"D-Day" by Stephen E. Ambrose

[Mr. 'H']

Has anyone read "D-Day" by Stephen E. Ambrose? I have just started reading this after picking it up at a book store for a good price. My interest was peaked after watching Band of Brothers again last week. I did a quick search on Ambrose on wiki etc and it seems he came in for some criticism for his favoritism of the US input into the AEF (and indeed they made up 3/4 of it). However, I find his narrative is very readable and informative - it is not overly academicized but is well referenced.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this or other Ambrose works?

 

[Spitfire]

Well - it's a good book, and you are right, Mr. Ambrose tends to make his readers believe that US troops alone not only won on D-day - but the whole war!
I also think that a lot of critisism was around his quoting from others without giving them credit - but I might be wrong on this one.
Maybe it was on Band of Brothers, come to think of it.

Personally I still prefere Cornelius Ryans classic: The Longest Day.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

An excellent book which moves with ease from upper echelon of command to the grunts doing the fighting to the homefront. After you finish D-Day, go immediately to Ambrose's CITIZEN SOLDIERS, which covers the period from D-Day to the end of the European theatre.

 

[dhermann1]

About 6 years ago I read his bio of Eisenhower, which led me to read 4 other bios of Ike, and led me into a pretty continuous flow of other books on the era. This includes bios of all the major contemporaies, ESPECIALLY a certain "former naval person". I will be forever indebted to Stephen Ambrose for getting me started. I saw him on TV often, and was very saddened by his relatively early death.

 

[Mr. 'H']

I was surprised to see that he has passed away. At such a young age.

I had just seen him talk on the DVD special features at the Band of Brothers premiere at Normany 2001.

 

[Nick D]

I also think that a lot of critisism was around his quoting from others without giving them credit - but I might be wrong on this one.

Yes, he was found to have been plagarizing in "The Wild Blue," and other works. He tried to justify it, but his reputation was damaged by it.

 

[Spitfire]

Actually a shame, because I find he's a good writer - knows his way around tricky and haevy stuff - and a solid historian.
I will also say that I have enjoyed reading both D-day, Band of Brothers and Citizen Soldier.
But done is done. Maybe time will roll over it...

 

[Clyde R.]

"D-Day" was the first Stephen Ambrose book I read after it was first published and the author was becoming well known and doing TV interviews for the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day. I think overall it is very good, very well written, and captures the "drama" of the moment better perhaps than anything else I've read. Ambrose had an enthusiasm for the common GIs and the grand story of D-Day and it practically makes the pages glow with energy. Good stuff.

It is too bad that his reputation was damaged towards the end, but he was a popular and respected historian who wrote accessible-to-the-masses-history for many years, and did a good job of it. His much shorter work about Pegasus Bridge is also a good and quick "Overlord" book about a British Para unit's famous coup de main attack on a critical bridge on the night of June 5-6. Ambrose said he picked it as a project for variety's sake after working on an extremely long and rather tedious book and research project, I think it was the official biography of Dwight Eisenhower?

"D-Day" is worth checking out in my humble opinion.

 

[Salv]

...
His much shorter work about Pegasus Bridge is also a good and quick "Overlord" book about a British Para unit's famous coup de main attack on a critical bridge on the night of June 5-6.
...

Yes, a very good book. And sorry to be pedantic, but they were glider-borne rather than Para-troops. The glider pilots did a fantastic job with only one of the six gliders in the raiding party going missing. The others landed within 50 yards of the two bridges.

 

[Martinis at 8]

I've read most of his books, and have also visited the WW2 museum in New Orleans that he mostly set up.

Two non-war books that he wrote that I also enjoyed were Undaunted Courage about Lewis & Clark, and Nothing Like it in the World about the building of the transcontinental railroad.

Cheers,

M8

 

[Clyde R.]

Yes, a very good book. And sorry to be pedantic, but they were glider-borne rather than Para-troops. The glider pilots did a fantastic job with only one of the six gliders in the raiding party going missing. The others landed within 50 yards of the two bridges.

Right you are, must have been in quite a hurry to have made that simple mistake. Thanks for the correction...although we mustn't forget the paratroops from 7th Battalion of the Parachute Regiment who arrived to reinforce Major Howard's glider-borne troops and held off the brunt of the German counter attacks on the 6th of June.

Hope I didn't confuse matters any...my recollection of the action is getting pretty dicey on the details. The flying of the glider pilots was called one of the greatest feats of flying of World War II by Leigh-Mallory, commander of allied air forces during the invasion.

 

[52Styleline]

Another vote for Citizen Soldier. I have read all of Ambrose's WWII books, and I like this one the best. His thesis is that the US Army's success in the war was the result of independent action by Junior Officers and experienced NCO's.

He doesn't have much good to say about Montgomery in this book, but I have read other accounts that seem to agree that Monty's constant striving for control caused Eisenhower a lot of grief. Ambrose wrote very readable history, and in my mind, anything that encourages people of today to read history is a good thing, even if the scholarship isn't pristine.

 

[Salv]

...
The flying of the glider pilots was called one of the greatest feats of flying of World War II by Leigh-Mallory, commander of allied air forces during the invasion.

Especially considering that the pilots navigated with just stopwatches and compasses.

 

[Mr. 'H']

Are there any good links to pictures of these gliders that you guys know of?

 

[MrBern]

I enjoyed Ambrose's WWII books.
But he didnt write th Band ofBrother's miniseries. Its merely based on his book. Theres quite a difference between the two.

One of the Easy Company troopers did write a memoir of the war.
Ambrose mentions it often. Please check it out. Some of the scenes in the miniseries are not quite factual & characters are abridged or combined for the screen. In fact, Webster was depicted as volunteering for the prisoner mission but in reality he sat at an outpost laying down machinegun fire. Never even crossed the river.
I think you would enjoy the real story.

Website for the author

 

[Vladimir Berkov]

I guess I am the "odd man out" in not enjoying his books as much. His style is a little simplistic, and he definately has an American-centric point of view. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the problem is that he mischaracterizes other WW2 nations.

 

[carebear]

I enjoyed Keegan's 6 Armies in Normandy. He does a good job comparing and contrasting the various armies, their commanders and methods of war.

I just read an interesting alternate history called "Disaster at D-Day: The Germans Defeat the Allies, June 1944" by Peter Tsouras.

Posits Rommel and the other Generals are allowed to have the forces they wanted on hand and are able to stop most of the American landings on the beach. Monty still gets in, and the title is a bit misleading thereby, but it was a solid read.

 

[Salv]

Are there any good links to pictures of these gliders that you guys know of?

Horsa gliders were used, like this:

There's a short article about the attack on the bridges on the MOD site, which has a painting showing the third glider approaching Pegasus Bridge, but also an aerial photo showing the landed gliders in the field next to the bridge:

And the Encyclopedia Brittanica site has this picture from ground level next to the second glider to land, looking towards the bridge:

 

[Martinis at 8]

...but the problem is that he mischaracterizes other WW2 nations.

How so?

 

[Rooster]

I've read nerly all of Ambrose's work on WWII. All of them are excellent.