Normandy by Olivier Wieviorka: book review

Normandy: The Landings to the Liberation of Paris (2008) details the intense years of planning and events that led to D-Day on 6 June 1944. It commences with the seeds of an idea for Operation Neptune (the landings) and Operation Overlord (the invasion) directed against the Third Reich during World War II and concludes with the liberation of Paris on 25 August.

The landings along 80 kilometres (50 miles) of the Normandy coast mobilized Allied forces for war on a scale never contemplated before – through aerial assaults and the largest amphibious invasion in history.

Logistically it was a nightmare. More than 1.5 million men were deployed in battle against Hitler’s Germany – keeping it a well-guarded secret – not just to Hitler, but also to de Gaulle. The landings, smoother than expected, killed fewer than expected, for in less than 24 hours all five beaches of Normandy had been taken, but it was the campaign on land that did not go quite as smoothly. “The French Resistance, for its part, acquitted itself honorably” but about 14,000 French civilians died in the summer of 1944, half of them as a result of the aerial bombardment between 6-15 June.

Wieviorka commences with the shared purpose that formed the Allied forces of Britain, America, Canada, and the Soviet Union - Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin – as well as Generals Montgomery and Eisenhower - and their changing perspectives, disputes, rivalries, agreements, delays, strategies and tactics for two years before D-Day. He discusses the plans, the subterfuges, the double-agents, the artificial harbours, the distractions and decoys – all to confuse Hitler’s forces. He writes of the immensity of the logistics – guns, planes, battleships - making them, putting them in place, disguising their positions, and the rehearsals. He writes of the soldiers – their bravery, psychiatric traumas, divorces, desertions, and injuries. He does not neglect Hitler’s strengths and weaknesses, his guesses and theories – he knew an invasion was coming, but when, where, and how?

What I found interesting was the countless number of soldier satisfaction surveys and civilian attitudinal surveys recorded before, during, and after the Normandy invasion – what the American soldiers thought of the British soldiers and vice versa – what they thought of their lodging, of their training, and whether they were battle ready.

Wieviorka attempts to write a comprehensive account of less than 30 days in history that took an inordinate amount of planning and execution. In doing so, he writes from the perspective of all who knew, didn’t know, ordered, obeyed, defied, defected, liberated, were liberated, sacrificed, suffered, died, lost, won, and triumphed – as he concludes with de Gaulle marching down the Champs-Elysees to the cheers of thousands of French citizens.