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Ten Days To D-Day: Citizens and Soldiers on the Eve of the Invasion

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Most books published about D-Day give scant mention to the background of the invasion, and concentrate on the invasion itself, and its aftermath. This extremely well-written book covers the 10 days that preceeded the invasion, through the lives not only of the important political and military folks involved, but also the common people. We share the lives of paratroopers, ground troops, signal interceptors, spies, prisoners, and others, and learn about their contributions, however small, to the ultimate success of the invasion. It is writing of personal history at its best, and we do get to be informed as to what happened to these people we grew to care about after the invasion. Several of them are still alive, and they, and the multitude of others who have gone to their rest deserve our eternal gratitude for what they all did for us that glorious 6th of June, 1944.

There are so many aspects of this book that are praise worthy it's difficult to know where to start.
The dramatic build up to the D-Day invasion.
The superb pacing.
The fully drawn historical figures.
The variety of people and places depicted.
The important contribution to our understanding of D-Day.
David Stafford's "Ten Days to D-Day" is one of the best and most important works on World War II I've read in recent years. It is a testament to Stafford's amazing talents as a researcher and a writer. The author acquaints us with such disparate figures as Adolph Hitler, a young English woman supporting the war effort as a WREN, an American paratrooper, Charles DeGaulle, a Gestapo prisoner in Norway, a member of the French resistance to name a few.
We follow these people and numerous others in the ten days before the greatest sea-to-land invasion ever contemplated. We share their anxieties, fears, hopes and plans. We get to know not only where they were in those ten days but how they got there. Stafford never lingers with any person to long, deftly going from one person to the next while ultimately still managing to give full justice to each story. Because of the breadth of characters, Stafford hardly ever needs to step away to offer perspective, it's there. He also eschews "cheating," almost never framing his stories with latter-day knowledge.
This would be a useful to students of World War II especially those with a particular interest in D--Day. At the same time it would serve as a great introduction to the war and this aspect of it to a newcomer. Yet at the same time it would be an entertaining for someone just looking for a good read. Remarkable.

In Norway, a captured member of the Resistance keeps a secret diary by poking tiny holes in toilet paper. In the relative safety of Britain, a young member of the Women's Royal Naval Services, a Wren, works long, grueling hours underground, coding and decoding ships' messages. Also in Britain, a young Canadian soldier fights frustration and boredom, waiting for the order to move out.

In France, a member of the Resistance listens anxiously to the BBC on a tiny radio hidden inside a soup can. A German soldier stationed in France writes home wishful assurances that all is well. TEN DAYS TO D-DAY follows these and many others as they count down the minutes to H-hour and what happenS when the signal is given. There is much pain and struggle ahead, but it marks the beginning of the end of the War.

Drawing from diaries, official records and first-hand accounts, David Stafford has compiled a gripping history of extraordinary courage and sacrifice in the most dramatic, agonizing days of the European front in World War II. Especially appropriate at the sixtieth anniversary of D-Day, it is every bit as exciting as Tom Clancy's best. And it's all true.

Reviewed at Myshelf.com

David Stafford is an unusual historian. He writes analytical books that study the Second World War, mostly from the perspective of the intelligence war and the partisans. He writes clearly and intelligently, and spends most of his time analyzing the various parts of the war, and their meaning. This book, by contrast, is something that is for Stafford completely different: instead of the intelligence war, and instead of analysis, Stafford instead focuses on showing us the world or a large part of it during the ten days leading up to the D-Day invasion.

The book focuses on various people in various walks of life who did various things during the war. The book is divided into chapters, one for each of the 10 days, the last being D-Day itself. Each of those chapters is divided into sections, each of which highlights the daily life and experiences of someone involved, directly or indirectly, in the war. They range from a Canadian infantry lieutenant and an American paratrooper to a British female code clerk, an SOE operative in France, all the way around to a Jew hiding in someone's house in France and a Norwegian resister in prison for assisting in the publication of an underground newspaper. Each of these individuals is followed through their daily lives, the soldiers preparing for the invasion, the rest wondering when it would happen.

One really unusual and interesting wrinkle that Stafford manages to incorporate is that the characters he chose to follow weren't all survivors of the events covered in the book. This involves a little harmless invention of presumed emotions and thoughts, but frankly that's overshadowed by the uniqueness of what he writes. For instance, one of the pictures in the picture section shows Sherman tanks lined up in an English village, with housewives hanging washing out to dry right next to them.

It's rather surprising that at this late date someone could write something unique on D-Day and the campaign in France. The fact remains, however, that this is a very unique book, and a very interesting one.

The iconography --- or, to be more accurate, the cinematography --- of the Normandy invasion is so compelling that it threatens to drown out all other discussion of the battle. The Airborne divisions, huddled aboard flimsy cargo planes, waiting to jump into the heart of darkness. German troopers in coastline bunkers, marveling at the line of ships, spreading across the horizon. Soaking-wet infantrymen going once more into the breach at the Omaha landing. The Rangers assaulting the guns of Pointe du Hoc. These are the images we remember, and treasure, but they are not the be-all and end-all of Normandy, nor could they be.

TEN DAYS TO D-DAY is about the preparation and the waiting. "We defy augury," Hamlet tells us. "If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all." The readiness, not the eventual conflict itself, is the theme of the book; the anxiety and the curiosity that enveloped the two sides, both waiting for the hammer-blow to fall, not knowing where or when, hostage to the weather and to fortune.

David Stafford's book starts in medias res --- literally, in the middle of a daring parachute jump behind enemy lines. It is concerned with two groups of people --- one group familiar to the reader, the other group not. The familiar group is the generals and politicians and other assorted leaders who were making the preparations for what would come on June 6th, 1944. This is the group responsible for the high politics: determining where the Allied blow would fall on the German side, and ensuring strategic surprise, French cooperation and combat readiness on the Allied side. (This involves interesting trivia, like the details of Hitler's medical care and the kerfuffle regarding whether Churchill would be allowed to hit the beaches with the troops personally.) This is the group that you expect to read about --- Eisenhower, Rommel, Montgomery, DeGaulle, Roosevelt --- and Stafford does a stellar job of explicating their thoughts, feelings and strategies, right down to Eisenhower managing stress by putting invisible golf balls on his office carpet.

The second group whose actions are highlighted in TEN DAYS TO D-DAY is much more diverse, having really only one thing in common. All of them were inveterate diarists, which means something. We are now, as of this writing, sixty years from June 1944, and the members of the D-Day generation are seeing their numbers dwindle into infinity. Interviews and oral histories are becoming increasingly more difficult to obtain. Stafford's choice --- going back into the library to retrieve diaries and letters --- is a sad one, but increasingly necessary.

Stafford's diarists cover a wide swathe of the D-Day events, including some people who were completely uninvolved. The idea apparently is to choose the most interesting diary entries for the time frame, and that necessarily involves people who had little or nothing to do with the invasion. There is the young woman serving in a "Wren" unit in Southern England, the heroic actuary languishing in a Nazi prison cell in Norway, and the Jewish hairdresser hiding from the Gestapo in a Paris garret.

None of these diarists really affect the invasion in any meaningful way, but they have their place in the story --- the invasion is being fought on their behalf, if nothing else. This does make for some jarring transitions, with the narrative skipping around from rural French cottages serving as Resistance centers to high-level strategic meetings in Eisenhower's trailer --- but anyone who has read a Tom Clancy novel will be familiar with the structure.

Even in choosing the period before D-Day, TEN DAYS TO D-DAY traverses well-trodden ground; there isn't much new information here (except for the explanation of how the Daily Telegraph crossword editor put "Overlord," "Omaha" and "Mulberry" into his puzzles). Stafford's achievement here is putting his team of diarists into the action, introducing them to the reader, and breathing new life into their words and deeds.

--- Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds

No doubt one of my favorite books of all time.
I got this book as a birthday present a year or two again, and kept on putting it off. I don't know why, I'm interested in the war, I just didn't start it for a while. But when I got into it I knew that I'd love it. It was researched down to... well, let's just say that if it's a minute detail that happened back then, it's in the book. And you can prove it by looking at the bibliography! But the book is so emotional and intense that once you get into it there's no putting it down. I loved this book and would recommend to anyone.

this is one fascinating book which I recommend to anyone interested in WWII. Its uniqueness resides in the way the author approaches D-Day, allowing the reader to get to know how those pre D Day days were lived by civilians, soldiers, secret agents and leaders of the great assault. Now I know what Churchill did , what was on Eisenhower's mind when he decided what he decided, what de Gaulle thought and how he acted, how the germans were fooled time and time again by allied intelligence, how important secret agents work was for the success of the invasion and it also accounts for the work of many unknown heroes. A great book, a great approach of D Day.

This is a collection of stories that make the days leading to the Normandy invasion come back to life. It is a good companion volume for the movies "Yanks" and "The Longest Day."

General Eisenhower relieved stress by hitting an imaginary golf ball in his office; General Montgomery named his two dogs Rommel and Hitler; Churchill's wife Clementine often sent him notes signed "Love from Clemmie" with a small drawing of a cat.

Several days before the troops sailed for France, security was intense. A British soldier who knew about the invasion sneaked out of his camp and hitchhiked to see his parents and girlfriend. Along the way he bought drinks and told several American soldiers details of the coming invasion.

When he was discovered missing, a quiet but intense manhunt covered the area. He was finally found and interrogated. The American base where he had stopped was cordoned off, and the people who gave him rides were found and volunteered to stay inside their homes for several days. Later the British soldier was sentenced to ten years in prison.

A British newspaper published daily crossword puzzles, and one contained the words "Utah," "mulberry," and "Omaha," all key words describing D-Day operations. Frantic British intelligence agents interrogated the author of the puzzle, a school teacher. Years after the war it was found that his students gave him suggestions for his crossword puzzles. Utah, mulberry, and Omaha were terms that they had heard by spending time with soldiers.

In spite of extraordinary security measures, there were other leaks. Three days before the invasion, a Teletype operator practiced typing the invasion news. By mistake the news went out worldwide and was read on hundreds of radio stations.

The British people knew when the invasion was at hand. They had become accustomed to seeing lines of jeeps, trucks, and trailers laden with backpacks and equipment along the roads. The olive drab uniforms and vehicles became as ubiquitous as the green of the spring countryside. Then overnight, the crowds of GIs that had milled through the towns disappeared. After months of hearing vehicles roaring through streets and voices of soldiers that filled the shops, the towns were strangely quiet.

On the night before the invasion, General Eisenhower and his driver, Kay Summersby, watched rows of C-47 transport planes roar into the sky from an airfield outside Newbury. The planes were heading for Normandy carrying airborne troops. As Eisenhower and Summersby walked back to the car to leave, she noticed tears in his eyes.

General Rommel was celebrating his wife's birthday in Germany when he heard news that the Allies had landed at Normandy. During the drive back to France, Rommel sat impatiently in the back of his speeding car punching a gloved fist into the open palm of the other gloved hand.

This book came highly recommended by a friend so I had great expectations. I was disappointed however. As a history buff, I had read all these stories before. It was like listening to the film "The Longest Day". The book did not keep my interest at all.