thousands of French civilians. This grinding attrition was faced against a dense concentration of Nazi firepower. Roughly 10 divisions, including multiple SS Panzer divisions, on a 60 mile front, as compared to the same number on a 600 mile front in Russia.
Nazi soldiers fought skillfully and fanatically in defense, using the local tactical superiority of Tiger tanks and the FlaK 88 to dreadful effect. The Allied soldiers were often unwilling to push aggressively in close contact, with a desire to survive the war. Infantry suffered high casualties nevertheless, exceeding 70% for the branch as a whole, and over 200% for some units. While all sides had failures both tactical and strategic, Beevor has especially harsh criticism for the British, who's line troops had a "not my problem" attitude that e.g. burnt out vehicles in the road were for the infantry, or that an assault could pause to brew tea. While all generals made errors in judgement, Montgomery's perennial shifting objectives, failure to communicate with Eisenhower, and egotism proved a particular problem for the Allies, all out of proportion to his military or political skills. De Gaulle was a pain in the ass, but it would have been hard to liberate France with French opposition.
There were a couple of points that could have used some editing, like repetitions on the ineffectiveness of tactical air support compared to claimed kills, or hard ciders filling Sherman tanks, but overall this is a solid work that is likely the baseline for WW2 histories.