A startling new oral history of the turning point of World War Two - D-Day
6 June 1944 is one of the most momentous days in history: the day Allied forces crossed the Channel and began fighting their way into Nazi-occupied Northwest Europe. Preceded by airborne units and covered by air and naval bombardment, the Normandy landings were the most ambitious combined airborne and amphibious assault ever attempted. Their success marked the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.
Drawing on thousands of hours of eyewitness testimony recorded by the Imperial War Museum,
Forgotten Voices of D-Day tells the compelling story of this turning point in the Second World War in the words of those who were there. We hear from paratroopers and commandos, glider pilots and landing craft crewmen, airmen and naval personnel. We learn first-hand of what it was like as men waited to go in, as they neared the beaches and drop zones, as they landed and met the enemy. Accounts range from memories of the daring capture of ‘Pegasus’ bridge by British glider-bourn troops to recollections of brutal fighting as the assault forces stormed the beaches. Shedding fresh light too on the American contribution, they include the memories of British personnel caught up in the terrible events at Omaha Beach where United States forces suffered over 2,000 casualties.
Featuring a mass of previously unpublished material,
Forgotten Voices of D-Day is a powerful and important new record of a defining moment in modern history.
Author Biography
Roderick Bailey is a historian attached to the Imperial War Museum and the author of the
Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller,
Forgotten Voices of the Secret War, and the critically acclaimed
The Wildest Province: SOE in the Land of the Eagle. He is a graduate of Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities and a former Alistair Horne Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford.
Reviews
Roderick Bailey’s account, based on scores of oral histories taken from British troops, is incomparable. The voices speak with utter immediacy of fear, determination, bewilderment, indifference, and unmistakable courage,Roderick Bailey's
Forgotten Voices of D-Day is the most recent of Ebury's admirable series which uses unpublished material from the archives of the Imperial War Museum ... a wonderful selection of first-hand accounts of D-Day by British servicemen,Another excellent book drawn from the Imperial War Museum’s collections … An exciting read
