Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy | Max Hastings | Newer Spin on a Well-Travelled Topic.

Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy | Max Hastings | More Bite than Sugar

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Overlord: D-Day an...

	Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy Max Hastings Vintage, 2006 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 13 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

On June 6, 1944, American and British troops staged the greatest amphibious landing in history to begin Operation Overlord, the battle to liberate Europe from the scourge of the Third Reich. With gut-wrenching realism and immediacy, Hastings reveals the terrible human cost that this battle exacted.

Moving beyond just the storming of Omaha beach and D-Day, he explores the Allies? push inward, with many British and American infantry units suffering near 100 percent casualties during the course of that awful summer. Far from a gauzy romanticized remembrance, Hastings details a grueling ten week battle to overpower the superbly trained, geographically entrenched German Wehrmacht. Uncompromising and powerful in its depiction of wartime, this is the definitive book on D-Day and the Battle of Normandy.

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Newer Spin on a Well-Travelled Topic.

Succinctly: This is a well written account of the events which took place upon and immediately after the invasion of Normandy. Like many accounts, it relies upon the anecdotes of the soldiers and commanders involved. Instead of the Olympian rhetoric usually found in a Stephen Ambrose book, this book is often quite critical of the individual qualities of Allied soldiers and commanders-with exceptions, of course. The Germans, by contrast, are often described as superior warriors, despite the fact that the German formations opposite the Allies involved were considered unfit for service on either the Russian or Italian fronts. Altogether not quite as interesting as the author's follow up account of events in the west, Armaggedon, but interesting and worthwhile nontheless.

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More Bite than Sugar

To start I should clarify two things, firstly, I like Max Hastings as a writer and historian. I like the way he incorporates the entire spectrum of participants in the story which takes the 'grind' out of reading an historic account. He also doesn't 'romanticise' topics like D Day which, of recent times, has received a number of glowing commentaries as we celebrate those who took part. I don't want to take away from those who fought, as I have genuine respect for their contribution, but recently I believe Hollywood and some historians have glorified the actual events, clouding the realities of the battle and the 'knife edge' it was fought on for the first few weeks.Thank God for the Russian Front as I don't believe the Allied armies would have succeeded had they faced more units such as Hitler Jugend,12th SS Panzer, Panzer Lehr and the Parachute Divison.Enough emphasis cannot be placed on the importance and contribution of FORTITUDE in the ultimate success!
Back to the book,looking at it from a resident of a country that didn't have troops committed to the battle (we were getting ground up in Italy!)I find it very balanced in its criticisms of the generalship and quality of troops from the various nations. Far from coming away with negative thoughts regarding Allied superiority in quality of troops I come away with a feeling of awe that they accomplished what they did, sticking to their task in very unpleasant conditions, considering Britain had been at war for 5 years and America didn't have any great animosity toward Germany and nearly all their troops were new to the battlefield.
I agree with Hastings that German forces were superior to Allied forces (excluding Airborne and Special Forces)on the whole. Unit for unit the Germans showed greater tenacity and initiative than the average Allied formation. Wittmans feat of arms with a single tank, Fritz Langangke's 'one man war'near St Denis and countless other defensive efforts showed, that with more resourcing, the Wehrmacht, in all liklihood, would have defeated the Allies. As quoted by Brigadier Williams, "The Germans adjusted much better to new conditions than we did. By and large they were better soldiers than we were.The Germans liked soldiering. We didn't."
Overall I found the book very readable, concise and balanced. It showed well the magnitude of the task in forming armies from numerous countries, the personalities that could have defeated the forces prior to any landing,the ebbs and flows which determine the outcome and the fact that numerical and logisitcal superiority will,over a period of time,win out.
If I was to choose one book to learn about the overall conduct of the battle, not in-depth analysis of a particular battle or battles, from top to bottom, this is the one. Well worth it. Not sugar coated, telling it how it was, sharing the criticisms in a fair and even-handed manner.

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a wonderful account, though comically Anglo-centric

Americans who read this study of the Normandy invasion will be astonished to learn how little U.S. troops contributed to Overlord, and how clueless American generals, soldiers, and airmen were. Hastings makes it clear that Montgomery was a fatuous braggart, and that just about all his initiatives went wrong (and that's before the debacle of Market Garden!), but forgives him because he was able to "read" the battlefield. By contrast, Eisenhower, Bradley, and such lesser American commanders as Patton were sadly lacking in strategic vision, no matter that virtually all *their* initatives went right.

When things go badly in the east, where the British and Canadian divisions landed, Hastings generally refers to them as "the Allies," and sometimes even "the British and the Americans," even though there were no Americans in the two-month stalemate at the gates of Caen.

On the west, where the American army quickly broke out of its beachead and romped through thousands of square miles of Britanny and the Cherbourg peninsula, their success is passed over as of no importance. The Germans feared Montgomery the most, Hastings explains, so they put their best divisions in front of the Anglo-Canadian forces, while assigning second-rate and understrength units on the American side. Curiously, the Americans suffered half again as many casualties in the first three months of the campaign. I was left scratching my head over Hastings's skewed vision of the campaign.

I go on at length about this aspect of the book because it is likely to turn off the American reader, and that would be a mistake. Hastings is a good and serious historian, unlike such earlier chroniclers as Stephen Ambrose and Cornelius Ryan; his analysis of German strengths can't be beat, and he interleaves these military-history lessons with scores of personal accounts, some from his own interviews, some from previously unpublished documents. The book should be read by every student of World War Two.

Just don't place much faith in Hastings's view of the comparative merits of the American army on the one hand, and the British and Canadian armies on the other.

-- Dan Ford at the Warbird's Forum

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Holds your interest

This is a good account of the Normandy invasion and subsequent attempts to break out of the foothold that the allies gained. A good overview, many interesting details, and some original material from interviews. Be forewarned though, the author is an Englishman who points out every shortcoming of the Americans, and places great emphasis on the (in his view) much more difficult task that the British faced, and their (in his view)superior professionalism. Overall, it is worth reading.

a splendid account, though comically Anglo-centric