"D-Day Atlas: Anatomy of the Normandy Campaign" by Charles Messenger

UK Edition

"June 2004-2005 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the largest amphibious military operation in history. D-Day was the culmination of four years of planning and preparation, which had begun in summer 1940 when Britain stood alone and under imminent threat of a German cross-Channel invasion. This groundbreaking study of D-Day and the subsequent campaign charts the gradual evolution of the invasion plan, encompassing the intelligence efforts, the Anglo-U.S. strategic debate over where the Allies should attack, and the elaborate deception put in place to fool the Germans about the true D-Day objective. The buildup culminates in an hour-by-hour and day-by-day account of the landings by air and by sea on the beaches of Normandy—Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword—and the subsequent grim struggle for six weeks to break through the German defenses."

"Omaha Beach D-Day June 6, 1944" by Joseph Balkoski

UK Edition

"Omaha Beach saw the greatest drama and loss of life on D-Day and was critically important to subsequent Allied total victory in World War II. In this gripping new book, historian Joseph Balkoski tells the story of June 6, 1944, when largely untested American troops assaulted the German army's Atlantic wall. Equal parts oral history and meticulous reconstruction, including the invasion's diplomatic and strategic context, Omaha Beach is the closest the modern reader can get to experiencing the Normandy landings firsthand. A fitting tribute to the veterans as well as an engaging narrative, it promises to become a classic on one of America's, and indeed, the world's, most important days in history."

"The D-Day Companion" by Jane Penrose (Editor)

UK Edition

"With a foreword by Major Richard Winters, Easy Company, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne, and published to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landings, this book brings together the perspectives and opinions of some of the most respected military historians working today. More than a dozen leading historians from either side of the Atlantic have collaborated to produce a unique and incisive examination of the momentous events that surrounded June 6, 1944. Operation Overlord saw some of the Allies' greatest military strategists, Eisenhower and Montgomery, pit their wits against Hitler in a bold bid to liberate continental Europe. Each chapter of this new book focuses on a different aspect the D-Day landings, from the build-up to the attack to the experiences of the troops on the ground."

"Fortitude: The D-Day Deception Campaign" by Roger Hesketh & Nigel West (Introduction)

UK Edition

"Behind the astonishing success of D-Day was the most sophisticated deception scheme ever devised. Its code name was "Fortitude," and its objective was to persuade the enemy that the long-awaited landings would take place in the Pas-de-Calais and that any attack in Normandy could be safely ignored. The Nazis relied on aerial reconnaissance, wireless intercepts, news from London-based diplomats, and reports from the Abwehr's extensive network of agents to predict the time and place of the Allied offensive, and much of this misinformation was helpfully supplied by Roger Hesketh's team of deception specialists, who coordinated the most complex conjuring trick of the century. The classified official history of the entire operation, written by Roger Hesketh as Allied counter-intelligence experts were gathering the evidence of what had been accomplished in early 1945, has at last been declassified and released. In Fortitude, the intricate details of this fantastic diversionary scheme are disclosed with the type of immediacy that can only come from first-hand material."

"D-Day the First 24 Hours" by Will Fowler

"In any military operation throughout history, few 24-hour periods have been as crucial as that of June 6 of 1994. Nearly 7000 ships landed over 132,000 US, British and Canadian troops on the beaches of Normandy in the biggest amphibious landing ever attempted. During that first day the allied forces were at their most vulnerable to German counterattack. Had the landings failed, the course of the war would have been altered. With the aid of specially commissioned maps, D-Day The First 24 Hours narrates the dramatic history of the first 24 hours of the Normandy landings, and explains in detail the events that occurred in each landing zone. With first-hand accounts from both sides, vivid color photographs, and specially commissioned maps of the landing areas and combat zones, D-Day The First 24 Hours is a comprehensive examination of the first 24 hours of the liberation of Europe."

"D-Day: The Greatest Invasion: A People's History" by Dan Van Der Vat & John S. D. Eisenhower (Introduction)

"It was the greatest invasion of all time. Early on the morning of June 6, 1944, thousands of Allied soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy-not only streaming from the sea but also sweeping in from the air-and launched a massive assault on Nazi-occupied France. In sixteen unforgettable hours, these heroic men succeeded in breaching the Third Reich's impregnable defenses, leading the way to the liberation of Europe. As the sixtieth anniversary approaches, those who remember that epic invasion are rapidly dwindling in number. Now, their gripping eyewitness accounts-most of them never before published-are woven into an authoritative new look at that unforgettable "longest day" by distinguished military historian Dan van der Vat."

"Bodyguard of Lies: The Extraordinary True Story Behind
D-Day" by Anthony Cave Brown (Editor)

"On June 6, 1944-D-Day-six thousand Allied ships, the largest fleet in history, arrived off the French coast to begin the liberation of Europe. To their enormous relief, the Allies had obtained complete tactical surprise; the Nazi eagle slept. D-Day, which could have been one of history's bloodiest disasters, became instead one of its greatest victories. How this astonishing surprise was achieved is the subject of Bodyguard of Lies, one of the most exciting volumes ever written about the Second World War. Telling the most complete story of the biggest and most complicated intelligence operation in the history of war, Bodyguard of Lies presents a large and fascinating cast of heroes and rogues and sweeps through dozens of dramatic stories of plot and counterplot, stealth and treachery."

"Our Finest Day: D-Day: June 6, 1944" by Mark Bowden & Stephen E. Ambrose (Introduction)

"D-Day is one of the significant turning points in wartime history and was the largest single military operation ever launched. In Our Finest Day, best-selling author Mark Bowden reveals the human faces behind this brutal battle, using reproductions of original documents. Included in these pages are personal letters and poignant journal entries from soldiers, secret dispatches and pages from code books, and strategic battle plans and maps. These removable artifacts-from the collection of the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans-allow readers to hold a piece of history in their hands.Imagine holding a replica of the last letter written home by a soldier as he waited nervously for the attack to begin, or the message sent to Allied headquarters in England informing them that the beaches had been taken."

"Voices from D-Day" by Jonathan Bastable

"D-Day, June 6 1944, was the glorious turning-point in the Second World War. More than that, it was a pivotal day in human history. On that morning the largest armada ever assembled carried 150,000 men, British, American, Canadian, across the English Channel. Those men set down on a bleak and heavily fortified stretch of the Normandy coast, where they fought to end what Churchill called the new dark age of Nazi domination. All the men who came through that day had a story to tell: the soldiers, sailors, and airmen, but also the people of Northern France, the politicians and planners, the army clerks and factory workers. Voices of D-Day is their account of that great undertaking and is the story of events leading up to D-Day itself and the aftermath. Voices of D-Day contains new accounts from archives and many new interviews with people who were there."

"Hoodwinking Hitler: The Normandy Deception" by William B. Breuer

"Hoodwinking Hitler is a you-are-there, action-packed account of the intricate deception plans and operations that misled German intelligence professionals--and Adolf Hitler--about the timing and locale of the June 1944 Normandy invasion of Fortress Europe. Every facet of the monumental deception plan is treated in depth; diplomacy, electronic codes and code-breaking, intelligence, counter-intelligence, double agents, the French underground, camouflage, strategic feints, global whispering campaigns, and tactical sacrifices. The success of the Allies in this campaign of deception led to victory in one of the most successful military campaigns in history."