Overlord; D-day and the Battle for Normandy 1944 (Pan Grand Strategy Series)

by Sir Max Hastings

Paperback, 1999

Status

Checked out

Due 20-04-2023

Call number

940.54

Genres

Publication

Pan Books (1999), Edition: New Ed, 464 pages

Description

The famous D-Day landings of 6 June 1944 marked the beginning of Operation Overlord, the battle for the liberation of Europe. Republished as part of the Pan Military Classics series, Max Hastings' acclaimed account overturns many traditional legends in this memorable study. Drawing together the eyewitness accounts of survivors from both sides, plus a wealth of previously untapped sources and documents, Overlord provides a brilliant, controversial perspective on the devastating battle for Normandy.

User reviews

LibraryThing member markbarnes

Another excellent book on the battle for Normandy. Hastings manages to weaves together the perspectives of regular soldiers as well as the generals, and gives an excellent sense of the battle. He is scrupulously fair to all sides, and the final chapter which analyses why the battle progressed (or

didn't progress) is compelling. Well worth a read.

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LibraryThing member toastron

Hastings wrote, " The German army was the most outstanding fighting force of WW2 and could only be defeated under the most overwhelmingly favourite conditions." Overlord is such a complex topic but Hastings summarizes well the highlights of this historic conflict. I like Hasting's books and have

learned things in them I have found nowhere else in my collection.

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LibraryThing member rivkat

What it says on the tin, with the interpretive lens of German military superiority in weapons and fighters. Though most of the Germans in Normandy weren’t their best (who’d been deployed, and often destroyed, in the Soviet Union), they still tended to outfight the Allies when roughly matched in

numbers. It was superiority in materiel and supply chains that allowed the Allies to win anyway. Hastings also spends some time on the role of the air forces—critically, denying the Luftwaffe access to those supply chains, and eventually somewhat learning to support ground troops with forward observers calling down targeted fire on enemies, but not nearly enough.

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