Soldier, Sailor, Frogman, Spy, Airman, Gangster, Kill or Die: How the Allies Won on D-Day

by Giles Milton

Overview

A ground-breaking account of the first 24 hours of the D-Day invasion told by a symphony of incredible accounts of unknown and unheralded members of the Allied – and Axis – forces.

An epic battle that involved 156,000 men, 7,000 ships and 20,000 armoured vehicles, D-Day was, above all, a tale of individual heroics – of men who were driven to keep fighting until the German defences were smashed and the precarious beachheads secured. This authentic human story – Allied, German, French – has never fully been told.

Giles Milton’s bold new history narrates the events of June 6th, 1944 through the tales of survivors from all sides: the teenage Allied conscript, the crack German defender, the French resistance fighter. From the military architects at Supreme Headquarters to the young schoolboy in the Wehrmacht’s bunkers, Soldier, Sailor, Frogman, Spy, Airman, Gangster, Kill or Die lays bare the absolute terror of those trapped in the front line of Operation Overlord. It also gives voice to those who have hitherto remained unheard – the French butcher’s daughter, the Panzer Commander’s wife, the chauffeur to the General Staff.

This vast canvas of human bravado reveals “the longest day” as never before – less as a masterpiece of strategic planning than a day on which thousands of scared young men found themselves staring death in the face. It is drawn in its entirety from the raw, unvarnished experiences of those who were there.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250134929
Publisher:	Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	03/12/2019
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	1,019,607
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Giles Milton is the internationally bestselling author of a dozen works of narrative history, including Soldier, Sailor, Frogman, Spy, Airman, Gangster, Kill or Die: How the Allies Won on D-Day. His book, Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, is the basis for a major TV series. Milton’s other works—published in twenty-five languages—include Nathaniel’s Nutmeg, serialized by the BBC. He lives in London and Burgundy.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS


Maps

Preface
Prologue

PART I: KNOW THY ENEMY
1. Behind Enemy Lines
2. Atlantic Wall
3. The Weather Report
4. Codebreaking

PART II: MIDNIGHT
5. The Midnight Hour
6. At German Headquarters
7. Landing by Moonlight

PART III: THE NIGHT
8. Sainte-Mère-Église
9. Night Assault
10. First Light

PART IV: DAWN
11. On Utah Beach
12. In Coastal Waters
13. Omaha
14. Easy Red

PART V: FOOTHOLD
15. Gold
16. Juno
17. Cliff-top Guns
18. The Mad Bastard

PART VI: TOWARDS NOON
19. Deadlock on Omaha
20. Cracks in the Wall
21. Race to the Bridge

PART VII: AFTERNOON
22. The Bombing of Caen
23. Counter-Attack
24. Victory at Omaha

PART VIII: WIN OR LOSE
25. Frontier Fighting
26. Panzer Attack
27. Twilight
28. Night

Afterword

Acknowledgements
Notes and Sources
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

05/20/2019

This extensively researched collection of individual accounts of D-Day from historian Milton (The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare) is a labor of love and respect with some shortcomings. American, British, Canadian, French, and German voices are woven together to convey the scale of an attack that involved hundreds of thousands of troops, 7,000 ships, staggering numbers of aircraft, and a dizzying array of strategic objectives required to dislodge the Nazis from northwest France and begin the liberation of occupied Europe. British commandos on bicycles rush to the front lines in Benouville; American Col. Charles Canham has his rifle shot out of his hand and keeps advancing on Omaha Beach with only a pistol; American bombardier Al Corry’s life is miraculously saved as a pocket notebook blocks shrapnel from entering his chest. Though Milton’s writing is often vivid, it can be susceptible to cliché (he describes several different people as “adventurers” in Boys’ Own adventure style), and the decision to frequently omit military ranks obscures the important role played by junior officers, noncommissioned officers, and enlisted men in the victory. But readers will still be thrilled and moved by this sweeping mosaic. Agent: Georgia Garrett, Rogers, Coleridge and White Literary Agency. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Earns its place in a crowded field by bringing a completely fresh, very human approach to the largest amphibious landing in history, telling stories from the American, British, French and German perspectives. It has a wonderful immediacy and vitality—living history in every sense.” —Anthony Horowitz, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Alex Rider Adventure series, in the Wall Street Journal

“The day is narrated in a symphony of surviving voices – a teenage Allied conscript, a French resistance fighter, a butcher’s daughter – placing the reader in the heat of the action.” —USA Today

“A labor of love and respect . . . Milton's writing is often vivid . . . Readers will . . . be thrilled and moved by this sweeping mosaic.” —Publishers Weekly

“Vivid, graphic and moving.” —Mail on Sunday Book of the Year

“Stirring and unsettling in equal measure, this is history writing at its most powerful.” —Evening Standard

Praise for Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

“Milton is a meticulous researcher and masterful storyteller. Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, with its ghastly details and dollops of droll British humor, will reward readers who appreciate military history and good writing.”—USA Today (3.5 star out of 4)

“A rousing historical romp.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Milton has a rare ability—a talent for sifting fine pearls from faraway sands and transmuting the merely arcane into little literary gems.” —Simon Winchester, Boston Globe

“A rousing account–and celebration–of World War II’s most insidious and devious heroes.”—The Wall Street Journal

“An exciting, suspenseful tale of international intrigue.”—Kirkus

“Impressive . . . [an] entertaining history of spectacular, often nasty derring-do by real-life secret agents.” —Publishers Weekly

“Giles Milton's research is impeccable and his narrative reads in part like a modern-day Robert Louis Stevenson novel.” —The Times (London)

“Deftly and arrestingly captures the sorry history of the European lust for nutmeg and its devastating impact on the Spice Islands....Milton is a storyteller of the first rank.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2018-10-08

Anecdotal history of D-Day, when Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe.

As historian and journalist Milton's (Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat, 2017, etc.) busy title suggests, the Normandy landings involved a vast machinery hinging on conditions of weather and tides and the hope that the German enemy would be surprised. In this skillfully woven narrative, the author depicts the complexity of Operation Overlord. In the predawn hours of D-Day, for instance, the operational planning officer had to secure signoffs from several senior commanders involved, which "was more time-consuming than he expected," especially when the British air marshal began proofreading the orders, "sure that in detail lay victory." The British meteorologists were cautious, the Americans perhaps too optimistic, but somehow the invasion was launched. Meanwhile, on the German side of the Channel, an observer predicted the landings nearly to the minute only to have his intelligence ignored. When news arrived of massive airborne landings behind the German lines, an argument broke out over whether "the paratroopers were merely liaison parties sent to help the French resistance." For its part, the Resistance was present and active on the scene, while French civilians rendered aid as they were able—though in one memorable episode, a young French man had to turn over a badly wounded American paratrooper to the Germans in order to get him medical treatment. Milton's narrative is episodic, much in the spirit of the book that looms over the literature of Overlord, Cornelius Ryan's Longest Day (1959), populated by near-stock figures like a young American captain who "was a bulldozer of a man, with a thickset face and pronounced nose," and a British "bruiser built of sinew and muscle" who single-handedly stormed a German bunker, earning a Victoria Cross for his troubles. World War II buffs will be pleased to see the tradition continue here.

A worthy commemoration of a key historical moment, the 75th anniversary of which falls in 2019.

Kirkus Reviews