Extraordinary and excruciating, “Landing on the Edge of Eternity” might be the hardcover version of “Saving Private Ryan“‘s torturous opening minutes. Or a nonfiction reprise of Irwin Shaw's “The Young Lions,” which humanized soldiers on both sides of World War II.
British author Robert Kershaw doesn't cosset such niceties in this account of D-Day on Omaha Beach. Rather, as he relates the ordeals of both the invading Americans and defensive Germans hour-by-hour, he focuses on nuts and bolts: The muzzle velocity of German 88s (2,600 feet per second), the weight of a GI's “equipment overload” (68.4 pounds), the depth of American bodies piling up (“two meters high” said one German. “It wasn't my fault I had killed so many people there.”)
One suspects that Mr. Kershaw, a soldier himself, set out to write an expressly military history, ascertaining which infantry company landed where when, and which landing ship, tank (LST) foundered x yards from the beach. But within that book he wrote another, about war. It is hard to put down and harder to read.
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