Tobias Clarke selects his five preferred histories covering the 77-day Normandy campaign
As you are already reading Britain at War, there is every chance that t history books completely engross s you. Also, if you picked up a copy in this month, with D-Day anniversaries advertised everywhere, there is a good chance you have an interest in the Normandy campaign and have read widely on this pet subject. Fortunately for you, BAW is here to suggest the best five history books on Normandy.
Starting the list with The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan may leave some frowning. Perhaps you wonder how a lightly fictionalised work of journalistic panache can rightfully sit within a serious list. However, I challenge you to try and put this histor y book down once you have started reading it.
Cornelius Ryan is rightfully the star of a certain generation’s popular memory of World War Two especially as he was the creator of two movies, The Longest Day (1962) and A Bridge too Far (1977). Ryan’s 1959 book The Longest Day follows June 6, 1944 through the intertwined stories of a cast of characters. Beginning and ending …
