PublishedOxford University Press, May 2014 |
ISBN9780199986118 |
FormatHardcover, 440 pages |
Dimensions23.6cm × 16.3cm × 2.9cm |
D-Day-June
6, 1944-is seared into popular consciousness: 160,000 Allied troops
landed along 50 miles of French coastline to battle German forces on the
beaches of Normandy, suffering devastating losses in an invasion that
would eventually lead to the liberation of Western Europe. Though it has
been studied, discussed, and debated extensively, histories of D-Day
have typically overlooked the incredible naval operation necessary for
the invasion to succeed: Operation Neptune. Involving over five thousand
ships and nearly half a million personnel, Neptune was the largest
seaborne assault in human history, without which the battles at Normandy
never could have taken
place. In Neptune, renowned historian Craig L. Symonds
brilliantly traces the central thread of this Olympian event from the
first tentative conversations by British and American officers in
Washington in the winter of 1941 to the storming of the beaches in the
summer of 1944. With characteristically vivid narration, he uncovers the
various components of the operation, including the strategic unity,
industrial productivity, sea control, and organizational execution on
which the Allied armies in Normandy depended. Symonds follows key
personalities, both British and American, from the well-known-Franklin
Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, George Marshall, and <"Ike>"
Eisenhower-to the less-prominent-Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay and his
American counterpart Admiral Ernest
J. King-to offer an intimate look at the men involved in this
exceptional campaign. Operation Neptune was never a sure-thing, as Symonds shows, and Neptune
explores the disputes of the Anglo-American allies, the demands of
Russia, the dangers of German U-boats, and the hundreds of logistical
bottlenecks that could have undone the operation at any time. From the
suppressing of the U-boat menace in the Battle of the Atlantic to the
gearing up of the industrial machine to produce the ships, tanks,
landing craft, and other tools of war that would make an invasion
possible, Symonds' riveting narrative uncovers the means by which
Neptune was brought to fruition, and presents for the first time a
comprehensive history of the greatest naval operation of the 20th
century.Readership: General readers interested in World War II, military history, and naval history; fans of Craig Symonds' previous books
