ABSTRACT

With essays from leading names in military history, this new book re-examines the crucial issues and debates of the D-Day campaign.

It tackles a range of core topics, placing them in their current historiographical context, to present new and sometimes revisionist interpretations of key issues, such as the image of the Allied armies compared with the Germans, the role of air power, and the lessons learned by the military from their operations.

As the Second World War is increasingly becoming a field of revisionism, this book sits squarely within growing debates, shedding new light on topics and bringing current thinking from our leading military and strategic historians to a wider audience.

This book will be of great interest to students of the Second World War, and of military and strategic studies in general.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|11 pages

The 21st Army Group in Normandy

Towards a new balance sheet

chapter 4|16 pages

Culture, controversy, Caen and Cherbourg

The first week of the battle

chapter 8|14 pages

‘The black day unrealised’

Operation TOTALIZE and the problems of translating tactical success into a decisive breakout

chapter 9|13 pages

Dead cows and Tigers

Some aspects of the experience of the British soldier in Normandy, 1944

chapter 14|16 pages

Intelligence and OVERLORD

A snapshot from 6 June 1944

chapter 15|12 pages

Reconstructing D-Day

6 June 1944 and British documentary films

chapter 16|11 pages

D-Day in Hollywood motion pictures

A brief history of changing perceptions of war