BOOK REVIEW: D-Day: The Battle For Normandy
Antony Beevor (Viking, £25)
Reviewed by Trevor Royle

THE Allied invasion of Europe through Normandy is one of the great sagas of the second world war. Not only was it the largest amphibious operation ever mounted but, in spite of the huge numbers of Allied soldiers and equipment assembled for the task, success was not guaranteed. Even the supreme commander, the genial but pragmatic Dwight D Eisenhower, a future US president, was not entirely sure that things would work out the way the planners had forecast.

Shortly before the operation began, he penned a communiqué which was to be issued in the event of things going belly-up. By any standards it is a remarkable document and deserves to be quoted in full: "The landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone."

Fortunately, the document never had to be released although, as Antony Beevor shows in his latest history, like all major battles, it was a close run thing. The decision to press ahead with the invasion of northwest Europe had been taken at the Allied conference in Washington in May 1943, and planning for it began under joint US-British direction immediately after the summit had ended. The main desiderata for the cross-Channel amphibious attack were quickly established: a landing area with shallow beaches and without obstacles which was within range of Allied air power, the neutralisation of local defences to allow a build-up which would equal the strength of the German defenders and the presence of a large port for reinforcement and re-supply.

Deception also formed part of the plan: the idea was to persuade the Germans that the assault would be made across the narrowest part of the English Channel at Pas de Calais where the beaches were shallow and led into the hinterland without the obstacles of cliffs and high ground. It also offered the opportunity to make a quick strike into the Low Countries and from there into Germany. All those reasons made Pas de Calais the ideal place for invasion but, because it was the obvious location, it was quickly discounted as the Allied planners knew that their German counterparts would deploy the bulk of their defensive forces there.

By the end of the summer, the plan was shown to the Allied leadership at the Quadrant conference in Quebec. The chosen landing ground was the Baie de la Seine in Normandy between Le Havre and the Cotentin peninsula, an area which met all the criteria, including a deepwater port at Cherbourg. Until it could be secured, the Allies planned to use artificial harbours known as Mulberries, while fuel would be piped across the Channel through an under-sea pipeline known as Pluto.

The initial planning called for an invasion force of three divisions plus airborne forces which would create a bridgehead through which reinforcements could be landed quickly to break out into Normandy and Brittany. Success would depend on the ability of the Allies to build up forces more rapidly than the Germans and deny the enemy the chance to reinforce the landing grounds by destroying road and rail communications. Although the senior British commander Field Marshal Montgomery agreed with the main principles of the plan, he put forward an alternative proposal to attack in greater weight and along a broader front and with a larger airborne contribution.

This was backed by Eisenhower who activated his headquarters, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in February. It was agreed that the initial assault should be made by five divisions, two US, two British and one Canadian, with one British and two US airborne divisions operating on the flanks. The main problem would be finding sufficient landing craft to mount the assault, a shortcoming which meant that the operation could not take place until June 1944 at the earliest.

Beevor relates what happened next - from the initial seaborne and airborne landings to the eventual liberation of Paris - and, as we have come to expect from this gifted narrative historian, he does it with a great deal of gusto. To be honest, despite the claims of his publisher he does not shed much new light on what happened. Most of the main archives have been pored over by earlier historians and there is not much in the way of revelation.

Students of the operation know all about Dr James Stagg's frantic efforts to get an accurate and up-to-the-minute meteorological forecast for the crossing of the Channel. They will also know that the much-vaunted 51st (Highland) Division faltered during the fighting to envelope Caen and had to be withdrawn. Many of the scenes described by Beevor will be familiar to anyone who has watched the movie The Longest Day and the main protagonists - Eisenhower, Montgomery, de Gaulle, Rommel, Bradley and Patton - spring out fully formed from any number of biographies and campaign histories. Particularly good is Beevor's depiction of Eisenhower, all nervous energy, consuming endless cigarettes and cups of black coffee; or Winston Churchill fretting to be closer to the action only to be forbidden by King George VI.

But disclosure and sensationalism are not the main drivers of Beevor's excellent account. With a soldier's eye for the minutiae of battle (he is a former cavalry officer) and a historian's capacity for seeing the wider picture, he has produced a fast-moving narrative which takes the reader from the violence on the beaches (as good as anything in Saving Private Ryan) to the liberation of the French capital when Allied excesses gave Paris the name of "Chicago-sur-Seine".

Along the road he is not afraid of taking a few side-swipes, castigating Montgomery (whom he clearly does not admire) for the failure to take Caen and the subsequent bombing raid which cost the lives of around 2000 civilians, while praising the defending German soldiers for their dogged refusal to give ground. If there is any criticism, it centres on the emphasis given to the transatlantic contribution - even the jacket shows US soldiers landing - but that is perhaps inevitable given the major role played by Eisenhower's forces at that stage. A US staff officer noted at the time that "the British had a much greater fear of failure" and Beevor agrees, citing the earlier disasters at Dunkirk and Dieppe.

Seven decades have passed since the great armada sailed into the unknown. The rights and wrongs of the operation can be argued endlessly, and probably will be, but one thing is certain: it was the right thing to do because it marked the beginning of the end of the evil of Nazism. This is an endlessly fascinating and realistic account, elegantly written and vividly re-created. It's also a fine monument to the participants on both sides of the divide.