Customer Reviews

The Greatest War, Volume II: D-Day and the Assault on Europe

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This is the middle volume of Gerald Astor's "Let's see how much of WW2 we can cram into one book" work, which was wisely broken into three pieces for mass market paperback. The title of this one says D-Day and the Assault on Europe, but it starts with the invasion of Sicily, and in the first half of the volume there's a fair bit of action in the Pacific. The second half of the book is almost exclusively D-Day, with the last chapter covering Dragoon in the south of France.

As I said in my review of the first volume, Astor does this sort of thing pretty well. He melds together oral histories with accounts of the battles themselves, and manages to keep you in the loop enough that you're not confused when something happens. He does have to leave out a good deal, though. The naval surface battles the U.S. Navy fought against the Japanese in the Solomons are almost completely ignored, other than one or two around Guadalcanal, and other things get only cursory coverage. And again, if you've read some of his other books, you will occasionally find yourself recognizing a person, here and there. Other than that, as far as oral history goes (and it's not my favorite thing, anyway) this is a good collection.