The late Cornelius Ryan's account of the first 24 hours of D-Day, the Allied invasion of the Normandy Coast on June 5-6, 1944. The great strength of the book is its placing the reader in the midst of the unfolding battle and on fighting forces themselves on both sides. He accomplishes this through the use of direct action-oriented prose, vivid imagery of the sounds and confusion of battle and numerous personal interest vignettes. The account of the fighting itself is superb, however the author engages in comparatively brief and superficial discussion of strategy and plans. His narrative unfolds as the battle itself does, slowly, in irregular bursts of activity and gradually builds to a crescendo as the intensity and scale of the fighting increases.
Craig says the first part of the book "deals with the preparations for the battle, the fears and false alarms . . . and the delicate problems involved in choosing the time for launching the operation" (4). The comprehensiveness of Allied overall planning is contrasted with Ryan's accounts of German fumbling, Hitler's reluctance to choose between General von Runstedt's decision to maintain mobile reserves inland to roll up the beachhead and General Erwin Rommel's plan to smash the invasion on the beaches, the absence of many field commanders from their posts on the eve of the invasion, including Rommel who drives to Germany to celebrate his wife's birthday, and the German failure to take advantage of their foreknowledge of French language broadcasts on the BBC which informed them of the approximate time of attack and the effects, fortuitous for the allies, and disastrous for the Germans of the inclement weather.
Ryan is at his best in describing the Allied airborne attacks on the night of June 5 and the scattered German reaction.
Because of the flak and pilot inexperience, many Allied paratroopers and glider borne targets arrived offtarget. Nevertheless,
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