Nothing Less Than Victory: The Oral History of D-Day [Paperback]

Russell Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 7, 1998

June 6, 1994, marks the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy that changed the course of the Second World War. As Russell Miller writes in his Foreword to this extraordinary book, Nothing Less Than Victory is "the story of D-Day" as it has never been told before - entirely by those who took part, on both sides. It is compiled from many sources - from letters home, diaries, memoranda, official reports and from innumerable interviews with veterans in the United States, Canada, France, and Germany. "D-Day was the greatest amphibious operation the world has ever seen, a truly staggering feat of logistics which involved putting ashore in Normandy a total of 176,475 men, 3,000 guns, 1,500 tanks and 15,000 other assorted vehicles. Some 11,000 ships were committed to the invasion force; 10,500 air sorties were flown. . . . "But none of these figures meant anything to the men who were there. Soldiers neither know nor care about grand strategy, the big picture; what they care about is trying to stay alive and trying to make sense of what is happening immediately around them. For the soldiers huddled in the assault craft approaching the beaches, for parachutists waiting to jump into the unknown night, for men packed into wooden gliders swooping down onto the Normandy countryside and braced for impact, for German troops in bunkers and trenches, D-Day was nothing but fear, confusion, noise, muddle, chaos . . . hysteria and horror interspersed with flashes of heroism and humor. . . . "As the inexorable buildup continues, the men who are to take part in this moment of history describe their feelings, the anticlimax of the twenty-four-hour postponement, the tortuous crossing ofthe Channel, the eventual storming of the beaches and the bloody struggle to gain a foothold on French soil. "The story ends at midnight on June 6, 1944, with the last, poignant, voices: the British officer who takes a midnight stroll on Sword Beach and finds he is not walking o

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Old soldiers are always happy to talk about their past campaigns," writes Miller ( The Resistance ), "but getting them to talk about their feelings is not so easy." Old soldiers from the U.S., Canada, Britain, France and Germany hold forth eloquently here on what D-Day felt like. The author has also collected interesting observations by British civilians on the assembly and training of Allied forces, as well as recollections by French civilians living in Normandy at the time. The book is unusual in many respects: German defenders are given greater voice than in other recent D-Day histories; the reconstructions of actual combat are exceptionally gruesome ("I had to do something about the brain, which was just lying there"). The book is replete with pertinent oddments that convey the invasion's broad scope: the text of a note written by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to himself and stowed in his wallet just before he launched the invasion armada; the story of a GI bookie ("5 to 2 this ship will be sunk by shore batteries"); the reminiscences of a British man who as a 14-year-old telegraph messenger had to deliver the first death notices to parents. A superb oral history. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The celebration of the 50th anniversary of D-Day, the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, has set in motion a rush to publish new materials on the greatest naval and land assault in history. Using stories written and told to wives, girlfriends, and family, Miller makes the horrendous battle come alive. In contrast to other, nearly identical, works (e.g., editor Ronald Drez's Voices of D-Day, Louisiana State Univ. Pr., 1994), Miller writes a narrative using nearly the exact words of the men in battle, quoting where necessary to make the story flow. Often pages in Miller and those in Drez list identical notes, but Miller is at once readable and historically accurate. Recommended for public and academic libraries.
--Harry Willems, Kansas Lib. System, Iola
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; First Edition edition (October 7, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688168450
• ISBN-13: 978-0688168452
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,850,348 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Russell Miller is a prize-winning journalist and the author of eight previous books. His oral histories of D-Day, Nothing Less Than Victory, and the Special Operations Executive, Behind the Lines, were widely acclaimed. His most recent book was Codename Tricycle: The True Story of the Second World War's Most Extraordinary Double Agent. He lives in Britain.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars outstanding oral history, August 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Nothing Less Than Victory: The Oral History of D-Day (Paperback)

This book is one of the most powerful historical accounts I have read relating to D-day. The accounts come from a wide range of sources, from German soldiers manning the bunkers to French civilians caught in the crossfire. This book gives a vivid account of what it was like to be involved in the D-day invasion from all sides. It depicts the boredom pre-invasion to the sheer horror of the invasion itself. I highly reccomend it!!!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Of Men and Battle, February 6, 2000

By 

Scott Anderson "Sharpsburg" (Shepherdstown, WV) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nothing Less Than Victory: The Oral History of D-Day (Paperback)

Men and machine were combined to form one of the most awesome military operations the world has ever seen. On 6 June 1944, this power was unleashed upon Nazi Germany in such a manner that books, stories and documentaries are still being written as if the battle had just been fought.

This book goes even deeper, using accounts from both sides of the war to portray the feelings of those in battle. Statistics on the projected wounded, killed and missing meant nothing to the men on that day. Their sole purpose was to carry out their orders and survive to someday make it home to their loved ones.

In Mr. Miller's foreword he relates of trying to get those he interviewed to tell of what if felt like to be at Normandy, and what was going through their heads as they approached the beaches.

This book is refereshing in that the author hits his mark and works to portray both sides of the struggle by detailing what the men felt, and not just their reflections on the battle or military strategy. As you progress through the book you will find that the author has done just that and more. It's a "riveting soldier's-eye view of the deadly confusion of battle . . . a significant contribution to military and D-Day literature."

"Nothing Less than Vistory" is quite moving and comes highly recommended to those interested in first hand accounts detailing the leadup and subsequent invasion of Normandy.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary Is Too Meek A Word, April 22, 2008

By 

Notnadia (Currently upstairs.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nothing Less Than Victory: The Oral History of D-Day (Paperback)

This is history at its best, history at its most priceless, history rescued from the oblivion that time ultimately brings. For the memories of so many first-hand participants to have been gathered together so that actual D-Day veterans can describe in their own words the progress of that momentous, terrible day is a work of extreme value now and for all time. Exceeds all other works on the June 6, 1944 Normandy landing that I've read, not excluding those of the masterful Stephen Ambrose. If a student of the Second World War were to read this book and Studs Turkel's invaluable oral history masterpiece, The Good War, then that person would be as well-versed in facts as an undergraduate who'd taken a dozen credit hours worth of classroom lectures. I sincerely mean that. Russell Miller's Nothing Less Than Victory sets the standard not only for World War Two writing, but for any "first-hand" historical piece yet to be produced.