Normandy's Nightmare War

Normandy's Nightmare War PDF Author: Douglas Boyd
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526745828
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
The toll that both Nazi occupation and Allied liberation took on this northern French region during World War II, told through eyewitness accounts. Famous for Calvados apple brandy and Camembert cheese, Normandy is a green and pleasant land now dotted with thousands of British-owned second homes. Its coastline is also dotted with thousands of indestructible reinforced-concrete bunkers and gun emplacements that formed part of the Atlantic Wall of Hitler’s Fortress Europe. Tourists passing through the ferry ports like Boulogne, Cherbourg and Dunkirk may wonder why there are so few old buildings. Few know that the demolition which preceded the extensive urban renewal of the ancient town centers was affected by British bombs during four years of hell for the people living there. Before its belated liberation three ghastly months after D-Day, the sirens in Le Havre wailed 1,060 times to warn of approaching British and American bombers. After one single Allied raid, over 3,000 dead civilians were recovered from the city’s ruins, without counting the thousands of injured, maimed and traumatized survivors. So, whom did the Normans regard as the enemy: the German occupiers who shot a few hundred civilians or the Allied airmen who killed as many neutral citizens of northern France as died in Britain from German bombs during the whole war? Told largely in the words of French, German and Allied eyewitnesses—including the moving last letters of executed hostages—this is the story of Normandy’s nightmare war. “Boyd . . . uncovers some remarkable facts . . . A fascinating look at a region that has played a huge part in our own history.” —Books Monthly

Normandy's Nightmare War

Normandy's Nightmare War PDF Author: Douglas Boyd
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526745828
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380

Get Book Here

Book Description
The toll that both Nazi occupation and Allied liberation took on this northern French region during World War II, told through eyewitness accounts. Famous for Calvados apple brandy and Camembert cheese, Normandy is a green and pleasant land now dotted with thousands of British-owned second homes. Its coastline is also dotted with thousands of indestructible reinforced-concrete bunkers and gun emplacements that formed part of the Atlantic Wall of Hitler’s Fortress Europe. Tourists passing through the ferry ports like Boulogne, Cherbourg and Dunkirk may wonder why there are so few old buildings. Few know that the demolition which preceded the extensive urban renewal of the ancient town centers was affected by British bombs during four years of hell for the people living there. Before its belated liberation three ghastly months after D-Day, the sirens in Le Havre wailed 1,060 times to warn of approaching British and American bombers. After one single Allied raid, over 3,000 dead civilians were recovered from the city’s ruins, without counting the thousands of injured, maimed and traumatized survivors. So, whom did the Normans regard as the enemy: the German occupiers who shot a few hundred civilians or the Allied airmen who killed as many neutral citizens of northern France as died in Britain from German bombs during the whole war? Told largely in the words of French, German and Allied eyewitnesses—including the moving last letters of executed hostages—this is the story of Normandy’s nightmare war. “Boyd . . . uncovers some remarkable facts . . . A fascinating look at a region that has played a huge part in our own history.” —Books Monthly

D-Day Through French Eyes

D-Day Through French Eyes PDF Author: Mary Louise Roberts
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022613704X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
“A moving examination of how French civilians experienced the fighting” at Normandy during WWII from the acclaimed author of What Soldiers Do (Telegraph, UK). “Like big black umbrellas, they rain down on the fields across the way, and then disappear behind the black line of the hedges.” Silent parachutes dotting the night sky—that’s how one Normandy woman learned that the D-Day invasion was under way in June of 1944. Though they yearned for liberation, the French had to steel themselves for war, knowing that their homes, lands, and fellow citizens would have to bear the brunt of the attack. With D-Day through French Eyes, Mary Louise Roberts turns the conventional narrative of D-Day on its head, taking readers across the Channel to view the invasion anew. Roberts builds her history from an impressive range of gripping first-person accounts by French citizens throughout the region. A farm family notices that cabbage is missing from their garden—then discovers that the guilty culprits are American paratroopers hiding in the cowshed. Fishermen rescue pilots from the wreck of their B-17, then search for clothes big enough to disguise them as civilians. A young man learns to determine whether a bomb is whistling overhead or silently plummeting toward them. When the allied infantry arrived, French citizens guided them to hidden paths and little-known bridges, giving them crucial advantages over the German occupiers. As she did in her acclaimed account of GIs in postwar France, What Soldiers Do, Roberts here sheds vital new light on a story we thought we knew. "In the great tradition of Studs Terkel and Is Paris Burning?, Mary Louise Roberts uses the diaries and memoirs of French civilians to narrate a history of the French at D-Day that has for too long been occluded by the mythology of the allied landing.”—Alice Kaplan, author of Dreaming in French

The Longest Day

The Longest Day PDF Author: Cornelius Ryan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439126461
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
The unparalleled, classic work of history that recreates the battle that changed World War II—the Allied invasion of Normandy. The Longest Day is Cornelius Ryan’s unsurpassed account of D-Day, a book that endures as a masterpiece of military history. In this compelling tale of courage and heroism, glory and tragedy, Ryan painstakingly recreates the fateful hours that preceded and followed the massive invasion of Normandy to retell the story of an epic battle that would turn the tide against world fascism and free Europe from the grip of Nazi Germany. This book, first published in 1959, is a must for anyone who loves history, as well as for anyone who wants to better understand how free nations prevailed at a time when darkness enshrouded the earth.

The Jacquerie

The Jacquerie PDF Author: George Payne Rainsford James
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description


The Jacquerie, Or, The Lady and the Page

The Jacquerie, Or, The Lady and the Page PDF Author: George Payne Rainsford James
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Jacquerie, 1358
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description


Trouble at Zero Hour

Trouble at Zero Hour PDF Author: Rob Lofthouse
Publisher: Heron Books
ISBN: 1784299340
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
Written by a retired British soldier, Trouble at Zero Hour is a breathless and vivid story, dramatizing three of the key Allied operations that turned the tide of the Second World War. 6 June, 1944, somewhere over the Normandy coastline: Robbie Stokes sits in a glider, his Bren resting on the floor between his outstretched legs. The nose lowers and the glider descends rapidly: ten minutes of stomach-churning twists and turns until suddenly the call goes up to 'BRACE'. The belly makes contact with the ground and the first Allied troops tumble out into occupied Europe. For new recruit Robbie Stokes it is the beginning of ten months of brutal and relentless conflict that take him from D-Day, via Operation Market Garden and the battle for Arnhem Bridge, to the Rhine Crossing and the final push for victory. Three operations that change the course of the war and test Robbie Stokes and his band of brothers to their limits. If they fail, then the Allied invasion fails. They must succeed through their longest days.

The Official History of the 315th Infantry U. S. A.

The Official History of the 315th Infantry U. S. A. PDF Author: United States. Army. 315th Infantry
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : World War, 1914-1918
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description


Works in Baudry's Edition

Works in Baudry's Edition PDF Author: George Payne Rainsford James
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description


Destroyers At Normandy: Naval Gunfire Support At Omaha Beach [Illustrated Edition]

Destroyers At Normandy: Naval Gunfire Support At Omaha Beach [Illustrated Edition] PDF Author: William B. Kirkland
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1786257653
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
Includes numerous maps and illustrations. This monograph provides first-hand accounts of Destroyer Squadron 18 during this critical battle upon which so much of the success of our campaign in Europe would depend. Their experience at Omaha Beach can be looked upon as typical of most U.S. warships engaged at Normandy. On the other hand, from the author’s research it appears evident that this destroyer squadron, with their British counterparts, may have had a more pivotal influence on the breakout from the beachhead and the success of the subsequent campaign than was heretofore realized. Its contributions certainly provide a basis for discussion among veterans and research by historians, as well as a solid, professional account of naval action in support of the Normandy landings.

Normandy

Normandy PDF Author: Wayne Vansant
Publisher: Zenith Press
ISBN: 0760343926
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 106

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Book Description
Normandy depicts the planning and execution of Operation Overlord in 96 full-color pages. The initial paratrooper assault is shown, as well as the storming of the five D-Day beaches: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. But the story does not end there. Once the Allies got ashore, they had to stay ashore. The Germans made every effort to push them back into the sea. This book depicts the such key events in the Allied liberation of Europe as: 1. Construction of the Mulberry Harbors, two giant artificial harbors built in England and floated across the English Channel so that troops, vehicles, and supplies could be offloaded across the invasion beaches.2. The Capture of Cherbourg, the nearest French port, against a labyrinth of Gennan pillboxes.3. The American fight through the heavy bocage (hedgerow country) to take the vital town of Saint-Lô.4. The British-Canadian struggle for the city of Caen against the “Hitler Youth Division,” made up of 23,000 seventeen- and eighteen-year-old Nazi fanatics.5. The breakout of General Patton’s Third Army and the desperate US 30th Division’s defense of Mortaine.6. The Falaise Pocket, known as the “Killing Ground, ” where the remnants of two German armies were trapped and bombed and shelled into submission. The slaughter was so great that 5,000 Germans were buried in one mass grave. 7. The Liberation of Paris, led by the 2nd Free French Armored Division, which had been fighting for four long years with this goal in mind.