Among American martial milestones, D-Day, June 6, holds a reverence in our collective memory equaled only by the Battle of Gettysburg and Washington's crossing of the Delaware River—an eminence whose warm glow has deepened as twilight falls over the Greatest Generation. Nearly every American president since Jimmy Carter has made the pilgrimage to Normandy's windswept cliffs to pay tribute to the “Boys of Pointe du Hoc” and thousands of others who launched Western Europe's liberation on five blood-soaked beaches.
The battle's resonance lies not only in its epic scale—history's largest amphibious invasion—but in its easily comprehended, “High Noon” format: democracy versus tyranny, free citizens hurling themselves at an Atlantic Wall studded with cannon, machine guns and Hitler's Übermenschen.
Since the invasion's first grainy photos were snapped by Robert Capa on Omaha Beach, writers have labored to capture the invasion's sound and fury. Cornelius Ryan's “The Longest Day” (1959) remains the early high-water mark, though the story has been recounted in varying styles by the likes of Stephen Ambrose, Antony Beevor and John Keegan.
As the invasion's 75th anniversary approaches, a fresh platoon of books have hit the beach and dropped their landing ramps. The spearhead version, lean and effective, is Alex Kershaw's fast-paced “The First Wave” (Dutton Caliber, 368 pages, $30). Mr. Kershaw, a British-born resident of Savannah, Ga., has walked Normandy's beaches and bluffs many times, and tackles the invasion through the eyes of Allied soldiers shouldering a jumble of interconnected missions, talents and emotions.
Capt. Frank Lillyman, son of an American mercenary, leads the first boots into Fortress Europe at the head of 18 pathfinders, who set up landing lights for the first wave of paratroopers. Maj. John Howard, a British glider-troop commander from London, survives a 95-mph landing on a stone-studded field and battles his way through German fire. Lt. Col. Terence Otway, who “looked more like an introspective academic than the leader of 750 of the toughest men in the entire British invasion force,” is welcomed to France by German gunners firing tracer bullets into his parachute.
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