D-Day

The Allied landings in 1944 had all the prospects for disaster. Churchill thought he would be woken up to be told of massive casualties. Eisenhower prepared a somber broadcast announcing that the enterprise had failed.

The specter of failure was always present. After a failed landing the Nazi regime would have regained the ascendant. New, terrifying bombs and rockets were ready to be launched. Long-distance submarines were in the final stage of development. The last million Jews of Europe were listed for deportation and death.

Failure at Normandy could have given Hitler the chance of continuing to rule western Europe, particularly if the United States, bloodied and defeated in Normandy, had decided-after two and a half years of focusing on Europe-to turn all its energies to the ever-growing demands of the Pacific, leaving Europe to its own devices. Had that happened, I doubt if I would have been alive to write this book, or free to express my opinions without fear of arrest.
-Martin Gilbert


About the Author

Martin Gilbert offers fresh information on the Allies' use of double agents and phantom armies to fool Hitler and his generals into believing that the Normandy landings were a mere diversion to mask a far larger assault elsewhere. He reveals how British codebreakers provided astonishingly accurate information on German strategy and troop movements, and, with twenty-seven new maps and vivid, firsthand British, American, and Canadian accounts of the horror and heroism of D-Day, Gilbert sheds new light on one of the greatest achievements in military history.

Martin Gilbert is the author of more than eighty books, including the official biography of Winston Churchill. His other books include In Search of Churchill, The First World War, and The Second World War.