Customer Reviews

The Longest Day June 6, 1944.

5 star:		(89)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A masterful account of the first twenty-four hours of the D-Day invasion. Mr. Ryan transports the reader all over the battlefield, giving numerous perspectives (both allies and axis) to the events that unfolded on June 6, 1944.

When I was a company commander serving in Germany, I required all my company officers to read this book as part of their professional development. They all thanked me afterwards for introducing them to one of Mr. Ryan's classic WWII books.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in WWII, or has read any of Mr. Ryan's other books (A Bridge Too Far, The Last Battle). Personally, I read this book and viewed the film (which is also a classic) before visiting the Normandy beaches. I felt this preparation made my trip to Normandy more meaningful and enjoyable.

Famed author Cornelius Ryan has a unique and appealing way of telling a story that makes his books quite unique, and this huge best seller is no exception. Here he sets the stage for his brilliant trilogy on the war in Europe by chronicling the events surrounding the fabled Allied sea-borne assault in Normandy on June 6, 1944. Its total cost in terms of human life and unnecessary destruction is a cautionary lesson for history. Like his other books, this is a story told at every level, but concentrating on the faithful recollections of the actual participants in the action. Thus, the reader is wept into the action as we get a voyeur's view of the moment-to-moment development of the story as it unfolds in all its horrific detail.

There is a virtual cornucopia of information presented here, and Ryan's approach is scrupulously faithful to the facts, all of them, regardless of the source. Therefore, there is a great deal of attention paid not only to the recollections and experiences of the Allied assault troops, but to German defenders and French civilians caught in the terrible crossfire of the opposing forces. This was the book that originated the man-on-the-ground perspective that has been subsequently used to such advantage both by Ryan and number of notable others. There is little apparent effort here to color the results and make the Allies more circumspect and less provocative in making and activating their star-crossed assault. One gets the sense on reading this, as with each of Ryan's three books on the European campaign, that this is the whole story as best he could determine it, and he makes an extraordinary effort to include as much relevant information by way of using both recollection and contextual data to bolster a comprehensive picture of the battles as they unfolded all over Normandy and its environs.

The late author Ryan was one of a handful of masterful storytellers and historians who emerged from the Second World War to chronicle its events so masterfully. Like John Toland, William Shirer, and a number of notable others, Ryan illuminated and familiarized a generation of readers with the human stories of war and destruction, and brought these otherwise unbelievable and incomprehensible experiences home to a waiting world of ordinary and otherwise bewildered citizens. This is one of the best of the efforts, shining the light of truth on one of the greatest moments in modern history, when the Allies stood fatefully in the breach, about to take the European continent back by force of arms from the terrible totalitarian forces that had stolen it so cruelly and violently four years before.

Cornelius Ryan's "The Longest Day" is assembled as a mosaic of scenes occurring at both sides of the Channel and afterwards on France. It shows all the main actors in action, ranging from Generals and Marshals thru Privates to Civilians.

It is divided into three parts: "The Waiting" encompassing since the first invasion planning thru Eisenhower's decision to launch the assault against meteorological odds.

This section reviews German defense plans, displaying Rommel's ingenuity in devising obstacles to the assault; the enormous Allied effort to secretly reunite troops and baggage; the failure of German High Command to acknowledge intelligence of the eminent invasion and finally the hair-raising suspense introduced by stormy weather.

"The Night" describes the massive paratroop and glider-bound troop's assault and how the scattered soldiers, fighting their own fear and disorientation, pushed ahead to conquer their targets.

"The Day" focuses on the beaches' assault, reviewing from "Bloody Omaha" till more calm (comparatively) "Juno".

Based on eye witness accounts the book gives the reader a vibrant relation of the momentous Day. Especially thrilling are the portrayals of American Brig. Generals Theodore Roosevelt and Norman Cotta; the German Maj. Werner Pluskat and the British Lord Lovat and his blow-piper side kick.

Those 24 hours should had seemed, as the title implies, an eternity to everyone involved!

This book stands on par with two more remarkable ones: Toland's "The Battle of the Bulge" and Collins and Lapierre's "Is Paris Burning?"

I warmly recommend this work to WWII buffs and readers interested in first hand accounts of crucial events!

Reviewed by Max Yofre.

This is the gold standard among military history books, the masterful story of D-Day, the first day of the Allies' climactic invasion of Normandy.

This is an eminently readable book, one that most readers -- even those without interest in military or history books -- will find impossible to put down, even though the outcome is well known. Cornelius Ryan brings surprising clarity to the multi-faceted D-Day operation, allowing us to view the events of June 6, 1944 from many perspectives: German, French, British, Canadian and American. My only complaint with "The Longest Day" -- a quibble, really -- is that the soft-cover version I purchased lacked any maps, which would have been useful for a geographically-challenged reader such as me.

If you've seen the movie, I'd encourage you to read the book. If you haven't seen the movie, read the book and then rent the movie. You'll find it an enjoyable experience, worthy of all the 5-star ratings you see here.

Often the term "classic" is thrown around in the literary field without much regard to the real breadth of genre and writings, and is thus cheapened in use. When one describes Cornelius Ryan's "The Longest Day" as a classic piece in the WWII genre believe it. Such a term is NOT hype when used in the same sentence with this book. So many things about the "The Longest Day" make it truly a classic: First, Cornelius Ryan is a Master storyteller. Certainly it helps that Ryan was a war correspondent who experienced life in the combat zones of the ETO! Ryan's writing style is lilting and fun, his writings are easy reads yet full of historical depth. Sure his books are "popular" reading not simply deep academic works, but they ARE important contributions to the historical literature. Second, the story is simply one so compelling that even the best novelist would have a hard time toping. By combining writing talent with a great human story, "The Longest Day" represents literature at its best - in any genre. Third, historical content - the story told in "The Longest Day" - as just mentioned - is so compelling that it need not be, and was not, embellished to make it readable. Ryan has done the hard work of culling documents and interviewing numerous sources to gain factual clarity. Again, it is clear that his time spent as a correspondent helped his fact gathering abilities and thus contributed greatly to the success of this book.

If you want a story of D-Day that covers THE DAY (and a few proceeding and following in much less detail) from both sides of the fence, Allied and Axis; from the air, sea and land; from perspective of Coastguard Coxswain to rifleman on any one of the beachheads to a German artillery officer caught in the midst of the greatest show of democracy to Generals running the show, this is the book to start with. Great depth and broad breadth! As the 60th Anniversary of D-Day approaches why not pick up a "classic" to get a feel for what the Greatest Generation gave to the world on June 6, 1944. Five stars, two big thumbs up.

The other reviewers, especially Barron, have done such an outstanding job that there is not much left to say. I am very impressed by Ryan as a reporter and an outstanding writer who is able to simultaneously tell the stories of hundreds of people (and indirectly hundreds of thousands). Faith of Our Fathers did this for six people, and that was hard enough. Whether six or hundreds, I think that this is a mark of Creative Genius, the kind of thing that a Beethoven or Haydn or Mozart wove together into a masterpiece of many parts, many men, many women. Ryan was one of the best.

This is a classic account of D-Day, June 6, 1944, the day on which the Allies invaded Hitler's Europe at Normandy on the northern coast of France, over four years after the French had ignominiously surrendered to Germany during the first year of World War II. With the benefit of over 50 years' hindsight, the successful D-Day invasion may now appear to be anticlimactic. Although, as Ryan observes, the Germans had to anticipate the possibility that the long-awaited invasion could occur at nearly any point along 800 miles of coast of the Netherlands and France and at virtually any time that the always-unpredictable weather over the English Channel permitted, a German intelligence source had corrected predicted that the invasion would take place at Normandy on June 6. But the Germans had convinced themselves that the Allies would wait for perfect weather conditions. Ryan succinctly reports General Dwight Eisenhower's decision on the night of June 5 to take a chance that there would be a short break in the weather. The order to proceed with the invasion was given, and, because by June 1944 the Allies had virtually total naval and air superiority in and over the Channel, the Germans were unaware of the massing of the invasion forces on that night. I found Ryan's terse, understated description of a German coastal observer's reaction when the 5000-ship invasion fleet appeared off the Norman coast early in the morning of June 6 to be gloriously exciting; when the German officer calls headquarters to report that the invasion has begun and is asked "what way are [the] ships heading?", he replies, "Right at me." This is simply one of the greatest battle stories of all time!

As Ryan ably demonstrates, the Allies' success on D-Day was, in fact, the result of thousands of acts of individual achievement and heroism. Like the glider-borne troops who landed behind enemy lines during the night and seized key roads and bridges to prevent German reinforcements from reaching the five invasion beaches; the paratroopers whose radios, bazookas, mortars, and ammunition landed in marshes and had to be retrieved by diving into the chilly water before they could proceed to their objectives; and the 120 underwater demolition experts who landed on the beaches first to clear paths through minefields and obstacles for the waves of assault troops who followed.

There are many moments of life-and-death struggle. At the end of the book, Ryan includes a short "Note on Casualties," in which he writes that American casualties during the 24-hour period of the assault totaled 6,603 killed, wounded, missing, and captured, which seems remarkably low considering the vast size of the invasion. Nevertheless, each death was a personal tragedy. According to Ryan, the Germans "had organized a bloody welcome for the Allied troops." The overnight airborne operation, which involved 13,000 American paratroopers, was successful but at considerable cost. Many paratroopers landed far from their drop zones. The lucky ones just had a long walk to get where they were supposed to be. But Ryan reports that the Germans had flooded large expanses of low-lying farmland and countryside surrounding the coast, and a number of unlucky paratroopers landed in the water and drowned. The landings on the beaches were equally perilous. Ryan writes: "Seasick men, already exhausted by the long hours spent on the transports and in the assault boats, found themselves fighting for their lives in water which was often over their heads." In one company landing on Omaha Beach, "[l]ess than a third of the men survived the bloody walk from the boats to the edge pf the beach." In one force of Rangers assigned to assault a 100-foot-high cliff, only 90 of the original 225 were still able to bear arms at the end of the day.

Ryan's approach is essentially journalistic, but the events he records occasionally inspire him to wax poetic. About the British Second Army, Ryan writes: "They were assaulting not just beaches but bitter memories - memories of Munich and Dunkirk, of one hateful and humiliating retreat after another, of countless devastating bombing raids, of dark days when they had stood alone. With them were the Canadians with a score of their own to settle for the bloody losses at Dieppe. And with them, too, were the French, fierce and eager on this homecoming morning." But, sometimes, all Ryan needs to do is report the facts. At the end of the day, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the commander of the German defenses, is asked: "Sir, do you think we can drive them back?" and he responds, "I hope we can. I've always succeeded up to now." In fact, Ryan writes: "From this day on the Third Reich had less than one year to live."

In some respects, this book is a curious account of a massive, unprecedented battle whose success depended largely upon organization and planning at the command level. Ryan devotes only a few pages to the Allies' remarkable logistical preparations for the invasion by 200,000 men with massive amounts of equipment and to the Germans' equally-clever, if ultimately unsuccessful, efforts to prevent a successful landing. Indeed, most of Ryan's narrative takes the form of a series of relatively short vignettes of the experiences of individuals, officers and enlisted men, Allied and German, on this momentous day. Other books about D-Day, such as John Keegan's Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris and Stephen E. Ambrose's D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II are more comprehensive. But it is inconceivable that any student of World War II can have a full appreciation of what happened on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944 without reading Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day.

This book is one which can truly be called "classic". Mr. Ryan's writing never seems stale or tired or, on the other hand, overblown. His topic is epic: the greatest sea-borne invasion ever attempted. On June 6, 1944 the western allies invaded Hitler's Europe across the beaches of Normandy, France, catching Germany in a pincher between themselves in the west and the Soviets in the east. In less than a year, World War II would be over in Europe and Hitler's dream of a thousand-year Reich would die with him in the ruins of Berlin.

The focus of this book is purely on D-Day, together with the few days leading up to it. The story relies almost exclusively on eyewitness accounts. There is enough background to provide context; however, anyone looking for information about the broader war should not use this book as their primary source. Although there is a great deal of factual information, "The Longest Day" is primarily emotional - it evokes, through the words of the participants, the feel of paratroopers jumping into darkness, of seasick infantrymen struggling across endless beaches into enemy fire, of generals having to make decisions affecting tens of thousands of lives based on guesses and gut instinct.

The book is well-balanced between the antagonists. There is considerable material from the German side, giving the perspective from the other side of the beach, and from the headquarters of the defenders as they try to make sense of the reports coming in to them, and as they try to determine whether or not what they are facing is in fact the long-awaited invasion.

One small criticism I have of the book is the lack of maps. Mr. Ryan is meticulous in identifying where each episode occured. Unfortunately, in the absense of maps, the reader is left with no idea where any of these places are, other than generally in Normandy.

This book is highly recommended for anyone who wants D-Day to come alive.

"The Longest Day" by Cornelius Ryan is the epic history of Operation Overlord, the Normandy Landings of June 6, 1944. Brought to the big screen in the movie of the same title, it will be a very familiar read for many. This book employs a skillful weaving of the big picture with the human interest. Here we get an understanding for the objectives of the battle and the heroic, tragic and humorous incidents which arose during this momentous contest.

The days leading up to Overlord were demanding and nerve wracking for both sides. The Germans were split between Rommel, who believed that the invasion must be stopped on the beach or not at all, and Von Rundstedt, who wanted to let the invasion come ashore and then engage it beyond the range of Allied naval guns. Von Rundstedt based his opinion on what he thought that he had learned from prior landings. The Allies, for their part, had learned from the disastrous Canadian raid on Dieppe in 1942 that any invasion must have the advantage of overwhelming force. They had their own disagreements, such as how to employ air power. Should it be used in a Transportation Plan, to isolate the battlefield, or to pound the German heartland? The Germans had the disadvantage of having to defend the whole shoreline, while the Allies could choose where to direct their fury. The German Atlantic Wall of mines, barbed wire, gun encasements, "Rommel Asparagras", beach obstacles and other impedimenta presented a daunting front to the Allies and strained the productive capacity of the Reich. The Allies maximized their advantage through Operation Fortitude, the faux army commanded by Patton aimed at Calais. Still they had their own cases of the jitters, such as when a popular British crossword puzzle writer used several Overlord related words in the weeks leading up to the invasion. The final uncontrollable was the weather, which forced a one day delay and almost scrubbed the landings.

The complexity of the operation boggles the mind. The weeks of air bombardment, the parachute drops to secure causeways and crossroads behind the beaches, gliders to bring in more troops and heavier equipment, naval bombardment followed by the amphibious assaults on five Norman beaches had to be timed to the moon and tide. Considering the scope of the operation, the missed drop zones, the landings on the wrong beach, the assault on abandoned fortifications at Pointe du Hoc, and the other snafus are understandable.

A reader can get these big stories from many sources. What makes this book unique is the human touch, the narration of stories that we remember from the movie. We read about Pvt. Arthur B. "Dutch" Schultz, of the 82nd Airborne who really did win a wad in a crap game and then decide to lose it all, the troops who landed in the heart of Ste. Mare Eglise while a fire was being fought, including Pvt. John Steele of the 82nd who did get caught on the steeple and the chaplain who did dive five times to find his mass kit in the flooded drop zone, just to mention a few.

This is an interesting read for its human interest value. For anyone wanting an understanding of D-Day, it is essential. This and Stephen Ambrose's "D-Day" (see my Amazon review) are the two leading works available in English. The frequency with which Ambrose quotes Ryan gives testimony to the value of "The Longest Day" as a definitive historical source.

This is a fine, fine read that lives up to its reputation as the classic account of D-Day--and also as a truly riveting read. For a treatment of the strategy of which the Normandy landings were a part or for what came after (or, for that matter, before) June 6, 1944, you'll need to look elsewhere, for Ryan focuses on the sixth itself and discusses strategic elements virtually not at all (except for some tangential remarks on Germany's strategy for defending occupied France). But at the level of the soldier on the ground, in the thick of battle, this is great reading.

Ryan breaks his book down into three parts: "The Wait," "The Night," and "The Day." The first part details the day or two before the invasion, during which the tense Allies finally decided that the sixth and not the fifth would be D-Day and during which things worsened for an already unprepared German army (such as Rommel's departure from the front for a visit home). After something of an anti-climax on June 5, when the landings were pushed back a day, events accelerate rapidly. After midnight on June 6 ("The Night"), paratroopers land behind the beaches. The Germans were surprised, but the Allied effort was confused and scattered since many paratroopers missed their drop zones by as much as miles.

Dawn brings even greater surprise to the German leadership in France, most of whom believed the invasion would come at Calais, when they spy the massive invasion force with its thousands of vessels off the coast at Normandy. Americans land in the west at Utah and Omaha, while British and Canadian forces land at Sword, Juno, and Gold in the east. Classic episodes ensue at Utah, where resistance is light and troops under Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., move inland to meet up with airborne soldiers. Much bloodier combat took place on Omaha, where many Americans fell. Omar Bradley was on the verge of pulling back from Omaha and re-directing troops to Utah when men of the 1st and 29th Divisions finally gained a foothold and began to break down the Germans' fortified positions and pillboxes. Meanwhile, to the east, British troops are led into battle by bagpipes and achieve successes.

Portrayed mostly through the eyes of the troops, Ryan's account is gripping, engaging, exciting. For the most part, he follows the American-British-Canadian offensive, but he also gives attention to the German defenders (including a particularly interesting account of a company inside a pillbox). Ryan captures the confusion on both sides and conveys that things soon fell into place for the Allies while the Germans seemed to fall into greater and greater disarray. It would be a long fight--another eleven months--until Germany fell, but that struggle began on the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944: the longest day.