Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10632 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-04
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Synopsis
In the early hours of 6th June 1944, a small detachment of British airborne troops stormed the German defence forces and paved the way for the Allied invasion of Europe. Pegasus Bridge was the first engagement of D-Day, the turning point of World War II. This gripping account of it brings to life a daring mission so crucial that, had it been unsuccessful, the entire Normandy invasion might have failed. The author of this book traces each step of the preparations over many months to the minute-by-minute excitement of the hand-to-hand confrontations on the bridge, a story of heroism and cowardice, kindness and brutality.

Customer Reviews

Amazing!!
This book, if you're British, will make you feel so patriotic. I enjoyed this book so much that I was compelled to write a letter to Major John Howard and was so devastated to find out he had passed away a year before. I would recommend any History lover and to anyone lacking in patriotism. Classic book by a classic historian and without doubt, one of the best books I've read in a long time! Any non-brit would read this book and realise the daring missions the British Armed forces had to endure to help the D-Day landings!

Best of British!
Another book from the literary stable of American author Stephen Amrbose. I had noticed that the author always takes an obvious patriotic slant towards the American effort into the Second World War so why write about Pegasus Bridge? The book explains this as Ambrose, on a visit to the battle site of the said bridge, actually meets by chance and has a battlefield tour by the actual raid commander Major John Howard. So impressed was the author by Howard's depiction of this epic D-Day raid that he decided to write a book on the story.

What a story it is too? In this first D-Day engagement, the capture of this Normandy Bridge was reputed to be crucial to the success of the D-Day invasion. Its capture would deny a route for German reinforcements to support the defences on the stormed beaches. So the scene was set in that pre invasion dawn of the 6th June 1944 for a small airborne team of highly trained British troops to take off from the green fields of England on what was to become the most famous glider borne attack of the war.

Travelling over the English Channel in their fragile aircraft the troops are glided in with pin point precision to within yards of their objective....`Pegasus Bridge'. With complete surprise on their side Howard's men storm and take the bridge with minimal casualties and hunker down to repel the German counter attack until they are relieved by invasion troops.

Hopelessly outnumbered the airborne troops fight a cornered rat type of desperate defence....never giving in despite the odds. At one point when an armoured column of six tanks are sent against them a lone soldier with a Piat stops the first one literally in its tracks. This forces the other tanks to retreat fearing that the British are supported by an anti tank gun battery. This necessitates the comment that the Piat round shot by the soldier...Sgt Thorton...might be one of the most important rounds to be fired in the war...in effect his Piat round stopped the bridge being retaken and thereby giving the Panzers a free route to the beaches to repel the allied invasion.

Even the scene of the eventual relief on the bridge, when the commandos from the invasion spearhead join up with the airborne troops, becomes one of the most legendary British scenes of the war. The commandos let by Lord Lovatt, accompanied by his piper Bill Milne, march stiffly across the bridge to the sounds of the pipes whilst ignoring heavy enemy gunfire...the scene was made famous in the film `The Longest Day'.

As all of Stephen Ambrose's books the story is told with clarity, passion and admiration. The book cover the intense training leading up to the raid, dissects the personal nature, strengths and weaknesses of the men involved and covers the dramatic battle for the bridge as well as a concise narrative of the invasion itself. A great read about a real boys own story...a true military adventure that was distinctively British.

Britain did take part in D-Day after all!
Over the last few years’ popular history has been re-written by films such as Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers (both excellent by the way) into believing that the D-Day landings were a US only operation.

Not so, and this superb account by Stephen E Ambrose details the daring glider raid to capture the Pegasus Bridge spanning the Orne Canal by the British 6th Airborne Division in the first few minutes of D-Day.

Major John Howard and his troops seized and held the bridge (of great strategic importance to the landings) taking its German defenders by complete surprise. The book also details the death of Lt. Den Brotheridge - the first allied soldier to lose his life on D-Day.

A thoroughly engrossing and moving read.