John C McManus

The Americans at Normandy

Synopsis

In this succeeding volume to The Americans at D-Day, McManus does the same for the Battle of Normandy as a whole. Never before has the American involvement in Normandy been examined so thoroughly or exclusively as in The Americans at Normandy. For D-Day was only one part of the battle, and victory came from weeks of sustained effort and sacrifices made by Allied soldiers.

Presented here is the American experience during that summer of 1944, from the aftermath of D-Day to the slaughter of the Falaise Gap, from the courageous, famed figures of Bradley, Patton, and "Lightning" Joe Collins to the lesser-known privates who toiled in torturous conditions for their country. Engrossing, lightning-quick, and filled with real human sorrow and elation, The Americans at Normandy honors those Americans who lost their lives in foreign fields and those who survived. Here is their story, finally told with the depth, pathos, and historical perspective it deserves.

Review

Kirkus Reviews
A noisy, bloody, and highly readable account of the three-month-long Battle of Normandy. Omaha Beach, so memorably depicted in the opening moments of Saving Private Ryan, was a slaughter. But, writes McManus (History/Univ. of Missouri), "once the strong German waterline defenses had been pierced, the advance inland was comparatively smooth." Utah Beach, conversely, was an easy enough landing, but the Germans put up a fierce fight in the hedgerows beyond, and soon the resistance spread throughout Normandy, eventually costing the Allies 209,703 casualties, "of whom 125,847 were American." Drawing on interviews with survivors as well as a wealth of documentary sources, McManus offers an almost firefight-by-firefight account of the battle, which is repetitive to the extent that the encounters were uniformly vicious and to the extent that the top leadership was so often badly informed. On the second point, for instance, McManus uncovers an unpleasant incident in which Allied pilots mistakenly bombed their own lines, killing scores of American troops (and nearly killing the famed war correspondent Ernie Pyle, who would die a year later at Okinawa). "The bombing had done some damage to the Germans, too, but that was beside the point," McManus writes-that point perhaps being that miscommunications among Americans and British, among pilots and ground troops, among generals and privates, yielded constant danger for all involved. More disasters ensued, including a useless, costly detour into Brittany, for which McManus lays the blame squarely on Gen. Omar Bradley. What saved the day, it appears, was only the willingness of the soldiery to endure, coupled with some exceptional leadership from GeorgePatton on down, including one junior lieutenant who authorized a truce after the colonel in charge of the line left orders not to be awakened. Of great interest to students of WWII history, and a fine textbook for the military academies, with as many negative as positive examples for future strategists. Agent: Ted Chichak/Scovil, Chichak and Galen

From Publishers Weekly
Long on engrossing combat vignettes but short on historical perspective, this fine-grained narrative covers some 80 days of the American campaign in France, from the bloody stalemate in the hedgerows to the decisive breakout and defeat of the German army in Normandy. In line with the Stephen Ambrose school of populist historiography that sees the campaign as the Greatest Generation’s finest hour, military historian McManus (The Americans at D-Day, etc.) challenges historians who have characterized the U.S. Army’s performance as sluggish, tactically inept and dependent on a colossal superiority in numbers and firepower over its German opponents. He does so by focusing on the battlefield exploits of small infantry units and individual GIs, whom he feels displayed plenty of drive and tactical ingenuity. These well-paced and often moving stories, based on veterans’ first-hand reminiscences, are full of blood and guts, squalor and heroism, pathos and despair, and they add up to an indelible portrait of the horror of war. But McManus’s conclusion that the Americans were "better soldiers" than the Germans is both unfair and untenable. The details of his account make clear that American infantry tactics did indeed rely on the crushing assistance of tanks, artillery and airpower. Meanwhile, he avoids meticulous comparisons of front-line strengths that would reveal how hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned the Wehrmacht was, while his exclusive interest in the American side neglects the tactical achievements German soldiers pulled off with incomparably skimpier resources. The many war stories McManus offers make for a gripping read, but they add up to a seriously biased picture of the Allied victory.

From Booklist
McManus, a professor of military history, follows up his widely praised Americans at D Day with a worthy successor. The narrative begins the day after the Normandy landings. There is a common misconception that, with the beachheads secured, success was a foregone conclusion, because of overwhelming Allied materiel and numerical superiority. McManus convincingly refutes that assumption. From the beaches to the hedgerows to the breakout and slaughter at the Falaise gap, the Americans fought bravely, effectively, and often brilliantly against a tenacious and well-led opponent. McManus seamlessly weaves the experiences of individual soldiers into the broader strategic picture. The result is a tough, inspiring, but often heartrending portrait of ordinary men compelled to do extraordinary things in combat. Jay Freeman

W. E. B. Griffin
Required reading on a bitter battle that won't be---and never should be---forgottten. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
"An American Iliad"--Stephen Coonts on The Americans at D-Day and The Americans at Normandy

"Required reading on a bitter battle that won't be--and never should be--forgotten." --W.E.B. Griffin on The Americans at D-Day and The Americans at Normandy