The Armoured Campaign in Normandy PDF Download

Author: Ian Daglish
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1783034491
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 708

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Book Description
After seven weeks of bitter fighting there was a desperate need to break out of the Normandy bridgehead. In late July 1944 Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempseys Second Army moved two entire corps from the Caen sector to the relatively quiet countryside around Caumont. Here, the British XXX Corps prepared to give battle, with VII Corps advancing in support on the right flank between XXX Corps and the American first Army. The offensive did not go to plan. While the XXX Corps attack stalled, VIII Corps surged ahead. With the experienced 11th Armoured and 15th Scottish Divisions in the lead and Guards Armoured close behind, a deep penetration was made, threatening to take the pivotal city of Vire and unhinge General Haussers German Seventh Army.The main narrative of this book will span the initial break-in from Caumont on 30 July, through the armored battles of the following days, to the desperate German counter-attacks of 4 6 August, the no less desperate German defense of Estry up to the middle of the month, and the final withdrawal from Normandy. The book also examines Montys refusal to seize Vire, the disputed Anglo-American border and the Operations impact on the German Mortain offensive.

Author: Stephen Napier
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750964731
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Beginning with the D-day landings, this is a brutally frank appraisal of the planned use and actual results of the deployment of armour by both German and Allied commanders in the major tank battles of the Normandy campaign including operations Epsom, Goodwood, Cobra and Totalize. The Armoured Campaign in Normandy is a critique of Montgomery's plans to seize territory and break out and describes how they failed in the face of German resistance. It details the poor planning and mistakes of British senior commanders and how the German Army's convoluted chain of command contributed to their own defeat; these were decisions taken which cost the lives of the tank crews of both sides ordered to carry them out. Official reports, war diaries, after action reports, letters, regimental histories, memoirs of generals and recollections of tank men are used to tell the inside story of the campaign from an armour point of view to give a different but detailed perspective of the Normandy campaign from the men who fought in it.

Author: Steven J. Zaloga
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472826981
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
In June 1944 the Allies opened the long-awaited second front against Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, and this was to be the start of a long struggle throughout Western Europe for the Allied forces in the face of stiff German resistance. The European Theatre was where the bulk of the Allied forces were committed in the struggle against Nazi Germany. It saw some of the most famous battles and operations of the war – Normandy, Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge – as the Allies sought to liberate Western Europe in the face of bitter and hard-fought German resistance. From the beaches of D-Day through to the final battles in war-ravaged Germany, the war across the breadth and depth of Western Europe is brought to life through scores of carefully researched and intricately detailed maps.

Author: John Buckley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134203047
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
With essays from leading names in military history, this new book re-examines the crucial issues and debates of the D-Day campaign. It tackles a range of core topics, placing them in their current historiographical context, to present new and sometimes revisionist interpretations of key issues, such as the image of the Allied armies compared with the Germans, the role of air power, and the lessons learned by the military from their operations. As the Second World War is increasingly becoming a field of revisionism, this book sits squarely within growing debates, shedding new light on topics and bringing current thinking from our leading military and strategic historians to a wider audience. This book will be of great interest to students of the Second World War, and of military and strategic studies in general.

Author: Mary Anne Evans
Publisher: Bradt Travel Guides
ISBN: 1804692573
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
Published to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the military mission that changed World War II, D-Day Landings: A Travel Guide to Normandy’s Beaches and Battlegrounds is Bradt’s new guidebook to visiting beaches, memorials, museums, battlefields and other sites associated with D-Day and the Battle of Normandy (Operation Overlord). A simple-to-follow, portable guide for independent travellers, it includes maps and driving instructions to help visitors go back in time to explore World War II history. Written by two experienced travel writers who, between them, are experts in France and military history, D-Day Landings is designed for visitors who want to see all or part of Normandy. Covering the ground from the D-Day landing beaches (Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah) up to Cherbourg and inland to Falaise, it encompasses every major site and a host of smaller, less well-known locations – venturing well beyond the coast to include sites associated with the capture of Caen and the closing of the Falaise Gap, which marked the end of the Overlord campaign. Although organised geographically – as befits a travel guide rather than history book – there’s plenty of information on the historical context, identifying where sites fit into the timeline of the Battle of Normandy and escorting readers through the invasion in a simple, practical format. D-Day Landings aims to enhance the visitor experience by alerting readers to unexpected features, such as a German tobruk with a gun turret around which Utah Beach Museum was constructed. Quirky snippets and human stories colour the text. Learn how Lord Lovat’s Commando piper Bill Millin saw himself as a ballerina or how the Utah Beach landings were accidentally more successful than planned. Whether you are a military-history enthusiast, have family who fought in Normandy or are simply visiting northern France on holiday, Bradt’s D-Day Landings is the guidebook to both plan your trip and take with you.

Author: Tim Saunders
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1399040022
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The British Army started the development of flame throwers in 1938, but progress was slow and interest was side-lined after Dunkirk while the army reequipped. Investment in a flame-throwing tank only returned to the agenda thanks to interest by General Percy Hobart when he developed ‘funnies’ for 79th armored Division and the concept gained the support of General Sir Alan Brooke. 141 (The Buffs) Regiment RAC had been converted to Churchill Tanks at the end of 1941 and in early 1944 they were earmarked for another change of role to the Crocodile conversion of the new Mk VII Churchill tank. This flame throwing system was secret and started to arrive with the regiment in April 1944. By D-Day only one squadron was equipped and trained, with space on the landing craft only available for two troops to land in support of 50th Division. The rest of the regiment arrived by the end of June and were in action with various formations across the front. There followed a period of misuse by those they supported and learning on the job by the regiment’s squadrons, but by the middle of the campaign a clear doctrine for the use of the Crocodile had emerged and they were in great demand.

Author: Charles J. Dick
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700622934
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
By the summer of 1944, the war in Europe had reached a critical point. Both the western Allies and the Soviets possessed the initiative and forces capable of mounting strategic offensives against the German enemy. Writing a study of operations on first the Western then Eastern Front, respected military analyst C. J. Dick offers rare insight into the strengths and weaknesses of generalship on both fronts, especially the judgments, choices, and compromises made by senior commanders. At the same time, he clarifies the constraints imposed upon leadership—and upon operations—by doctrinal shortcomings, by logistics, and, not least, by the nature of coalition war. From Victory to Stalemate focuses on the Western Front, specifically American, British, and Canadian operations in France and the Low Countries. Dick's lens throughout is operational art, which links individual tactical battles to broader strategic aims. Beginning with the D-Day landings in Normandy and the strengths and weaknesses of the armies, including their military doctrines, Dick goes on to analyze the offensives launched in the high summer of 1944. He considers the strategic factors and plans that provide the context for his main concern: the Allied commanders’ handling of army, army group, and theatre offensive operations. Dick's analysis shows us an Allied command limited by thinking that is firmly rooted in the experience of small wars and the World War I. The resulting incremental approach was further complicated by a divergence in the ideas and interests of the Allied forces. The man responsible for pulling it all together, Dwight D. Eisenhower, proved remarkably capable in his role as statesman; he was to be less effective as a military technician who could govern such difficult subordinates as Bradley and Montgomery. As a result, the Allied offensive faltered and became a war of attrition, in contrast to the Soviet effort on the Eastern Front.

Author: Antony Beevor
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101630906
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 634

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The little-known drama of the last-minute decision to launch the invasion of Normandy—excerpted from the internationally bestselling D-Day: The Battle for Normandy In D-Day: The Decision to Launch, excerpted from Antony Beevor’s bestselling book D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, readers get the little-known story of how the difficult decision was made to launch the Allied invasion of France on June 6, 1944. The stakes could not have been higher: if Operation Overlord were to fail, it would be a crushing blow to the Allies, a huge loss of both men and equipment. The decision of when to launch rested with supreme commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower, but it hinged on one factor: the weather. If there was too much cloud cover, the Allied bombers wouldn’t be able to provide air support, and if the seas were too rough, the landing craft would be swamped. It fell to one man to predict the weather: Dr. James Stagg, the head of the meteorological team at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. This riveting selection from D-Day, praised by Time as “a vibrant work of history that honors the sacrifice of tens of thousands of men and women,” tells the fascinating inside story of one of the most important decisions of World War II.

Author: Patrick Delaforce
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473816459
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
The acclaimed historian and WWII vet shares an authoritative account of two elite armored brigades and their heroic contributions on D-Day. When General Montgomery was given Allied command of the Normandy landings, he quickly gathered top military formations to execute the campaign’s most critical and risky operations. Foremost among them were two armored brigades: 4th (Black Desert Rats) and 8th (Red Fox's Mask). Both of these brigades had unrivaled fighting records whether in North Africa, Sicily or Italy. They had proven themselves in bitter fighting against Rommel's Afrika Korps and the Italians. Once ashore in Normandy the two superb brigades went on to enhance their reputations on the journey to the heartland of Hitler's Third Reich and final victory. In Mont’s Marauder’s, Patrick Delaforce shares a fast-moving and enthralling account of war at the sharp end.

Author: Bernice Lerner
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421437708
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
The remarkable stories of Rachel Genuth, a poor Jewish teenager from the Hungarian provinces, and Hugh Llewelyn Glyn Hughes, a high-ranking military doctor in the British Second Army, who converge in Bergen-Belsen, where the girl fights for her life and the doctor struggles to save thousands on the brink of death. On April 15, 1945, Brigadier H. L. Glyn Hughes entered Bergen-Belsen for the first time. Waiting for him were 10,000 unburied, putrefying corpses and 60,000 living prisoners, starving and sick. One month earlier, 15-year-old Rachel Genuth arrived at Bergen-Belsen; deported with her family from Sighet, Transylvania, in May of 1944, Rachel had by then already endured Auschwitz, the Christianstadt labor camp, and a forced march through the Sudetenland. In All the Horrors of War, Bernice Lerner follows both Hughes and Genuth as they move across Europe toward Bergen-Belsen in the final, brutal year of World War II. The book begins at the end: with Hughes's searing testimony at the September 1945 trial of Josef Kramer, commandant of Bergen-Belsen, along with forty-four SS (Schutzstaffel) members and guards. "I have been a doctor for thirty years and seen all the horrors of war," Hughes said, "but I have never seen anything to touch it." The narrative then jumps back to the spring of 1944, following both Hughes and Rachel as they navigate their respective forms of wartime hell until confronting the worst: Christianstadt's prisoners, including Rachel, are deposited in Bergen-Belsen, and the British Second Army, having finally breached the fortress of Germany, assumes control of the ghastly camp after a negotiated surrender. Though they never met, it was Hughes's commitment to helping as many prisoners as possible that saved Rachel's life. Drawing on a wealth of sources, including Hughes's papers, war diaries, oral histories, and interviews, this gripping volume combines scholarly research with narrative storytelling in describing the suffering of Nazi victims, the overwhelming presence of death at Bergen-Belsen, and characters who exemplify the human capacity for fortitude. Lerner, Rachel's daughter, has special insight into the torment her mother suffered. The first book to pair the story of a Holocaust victim with that of a liberator, All the Horrors of War compels readers to consider the full, complex humanity of both.