The horror of war

MOST of us have probably seen that excellent war movie Saving Private Ryan, in which Tom Hanks leads a squad of GIs on a mission to bring back a family's surviving brother.

After one hell of a day on the beach on June 6, 1944, the scene switches to the American outfit covering the Normandy landscape almost at a cross-country pace. The harsh reality, however, was rather different from the film story, because what followed D-Day was basically a three month slogging match between Allied and German forces. Such commanders as Eisenhower, Bradley and Montgomery thought Hitler's men might be overrun and knocked out in days, rather than weeks or months. How wrong they were.

Basically the Germans realised that if they could not hold the Allied troops at or near to the D-Day beach-heads, they would be overwhelmed by the massive Anglo/American weight of weaponry and armour that had been amassed in the UK in the build-up to June 6. And that indeed turned out to be the case, because when the Allies managed to break out in September, 1944, the Germans were plunged into a headlong retreat.

As any reader who has toured Normandy knows, those high hedgerows and banks and picturesque fields might be charming today, but, back in June, 1944, they proved to be a killing ground for the opposing forces. There was vicious, often close-quarter, fighting and the casualties on both sides were high.

Two new books provide an excellent insight into the 1944 Normandy battles. The first by Robin Neillands is a fresh and incisive examination of this crucial campaign, while the book by Stephen Ambrose covers the Second World War campaign from the Normandy beaches to the surrender or Germany.

In The Battle of Normandy -- 1944 The Final Verdict, Neillands poses the question: Are the British losing their history?

Neillands certainly thinks so and in his new book he raises some important questions about the myths that have grown up about the conduct and outcome of this campaign since the end of the Second World War.

Over the years historical facts about events involving British soldiers have been borrowed, abused and altered by others (in particular the Americans) to such an extent that many British people actually believe them. For example, is it really true that there were no British troops at all on the Omaha Beach on June 6, as portrayed in Saving Private Ryan? Or, even more bizarrely, as reported in a New Mexico local paper, that it was the Americans (not the British) who cracked the Enigma code? So many accounts up until now have been bitterly partisan. Here, in this fascinating new account, Neillands tries to put the record straight.

The Battle of Normandy is an important book about the largest battle to ever take place in Western Europe. A three month struggle that took place from June 7, 1944 (the day after D-Day) to September 1, 1944. During that time more than two million soldiers, American, British, Canadian, French, German and Polish struggled for mastery in Normandy.

This book examines the battle in detail and asks key questions about why, for example, the British took so long to capture the city of Caen, and what lay behind the dispute between the American and British commanders.

It also investigates how the Germans were able to hold off such a massive Allied attack for two months when they were deprived of air support.

In Citizen Soldiers -- From The Normandy Beaches To The Surrender Of Germany, Stephen E Ambrose traces the story of the Second World War from the day after the Normandy beach landings to the triumphant push into Germany. This sequel to his earlier book D-Day opens at 00.01 hours, June 7, 1944, on the Normandy Beaches, and ends at 02:45 hours, May 7, 1945.

In between comes the battles in the hedgerows of Normandy, the breakout of Saint-Lo, the Falaise gap, Patton tearing through France, the liberation of Paris, the attempt to leap the Rhine in operation Market-Garden, the near-miraculous German recovery, the battles around Metz and in the Huertgen Forest, the Battle of the Bulge, the capture of the bridge at Remagen and, finally, the overunning of Germany.

With a fantastic eye for detail, Ambrose draws on hundreds of interviews and oral histories from enlisted men and junior officers on both sides of the war. Citizen Soldiers reveals the sufferings, huge casualties and hardships of war in all of its harsh reality.