Utah Beach: The Amphibious Landing and Airborne Operations on D-Day, June 6, 1944 [Hardcover]

Joseph Balkoski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 19, 2005

Companion volume to the critically acclaimed Omaha Beach

A brilliantly researched and engagingly written comprehensive history of this momentous World War II battle that includes many never before published firsthand accounts by the men who were there

Features a series of detailed maps allowing the reader unparalleled insight into the minute-by-minute combat on Utah Beach, plus comprehensive lists of all Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Cross winners at Utah Beach, and much more

In this much-anticipated follow-up to his acclaimed Omaha Beach, historian Joseph Balkoski chronicles the amphibious landings and airborne operations at Utah Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Part of the story is already familiar: Among the paratroopers who landed with the 101st Airborne was the company Stephen Ambrose followed in Band of Brothers. Using firsthand after-action reports and unit journals, Balkoski creates a compelling narrative of the fighting at Utah Beach on D-Day, while meticulously constructed maps pinpoint key geographical features and show unit locations as the action unfolds.

Added to the invasion plan largely at the insistence of British General Bernard Montgomery, the attack at Utah Beach aimed to secure the Cotentin Peninsula and ultimately seize the port of Cherbourg. Although the assault on Utah Beach became one of the most successful American military operations of World War II, it was fraught with risk from the beginning: Not only was Utah the most isolated of the five D-Day beaches, but the airborne operation was of unprecedented size and scope. Despite the perils, American troops cascaded into that corner of Normandy from the sea and the sky, gaining a military triumph that contributed decisively to Allied success on D-Day. This book is both an engaging narrative and a tribute to the men who stormed the beaches and dropped from the sky.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Utah Beach is a first-class history, impeccably researched and skillfully written . . . by the foremost historian of the American D-Day experience. -- Carlo D'Este, Naval History magazine, December 2005

Even the most seasoned historian will find something new in these pages. -- Army magazine, September 2005

From the Inside Flap

In the early-morning darkness of June 6, 1944, a fleet of U.S. Army Air Force C-47s roared through the skies over Normandy as 13,000 U.S. paratroopers dropped into the marshes and villages behind the beach code-named Utah. A few hours later, American infantrymen--21,000 by day’s end--surged out of landing craft and rushed the beach itself. D-Day had begun.

Yet Allied commanders were troubled. The plan for Utah Beach had not even existed four months earlier, having been tacked onto Operation Overlord largely at the insistence of Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower and D-Day ground commander British Gen. Bernard Montgomery. A combined airborne and seaborne invasion of this magnitude had never before been attempted. Many feared that the elite American troops executing the assault would be slaughtered. Not only was Utah the most isolated of the five D-Day beaches--which meant the troops could be cut off for days--but the German defenders had flooded huge tracts of land behind the beach in the airborne drop zones. To move inland, the infantry would have to trudge over a few narrow causeways secured by the paratroopers at the opposite ends. On D-Day, this bold operation would end in either a secure footing on the coast of France, or a bloody repulse back across the English Channel.

Success would mark the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany and the liberation of Europe. Failure would paralyze the Allies and prolong the struggle for months, if not years. American troops knew the stakes were high and the perils grave. Nevertheless, from the sea and sky, they confidently cascaded into that far corner of Normandy and contributed decisively to the Allied triumph on D-Day.

In Utah Beach: The Amphibious Landing and Airborne Operations on D-Day, June 6, 1944, Joseph Balkoski shows how American soldiers, sailors, and airmen gained that victory in the face of long odds. With the same verve and authority that made his earlier Omaha Beach so compelling, he weaves firsthand accounts, meticulously detailed maps, and dramatic storytelling into the first truly comprehensive narrative of this critical World War II battle. It is indispensable history and unforgettable reading.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Stackpole Books (July 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811701441
• ISBN-13: 978-0811701440
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #299,510 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in NYC and graduated from Vassar College in 1975. I also gained an M.A. in history at New York University. I moved to Baltimore in 1981 and have been here ever since. As soon as I moved here I became fascinated with the US Army's 29th Infantry Division because so many of my neighbors served in it. I have been very honored not only to know past members of the division well, but also its current members, since I serve as Historian for the Maryland National Guard. Both the old and young soldiers are fabulous people and always keep my life interesting. In my spare time, I play the piano and participate in various sports activities as much as I can.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but offers Primarily US Perspectives, October 23, 2005

By 

R. A Forczyk (MD, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Utah Beach: The Amphibious Landing and Airborne Operations on D-Day, June 6, 1944 (Hardcover)

Joseph Balkoski, a historian for the Maryland Army National Guard, is an expert on the 1944 Normandy invasion, as he demonstrated years ago in Up From the Beachhead. However, the US landings on Omaha Beach have tended to overshadow the equally important landings on Utah Beach as Balkoski notes, "the near disaster and shocking casualties on Omaha Beach have tended to dominate historical accounts of the American D-Day experience." In his latest volume, Utah Beach, Balkoski sets out to redress this imbalance. Balkoski covers both the V Corps landings on Utah as well as the supporting airborne assaults by the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions in great detail. In addition, Balkoski corrects some of the errors and misconceptions about Utah Beach that have appeared in both the official history and General Bradley's memoirs. Overall, this volume is a very good effort (although it lacks the incisive comment that made Up From the Beachhead such a valuable contribution) but it does suffer from a lack of German accounts and this is essentially a story told primarily from the US perspective.

Utah Beach consists of 11 chapters, four of which cover the development of the plan up to the movement to Normandy. Nine appendices cover US casualties, order of battle and post-battle awards. In chapter five, about one-third of the way through the book, the US troops begin arriving in Normandy. Balkoski weaves together first-person accounts and bits and pieces from various unit histories to provide a rich narrative on the US airborne landings and subsequent amphibious landings on Utah Beach. To be fair, many of these accounts appear in other books as well, but Balkoski also adds coherence to a very complex operation that other accounts lack. The narrative is also enhanced by two dozen maps that greatly clarify the tactical situation on an almost hour-by-hour basis.

Unfortunately, Balkoski's narrative provides very little from the German perspective, which substantially reduces the value of this book. The omission of German sources is particularly glaring given that a number of other D-Day books written in the past few years have added a great deal to the understanding of German actions on 6 June 1944. Indeed, Balkoski never even takes the time to discuss the actual German resistance nests on Utah Beach, even though forty years ago books by Paul Carrel and Cornelius Ryan both included accounts from the German W-5 nest. Although one of Balkoski's objectives in this book is to expose the inaccuracy of Bradley's statement that the landing on Utah Beach was "a piece of cake," his glossing over of the actual reduction of the German resistance nests on the beach does not support this goal. Nor is it only German sources that are missing from this book. In discussing the airborne drop around Ste. Mere Eglise, Balkoski fails to mention the inadvertent drop of a couple of paratrooper sticks in the town square, their subsequent massacre by the German garrison and Private John Steele's famous hang-up on the church steeple. Indeed, Balkoski never really mentions what happened to the German garrison in the town and merely notes that six paratrooper corpses were hanging in trees when US forces occupied the town.

Reading Balkoski, one gets the impression that the Germans had the means to crush the Utah landings were it not for the efforts of the airborne troops, but this is highly debatable. The Germans were unable to mount any significant counterattacks on D-Day until toward the end of the day and none of these were more than regimental-size. Although Balkoski mentions the German 6th Paratrooper Regiments counterattack against the 101st Airborne, he does not note that this attack cost the Germans the bulk of one battalion. Balkoski is also incorrect in assessing that the US forces were able to breach Hitler's Atlantic Wall on Utah Beach in less than two hours. The Atlantic Wall did not merely consist of the various bunkers and obstacles on the beach itself, but included all the pre-invasion defensive measures in the area, such as the flooded areas that bedeviled US operations in Normandy for days after D-Day. Furthermore, although V Corps punctured a one-mile wide hole in the German defenses at Utah, the march on the eventual goal of Cherbourg would have to push through several belts of coastal defenses around that city. Lately, it has become de rigueur for US historians to condemn the Atlantic Wall as worthless, but the fact is that weakness of German forces in France necessitated such measures and by and large, these measures did cost the Allies time and casualties (these critics ignore the fact that had the Germans possessed more air and tank reserves, the obstacle belts would not have been so easy to breach).

One of the best aspects of this book is that Balkoski includes virtually everyone who participated in the invasion in this sector, including troop carrier crews, the Special Engineer brigade, various corps attachments, the US Navy and even the usually-ignored 90th Infantry Division (which landed a few battalions late on D-Day). As Balkoski notes, the usual claim in the official history that US losses on Utah on D-Day were "fewer than 200" is incorrect since that only included data from the 4th Infantry Division, not the myriad of supporting units. Throughout D-Day, German mines and artillery fire inflicted serious casualties on the packed US units on Utah Beach and surrounding areas. Furthermore, Balkoski notes that when airborne casualties and naval casualties are factored in, the landing on Utah cost a similar number of casualties to Omaha. Overall, Balkoski's latest book is well worth reading for the valuable perspectives that he provides, but the inherent limitations in a book that focuses primarily on the US viewpoint on one day of a 90-day campaign put this book in the "do not use without consulting other sources" category.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book on the "Day of Days", February 19, 2006

By 

J. Groen "Jerry Groen" (GURNEE, ILLINOIS USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Utah Beach: The Amphibious Landing and Airborne Operations on D-Day, June 6, 1944 (Hardcover)

This is an excellent book on the "Day of Days" as coined by the film "Band of Brothers". This book fills out what the rest of American paratroops and Utah beach landing beach troops did on this day. Only one page is provided on Easy Company. And, what a story it is! General Teddy Roosevelt walking Utah Beach with a cane and leading the troops ashore, thereby being awarded the Medal of Honor. The officers and troopers of the 82nd airborne taking Ste. Mere Eglise and holding it against numerous German counterattacks. The holding of the bridges over Meridet River (shades of Saving Private Ryan although this story is accurate), stopping a tank attack with a bazooka. The capturing of the four causeways from Utah Beach by the 101st airborne allowing the Utah beach landing troops of the 4th Division to break through. There are many fascinating stories supporting this outline of the events. Yes, this was the Day of Days and this is a great book describing it. A great addition to the author's other great book on Omaha Beach.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, March 17, 2010

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Richard T. Peterson - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Utah Beach: The Amphibious Landing and Airborne Operations on D-day, June 6, 1944 (Paperback)

Not the same old info, he has a lot of original research. The book is well versed and it doesn't always offer the same tired conclusions. His thoughts on Montgomery were new and gave me something to think about. He also does a better job of explaining why the Americans were so dependent on Artillery vs the Germans who depended on thier machine guns. I think he does a better job than Stephen Ambrose in telling a true history instead of a "best selling story" written for Hollywood/TV. This is a book retired Military who want the real story.

Some of the information is rehashed from his previous books on the subject and they would be better served if written as a volume series so he does not have to repeat himself, but all of his books are worth reading.