“Overlord: The D-Day Landings”, by Ken Ford and Steven Zaloga

 

368 pages, Osprey Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1846034244

ANOTHER Osprey military-themed book, this time from WWII: Overlord: The D-Day Landings by Ken Ford and Steven Zaloga is basically a reissuing of several Osprey books packaged together: D-Day 1944 (1): Omaha Beach; D-Day 1944 (2): Utah Beach & the US Airborne Landings; D-Day 1944 (3): Sword Beach & the British Airborne Landings and D-Day 1944 (4): Gold & Juno Beaches. As one should expect from Osprey, this is a no-nonsense campaign book that deals with tactics, strategy and armaments, with little (if any) discussion about the men who fought and died. The individual campaign books themselves each provided an aggregate overview of both side’s armies, leaders and plans from the perspective of the individual campaigns themselves. In addition, there is an excellent analysis, again on the aggregate basis as opposed to from the perspective of the individual battles, on why the allies were victorious. A number of factors are examined, with the failure of the Axis command and control structure being the most important reason for their failure to hurl the Allies into the sea. Full of maps and photographs from the actual landing, Overlord really breaks down and describes just what, how and why what happened on June 6, 1944, for any layman to understand.