The Normandy Battlefields
D-Day & the Bridgehead
Simon Forty author Leo Marriott author
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Casemate Publishers
Published:20th Mar '14
Currently unavailable, our supplier has not provided us a restock date
With their 70th anniversary just around the corner, the D-Day landings have lost none of their impact. Even today the vestiges of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall speak of the huge undertaking necessary for the Allies to gain a foothold in Normandy. In this beautiful new full-color book, the reader goes “on-site” to the sacred battleground from its scarred medieval villages to the remains of modern means of destruction.
The huge armada that attacked from Britain left behind many signs of their passage: from the huge caissons of the mulberry harbor around Arromanches, the gun emplacements at Longues and Merville, to the multitude of hardware used as memorials—tanks, artillery, pillboxes—and the many graves and cemeteries that honor those who died on both sides. It is in memory of the dead that much of what can be seen on the ground survives, but as the last few survivors reach their 90s, a new audience requires information about the events of the past that can only come from seeing the ground where the battle was fought. Today, the beaches are a fascinating mixture of the new and the old, including the new visitors’ center at Colleville and the renovation and expansion of the Utah Beach museum—even as further new memorials jostle with the older sites that have changed little in 70 years.
A particular aspect of the book that is worthy of note is the photograph captions. A concerted effort has been made to identify not only locations, but also the individuals contained within well known photos - including in some cases their fate, during the battle for Normandy. * Recollections of World War II *
Many famous photographs are employed but the real selling point for the book is the modern aerial views, which are superb. The maps are also clear and precise. * WW2 Connection 11/01/2014 *
The Old Front Line by Stephen Bull and The Normandy Battlefields by Leo Marriott & Simon Forty are absolutely superb guides to some of the most important battlefields of the two world wars in Europe. Both of them are books I wish I had written and illustrated. * War History Online 12/01/2014 *
A photographic history of the D-Day beaches really needs to have something unusual about it to stand out in a crowded market. In this case the main selling point is the good combination of wartime and modern photos. The most effective of the modern photos are a series of aerial photographs, each showing key parts of the battlefield, and with modern war memorials marked. These give a much clearer idea of the layout of the battlefield than the more familiar ground level photos, and are of great interest. * History of War *
The presentation of the book is first class, the maps especially. It is a fitting tribute to the men who took part in the D-Day landings, and I recommend it. * Fortress Studies Journal 25/05/2015 *
ISBN: 9781612002316
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
224 pages