When the sea came alive An oral history of D-Day

Garrett M. Graff, 1981-

Book - 2024

" D-Day is one of history's greatest and most unbelievable military and human triumphs. Though the full campaign lasted just over a month, the surprise landing of over 150,000 Allied troops on the morning of June 6, 1944, is understood to be the moment that turned the tide for the Allied forces and ultimately led to the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II. Now, a new book from bestselling author and historian Garrett M. Graff explores the full impact of this world-changing event--from the secret creation of landing plans by top government and military officials and organization of troops, to the moment the boat doors opened to reveal the beach where men fought for their lives and the future of the free world. Fascinating, ac...tion-packed, and filled with impressive detail, When the Sea Came Alive captures a human drama like no other, and offers a fitting tribute to the men and women of the Greatest Generation"--

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Subjects
Genres
Personal narratives
Published
New York : Avid Reader Press [2024]
Language
English
Main Author
Garrett M. Graff, 1981- (author)
Item Description
Maps on endpapers.
Physical Description
576 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 521-544) and index.
ISBN
9781668027813
9781668027820
  • Author's Note
  • Foreword
  • Part I. A World At War
  • War Begins
  • War Comes to America
  • 1943
  • The Start of Shaef
  • Crossing the Pond
  • The American Invasion
  • Building the Atlantic Wall
  • Keeping Secrets
  • Operation Fortitude
  • The Mulberry Plan
  • At Slapton Sands
  • Exercise Tiger
  • The Transportation Plan
  • Picking the Date
  • Into the Sausages
  • Keep Calm and Carry On
  • Learning the Details
  • Spring in Normandy with the Germans
  • The D-Day Weather Forecast
  • Part II. The Landing
  • A Note on Chronology and Military Terminology
  • Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's Order of the Day
  • Paratroopers Take Off
  • Operation Coup De Main
  • The 6th Airborne Arrives in Normandy
  • The Paratrooper Skytrain
  • Night in the Hedgerows
  • Liberation Comes to Sainte-Mere-Église
  • Neptune Rises
  • Confusing the Enemy
  • Ashore in Normandy
  • In the Air Over the Beaches
  • Heading Ashore at Utah
  • Naval Forces at Utah
  • The Second Wave at Utah
  • The Rangers at Pointe du Hoc
  • Omaha Beach
  • Into the Devil's Garden
  • Ashore at Omaha
  • Getting Off Omaha Beach
  • Afloat Off Omaha Beach
  • Jig Sector, Gold Beach
  • The Green Howards Take King Sector
  • Ashore at Juno
  • Sword Beach
  • The News Spreads
  • Part III. The End of D-Day
  • Holding the Eastern Flank
  • The Walking Wounded
  • The Battle of La Fière Bridge
  • Afternoon for the Germans
  • End of D-Day
  • Epilogue
  • Sources, Methods, and Acknowledgments
  • Source Listings
  • Source Notes
  • Index
  • Image Credits
Review by Booklist Review

D-Day, the June 6, 1944, military strike to reclaim Western Europe from Nazi Germany's control, has been recounted in print and on screen practically from the day itself. Graff (UFO, 2023) sorted through mammoth worldwide archives for this comprehensive oral history of that fateful day. Starting with a compilation of quotations from politicians, military leaders, soldiers, sailors, and airmen, Graff documents political and military preparations. As the day approaches and convoys of American draftees who have barely left their homes marshal weaponry in England and prepare themselves for maiming and death on French beaches, the sheer scope of the effort becomes almost overwhelming. Even this friendly "invasion" of the bucolic English countryside by thousands of American recruits stressed local inhabitants physically and emotionally. Juxtaposing grand strategic thinking from Eisenhower, Montgomery, and other leaders against the quotidian concerns of GIs gives insight into war's panoramic complexity. Graff interweaves detailed logistical intricacies with fighting men's reactions that suddenly inject raw emotion into otherwise soulless statistical inventories. Military history buffs as well as aficionados of popular history will avidly consume this.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Pulitzer finalist Graff (Watergate) draws from more than 700 eyewitness accounts for this gripping and propulsive history of the D-Day invasion. The contributors range from teenage privates to heads of state and military commanders, from frogmen and signalmen to parachuting generals, all of whom were engaged in a "feat of unprecedented human audacity, a mission more... complex than anything ever seen." The interlaced first-person accounts--sometimes just a sentence or two--are connected by helpful narrative tissue and often reach back into the months and years before the invasion to provide context for the day's events, like the development of the Mulberry Plan--the building of secret portable harbors the Allies would float to Normandy--and Exercise Tiger, a landing rehearsal on a British beach that was attacked by a German flotilla, resulting in hundreds of casualties. Harrowing recollections from survivors of the first wave of landings ("If you moved, you were dead"; "Wherever possible I crawled around bodies") paired with descriptions of elite operations with narrow yet crucial goals--like the team of Rangers who practiced six months to scale a single cliff--add up to a panoramic view of an astonishingly intricate plan coming to fruition, undertaken by men and women with a clear sense of its momentousness. Readers will be spellbound. (June)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A sprawling history of D-Day from the point of view of participants on both sides. "There have only been a handful of days since the beginning of time on which the direction the world was taking has been changed for the better in one 24-hour period by an act of man. June 6th, 1944, was one of them." So recalled Andy Rooney, then a war correspondent. Timed for the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, Graff's book is an anthology of sorts: Most of the stories gathered in this oral history come from printed sources and weren't gathered firsthand. Still, it's a worthy endeavor, bringing together 700 people who took part in the invasion in one way or another. Rooney was there; so was a German officer on Juno Beach who recalled, "This battle was the beginning of the end of the war." Graff emphasizes the precariousness of the Allied position on a couple of scores: The sea was rough, drowning as many soldiers as were gunned down on the beaches, and the Germans could have defeated the attackers if they had organized an effective counteroffensive strategy. That's not the way it worked out, of course--although, as Graff comments, "German resistance would continue along the beaches for multiple days, until the final strongpoints were defeated and the final batteries inland were captured." Another point of emphasis is the appalling rate of casualties suffered by the Allies: One British soldier recalls that when his unit reached Germany a few months after landing in Normandy, "there were only three of us remaining from the original complement of men who landed on D-Day. All the others had either been killed or wounded." A timely reminder of the cost of war, as well as the bravery of those who stormed the beaches all those decades ago. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.