Product Description

D-Day, the largest amphibious invasion in history, took place on 6 June 1944. The subsequent battle of Normandy involved over a million men, and helped seal the fate of The Third Reich. This is a graphic account of the planning and execution of Operation Overlord, as well as the campaign which effectively destroyed the German forces in France, opening the way for the Allied advance. Including a wealth of superb photographs and maps, the book also contains 30 facsimile items of rare memorabilia, including diaries, letters and memos, as well as an audio CD containing 72 minutes of veteran interviews, bringing this 'Day of Days' dramatically to life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #109158 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 64 pages

Synopsis
D-Day, the largest amphibious invasion in history, took place on 6 June 1944. The subsequent battle of Normandy involved over a million men, and helped seal the fate of The Third Reich. This is a graphic account of the planning and execution of Operation Overlord, as well as the campaign which effectively destroyed the German forces in France, opening the way for the Allied advance. Including a wealth of superb photographs and maps, the book also contains 30 facsimile items of rare memorabilia, including diaries, letters and memos, as well as an audio CD containing 72 minutes of veteran interviews, bringing this 'Day of Days' dramatically to life.

About the Author
Professor Richard Holmes is author of the bestselling War Walks books tied into the successful BBC series of the same name, as well as the Imperial War Museum's First and Second World War in Photographs (Carlton Books).

Customer Reviews

Outstanding, and part of an excellent series
This is a remarkable and exceptionally good summary of the latter stages of the Second World War. It combines a concise narrative with a range of multimedia materials including a CD, facsimiles of original documents and maps to produce, as the title suggests, an ‘experience’. I would also recommend in the strongest terms other books associated with the Imperial War Museum series including “The Victory in Europe Experience”, “The Cold War Experience” and, perhaps most poignant as we lose a generation, “The Verdun and the Somme Experience”. As a professional historian and an IT expert I have rarely seen such a brilliant combination of material. Buy all the books – at under £20 each they are well worth it. And for the father/brother who has ‘everything’ I suspect they will be a memorable present.

Almost there



Put 'D-Day' into Amazon's book search and you'll come up with over two hundred titles and I expect most will be about the momentous events in June 1944. This book covers them as an 'experience' and I think it does it rather well. Don't be put off when you see it only has sixty-four pages because it includes a lot of other things as well. There are fifty plus printed items which are facsimiles of maps (one is a German map thirty by twenty-two inches) military reports, logbooks, posters, soldiers diaries, a newspaper page, letters and more, they are either stuck on the pages or in envelopes to be removed and examined. One of the nice things is that the reproduction of these extras is particularly good and they do really help to create the experience.

Each spread covers one event with a mix of text, photos (with good captions) a map and other graphics all beautifully presented in a scrapbook format. If I have a criticism it is that the maps, which have a lot of information, are rather small so I had to use John Man's Atlas of the D-Day and Normandy Landings to fully understand the flow of events. While looking at this treasure of printed material you can also hear on the included CD (seventy minutes) the voices of men who were there and made it happen.

This is almost a unique publication but while looking through the Amazon list I came across 'Our finest day: D-Day: June 1944' (ISBN 0811830500) which also presents historical documents as reproductions to be handled but I'll stick with this D-Day experience, I don't think it can be beat.

excellent
I Brought this D Day Experience Book, for my Husband for a Christmas Present, this year, he had lots more gifts, but the D Day Book was his favourite, he loves it, the book is fascinating to read and very interesting, i have ordered another one for my father in law for his birthday.
well worth buying!!! if you like this sort of thing!