D-Day: The Story of the Longest Day

This large-format book on the D-Day landings and battle for Normandy has more than 150 color and black-and-white photos, many never before published. The fast-moving narrative includes many eyewitness accounts and interesting comments by Anderson, senior lecturer at Britain's Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. He identifies the German defensive works in Normandy as the largest construction project in European history and points out that Adolf Hitler, who had a direct hand in their design, was a capable military engineer. He describes the vital contribution of the French Resistance to Allied success in Normandy, and explains how the Milice , a French collaborationist paramilitary force, posed a greater threat to the Resistance than the Germans themselves. The sequence is supported by arresting pictures of the Milice at work. Photos of battlefield terrain illustrate his statement that the Normandy landscape was ``an aggressor's nightmare and a defender's paradise.'' Anderson conveys the two-and-a-half-month campaign with splendid immediacy. Illustrations. (June)