cover image Nothing Less Than Victory: An Oral History of D Day

Nothing Less Than Victory: An Oral History of D Day

Russell Miller. William Morrow & Company, $27.5 (556pp) ISBN 978-0-688-10209-8

``Old soldiers are always happy to talk about their past campaigns,'' writes Miller ( The Resistance ), ``but getting them to talk about their feelings is not so easy.'' Old soldiers from the U.S., Canada, Britain, France and Germany hold forth eloquently here on what D-Day felt like. The author has also collected interesting observations by British civilians on the assembly and training of Allied forces, as well as recollections by French civilians living in Normandy at the time. The book is unusual in many respects: German defenders are given greater voice than in other recent D-Day histories; the reconstructions of actual combat are exceptionally gruesome (``I had to do something about the brain, which was just lying there''). The book is replete with pertinent oddments that convey the invasion's broad scope: the text of a note written by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to himself and stowed in his wallet just before he launched the invasion armada; the story of a GI bookie (``5 to 2 this ship will be sunk by shore batteries''); the reminiscences of a British man who as a 14-year-old telegraph messenger had to deliver the first death notices to parents. A superb oral history. Photos. (June)