The Normandy beaches were wired and rigged with every contrivance of mines, “Belgian gates” and hedgehogs, with gunners perched in pillboxes on the bluffs. Clarence Huebner to attack and destroy coastal defenses, the men were well-prepared yet hindered by the very technology that was supposed to cause the breakthrough of German defense. ground forces in the coming invasion, discarded “the niceties of justice” and needed to rely on those troops. Hardened by heavy fighting only months before in Tunisia and Sicily, considered somewhat arrogant and full of themselves, many of the 1st expected to go home. With several World War II volumes under his belt ( September Hope: The American Side of a Bridge Too Far, 2012, etc.), military historian McManus elicits moving details of courage and hardship from personal as well as historical sources, spotlighting the feats of this heroic division that took the brunt of the first-wave assault on Omaha Beach. Army’s famed 1st Infantry Division on June 6, 1944, underscoring how the Normandy invasion nearly went terribly awry. A focused tale of the hellish ascendancy of the U.S.
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