Product Description

From the author of "D-Day" and "Band of Brothers" comes the story of the ordinary soldiers in Northwest Europe from the day after D-Day until the end of the bittersweet days of the war. It opens at 00:01 hours, June 7, 1944 on the Normandy Beaches and ends at 02:45 hours, May 7, 1945. In between comes the battles in the hedgerows of Normandy; the breakout of Saint-Lo, the Falaise gap; Patton tearing through France; the liberation of Paris; the attempt to leap the Rhine in operation Market-Garden; the near-miraculous German recovery; the battles around Metz and in the Huertgen Forest; the Battle of the Bulge; the capture of the bridge at Remagen; and ends with the overunning of Germany. From the enlisted men and junior officers, Ambrose draws on hundreds of interviews and oral histories from those on both sides of the war. The experience of these citizen soldiers reveals the ordinary sufferings and hardships of war. They overcame their fear and inexperience, the mistakes of their high command and their enemy, to win the war.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29324 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Review
Hot on the heels of Spielberg and Hanks's resounding success adapting Stephen E Ambrose's Band of Brothers for television comes the re-issue of a further book from this excellent author about the part played by America in the Battle of Normandy. As he did with E Company, Ambrose rejects the historian's voice in favour of relying on the accounts of the actual individuals who took part in the campaign, lending this work a gripping and highly personal immediacy. Tracking the invasion from D-Day up to the German surrender, this is very much a soldiers' story, soldiers who were American citizens in the vast majority of cases with minimal training and even less experience of warfare. The difficulties they encountered in their bid to liberate French soil seemed at times to be insuperable, even the very Norman countryside presenting an extreme hazard. With an average of 14 hedgerows to the kilometre, it was like fighting in a maze on terrain that could not have been better suited to defensive action. Entire platoons found themselves lost within minutes of launching an attack. From June 7 on, GIs heaved, pushed, punched and died for two hedgerows a day. The threat of stalemate looked like becoming a reality. And it didn't get any easier. 'We were helpless and all alone and there was nothing we could do, so I prayed to God,' recalled one Corporal Stanley Kalberer, a college student at the beginning of 1944, by that winter a replacement in the 84th Division. 'Maybe this is the end of the world, I thought.' 11 months later brought victory. The Reich had fallen, Europe was at peace. But at what a sacrifice. Cool, laconic and unemotional, Ambrose writes of some of the most heroic battles known to history, and the price paid by the men who fought them. (Kirkus UK)

About the Author
Stephen E. Ambrose is the author of numerous books on history including the bestselling BAND OF BROTHERS and PEGASUS BRIDGE and definitive biographies on EISENHOWER and NIXON. He is founder of the Eisenhower Center and the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans.

Customer Reviews

In my view, an honest account.
This is simply a great book. As usual, Ambrose writes from the personal testimony of the men who were there. It's difficult therefore to criticise or argue with any of the subject matter - it is how they felt during events so we have to respect that fact. We can only imagine what it was like to be on the Western Front in WW2, reading this is as close as we'll get to understanding how it really felt.

I have to admit my ignorance about the campaign, I was well read on the air war in the West but not the conflict on the ground. The impression I had was that there were a few intense battles (Ardennes and D-Day for example) but in general the war on the ground was a simple affair. I was shocked however to see the attrition rates of units, 200% over the 12 months fighting in some cases. This simply beggars belief and the personal insights of the combatants did on occasion bring a lump to my throat.

I take the point of others, Ambrose writes from a very 'America'-centric viewpoint. This is inevitable as the interviews he used are with American veterans. In addition however I'm British, and there are no doubt many who would read my views and be offended (for which I apologise), but we have to accept that the war was won by the Americans and Russians. They were no better soldiers than us, but we could not match their numbers or industrial output. The Brits should be (and are) justly proud that they stopped the Germans expanding any further West than France, but we would never have pushed them back without help. On occasion Ambrose (and his witnesses) reflect these facts but I don't think that warrants critisism and I certainly don't take offence.

Another very interesting point is the acknowledgement by Ambrose of the completely different culture and ethos in the US and British Army. The US were very much shoot first, ask questions later and reliant on an individual's initiative. The British relied upon planning and discipline over and above all else. Both codes have their advantages and disadvantages, and I think that Ambrose does make that point. His account of Patton and Montgomery's different approaches to crossing the Rhine illustrate this perfectly. What makes this even more interesting is the current debate surrounding friendly fire incidents in the Gulf conflict - the same fundamental differences of approach resulting in the US being far more likely to transgress.

Anyway, all I can do is recommend this book and extend my gratitude and respect to the veterens who contributed and to Ambrose for his work.

The Best Ambrose Offering.
This is the best book Ambrose has put out there. 'Band Of Brothers' is about one very small part of the allied effort and the Ambrose style of hero-worship soon becomes very sickly, 'D-Day' is totally mis-titled, riddled with errors and insulting to the non-US allies, but 'Citizen Soldiers' sets out to be a sweeping look at the men who fought in the US army in NW Europe and the result is very well worth while. Don't let the books mentioned above put you off reading this one.

There is nothing in this book about the Pacific or Mediterranean Theatre of operations except the odd passing reference, usually to compare statistics.

What Ambrose does is take quotes from written first hand accounts, quotes from oral histories at the Eisenhower Centre and then quotes from his own research and conversation with veterans. This book puts them all together in a largely chronological order to give the reader a very good idea of conditions and attitudes of GIs from D-Day to victory in Europe. The finished product is very readable and skips along at a good pace despite the almost 500 page length.

My main criticisms of the book are these:
* The maps are disappointing in both ease of reading and level of detail. Several pages are set aside for good quality glossy prints of photographs which would have been better used for quality map reproduction in my opinion.
* Although Ambrose keeps his own opinions to himself more than in his other books, they are still present from time to time and it is fair to say that his selection of quotes often seems to have been made to back-up his own beliefs.
* Ambrose's knowledge of the air war in Europe is certainly lacking and the book is weak in this area.
* While the book is about American GIs, on occasion the lack of mention of other allied actions can leave the reader confronted with obvious questions going unanswered.

Having said all that, I would recommend this book to those interested in the European theatre with the simple caveat that you must never take any Ambrose book as your single source of information about any single aspect of that war.

Comprehensive - from an American persepctive
This is an interesting and well written account of the experiences of the soldiers of The USA and , to a lesser extent, Germany. It is very readable.

However, those were not the only nations who had combatants involved. Ambrose appears relatively dismissive of the contribution of those other nations. As a Brit I was struck several times with the derisive fashion with which he deals with the differences of approach between the various armies, with little effort made to explore the possible causes for those differences.

Despite that shortcoming, this is a good book for anybody with a more than passing interest in this period of history