Customer Reviews

D-Day Experience - 6 June 1944: The Invasion to The Liberation Of Paris

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This very fine collection of reproductions of articles related to the Allied invasion of Europe on June 6, 1944 and the slog to Paris is topped off by an item I didn't even find until I'd worked through the whole book: a superb cd containing first-person accounts by D-Day veterans from Britain, America, and Germany.

This product complements rather than substituting for a history of that great day. It will be enjoyed and appreciated most by users who are already familiar with the shape of the battle.

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looking through the Amazon list I came across 'Our finest day: D-Day: June 1944' (ISBN 0811830500) which also presents historical documents as reproductions to be handled but I'll stick with this D-Day experience, I don't think it can be beat.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

This is an excellent introduction to the fighting that took place in Normandy during the Second World War and comes with a CD containing over an hours' worth of audio personal accounts; an excellent resource.

There are a few minor errors and some operations/battles that are omitted but to introduce someone to the events that took place this is an excellent start. However if you have even a basic knowledge of the campaign then this is not really going to benefit you.