Eye-witness D-day

Lewis fills this volume with a rich selection of participants' dairy selections, published memoirs, interviews, and contemporary articles from reporters on the ground to paint a stark and frequently disturbing collage of the invasion and battle for Normandy. In a loose chronological order, each entree typically has the author's name, rank, and organization which permits the reader to follow an individual in a disjointed fashion throughout these tumultuous events. Lewis spends a lot of pages before the invasion in both England and France, both setting the stage and giving a glimpse into the thinking of the big generals as D-Day approaches, is delayed, and unleashed. After the invasion, the major generals are left behind and the action is recounted by participants. Lewis brings in a few German and French voices, but mostly it's American and British who relate their experiences. Lewis does a great job including a wide range of military voices of not only foot soldiers and paratroopers, but also tankers, artillery operators, nurses, sailors, and drivers. The war correspondents, Ernest Hemmingway, Alan Melville, and Ernie Pyle, made the most articulate entrees in this collection, but the most poignant were recounts of heart-breaking anecdotes told by less practiced authors.