Customer Reviews

Spearheading D-Day: American Special Units, 6 June, 1944

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Ever wonder what the difference is between an LCI, LCM, LCVP, or LST? All these mysteries and a host of others are clearly explained with charts, maps color graphics, etc. Equipment and D-Day organization of all amphibious elements including Naval Beach battalions, Amphibious Engineers, Rangers and Infantry are depicted along with their equipment and objectives. Suffice it to say I learned more in one hour of perusing this book than in four decades of reading other books on D-Day. Although the author chose not to write about the Airborne landings, I even found obscure details pertaining to the 101st (thrown in as incidentals by the author) which I didn't know about-and Airborne is my specialty. Don't miss this valuable book-it's every bit as important as The Longest Day. From Mark Bando, author of The 101st Airborne at Normandy and Breakout At Normandy.

This is the most complete, most carefully researched, and most beautifully produced book about the D-Day landings that I have ever seen. Anybody who wants detailed and accurate information on these landings needs this book. Period.

didn't buy this book earlier!!! Absolutely top notch history of the special sea-bourne American units at Normandy. Maps & photos and narrative all combine into an informative and captivating tale. Even if you are a D-Day buff with a large reference library, you will learn much from this excellent edition. It seems pricey, but it is worth all of it & more. You will not regret getting this one!
I hope this sets a pattern for books about the British & Canadian units and their efforts and successes that day. When you realise the scope of just the American beach landings, you will see the huge, multi-volume collection that would be needed to address *all* the units involved. Buy it and and spend some time with it.

I thought that I had read just about all there is to read about D-Day, but this book is crammed full of completely new information that really brings the events of the 6th of June 1944 to life. Jonathan Gwane is to be congratulated and I look forward to his next work.

Gawne's over-sized book is packed with photos and illustrations that bring D-Day visually to life. Although nicely laid out, its pages are dense with both text and visuals. This is a BIG book that gives one the sense of the fog being lifted over the channel for a clear view. One can spend many hours browsing the pages and drinking it all in.

Jon's book is a invaluable campanion to all the other books on D-Day in my library. It blends a wealth of information from the Assault troops to the Beach battalions to gear information into one excellent volume. I didnt realize how lengthy and informative the book was until it arrived at my home. Thank you Jon for a job well done on the little known aspects of D-Day.

I just bought this book the other day and I must say that it's an amazing book filled with info and plenty of great photos. I haven't even seen a lot of the material in this book ever before and I have done a fair amount of research on D-Day. Bottom line this is a great book!

THE best book on D-day I have ever seen. Units and events I never knew existed. Great NEW research. Photos with correct captions, unlike the other books that just copy from each other.

I love the layout with the mix of text, wartime photos, color photos of equipment and diagrams. Please write more like this one!

Probably the most important book on D-day since "The Longest Day." I kid you not. This one will make every other Normandy author squirm when they see the errors in their books corrected. Go see for yourself. (oh, and its really big).

Just when you think that this is another re-hashing off all the often-copied stuff that's in every D-Day book you've ever seen...
Guess again, Skippy. This isn't your Daddy's D-Day book!
Gawne thankfully dusted off UNPUBLISHED information on largely ignored subjects regarding the Normandy landings, and I for one am glad to have this book in my collection.
Amphibious forces, Engineers and even Navy Beach Masters were all there, but you never see them in other books. Gawne takes previously unknown information, couples it with outstanding graphics and puts them together in THE BEST book on the subject to come out since.... well, I can't say when another such book was ever written!
And even though I'm a huge Airborne fan, I have to say this:
"Thanks, Jon, for not having half the book on Airborne forces! We needed another book on the subject like we needed more holes in our heads!"

My father was a D-Day medical officer June 6, 1944. Historians who write definitive books about Americans at D-Day and fail to mention the Army/Navy gap assault teams, LCI sailors, Army Engineer Special Brigades and attached Naval Beach Battalions, have left out the "backbone" of the Normandy invasion. Jonathan Gawne's Spearheading D-Day: American Special Units in Normandy set the record straight in 1998. Military authors should not feel bad if their books were published before Spearheading D-Day. Up to 1992, when Gawne first wrote about the "forgotten sailors of the invasion beaches," most naval historians were unaware that their own were some of the first ashore on D-Day. Spearheading D-Day, covering American forces in France, is simply the best invasion book published since Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day.