ISBN 0-8117-0079-8
xviii + 416 pages

Preface; photos; maps; References; Bibliography; Acknowledgments; Index

Appendices: Allied Casualties on Omaha Beach; Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Cross Awards for Valor on Omaha Beach; US Army and US Navy First Wave Units on Omaha Beach; Composition of Typical Assault Boat Team, 16th and 116th Infantry; Uniform and Equipment of Boat Team Leader, 16th and 116th Infantry

   In case it escaped anyone's attention, this summer marks the 60th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy in 1944, and the deluge of books retelling those events from every conceivable angle has already begun. In this case, Joe Balkoski has written another work about the landings on Omaha Beach. "Another" in two senses: there are already tons of books about the Omaha landings, and the author has already produced an excellent book, Beyond the Beachhead: The 29th Infantry Division in Normandy, with much material on that topic.
   Fortunately, Balkoski is no slouch at research, analysis, or writing, and he's put together another top-notch effort. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that this book joins Omaha Beach: A Flawed Victory by Adrian Lewis as the best pair of works on Omaha to date. Lewis and Balkoski complement each other perfectly. Lewis writes almost entirely about doctrine and planning while Balkoski mostly turns his attention to a minute-by-minute account of what actually happened on the beach.
   Balkoski also takes an unusual approach to telling the story, as he explains in his Preface:

   The net result for me was an epiphany: Enough information pertaining to Omaha Beach could indeed he assembled to chronicle the invasion thoroughly and coherently. The most sensible and compelling means of fulfilling such a project, in my view, would be to weave the words of those actually involved in the invasion's planning and execution—from generals to privates—directly into a chronological narrative, for the eloquence of even the most diligent historian can never hope to equal the poignancy of a participant's eyewitness account.
   But I also resolved to be exceptionally selective in using such accounts, for I feared that a book depending heavily on an "I was there" approach would have obvious drawbacks. If there is one firm lesson that serious World War II researchers have learned, it is that the reliability of human memory varies drastically from one veteran to another. There is a fair chance that any eyewitness account provided decades after D-Day will be incomplete, if not inaccurate. The passage of a half century or more can play subtle tricks on the mind. and the historian's thorniest problem is to separate those rare fully substantiated accounts from the more typical yarns that time has embellished.
   Furthermore, when eyewitness accounts of World War II fighting are presented to the reader in an unceasing and protracted sequence, unaccompanied by thorough explanatory narratives of the larger context in which those incidents occurred, much of the emotional power of these accounts is typically squandered. In a military operation as grandiose as the Omaha invasion, individuals are mere specks in the immense panorama of war. Personal experiences usually make for riveting reading, but they can be infinitely more riveting when the reader knows the exact time and place of that experience, the unit to which the observer belonged, the mission that unit was supposed to accomplish, whether it in fact was accomplished, and how it fit into the grand scheme of an incredibly ambitious military operation. In short, warfare is too colossal an enterprise to be understood by individual experiences alone.
   Rather than use eyewitness accounts as the primary means of telling the Omaha Beach story, I therefore resolved to employ them selectively in support of a conventional narrative. In effect, those first-person accounts would serve as powerful evidence to the reader that events did indeed transpire as described. Moreover, they could help clarify the potentially bewildering choreography of military maneuvers on and beyond the beach that characterized the Omaha battle. Finally, appropriate eyewitness accounts would surely heighten the human drama of the story, for in the end, the enduring impact on those who survived the D-Day invasion was that it was an overwhelming and dreadful experience. Any book that does not impart those sentiments to readers is incomplete.

   Before any troops hit the beach, Balkoski briskly reviews the original imperatives and planning behind the invasion of Northwest Europe, notably the work done by General Frederick Morgan, and the training, training, and more training done by the 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions in England. As throughout the book, the opening chapters utilize—as the Preface promises—a variety of direct quotes from participants interspersed between the author's paragraphs. In the early going, these quotes prove useful but not especially compelling.
   The third chapter switches its focus to the other side of the Channel and looks at the German forces waiting in Normandy and the terrain those forces defended. Having walked and studied this ground over a number of years, the author is well-qualified to describe the tactical nuances of every square yard. He also briefly investigates the "surprise" deployment of the 352nd Infantry Division to Omaha beaches, a move made in March 1944 but not discovered by the Allies until the eve of the invasion, and categorized as a "last minute" switch in some ill-informed accounts.
   As a good example of the differences between how Balkoski and Lewis approach their books, the former initially mentions more or less in passing (although he returns to this topic later) that the Allies decided to land in Normandy at low tide. This "...would enable first-wave landing craft to beach soon after dawn well short of the enemy beach obstacles." Lewis, on the other hand, goes to far greater lengths to discuss all the implications of that decision (and all the similar choices) for the amphibious assault. Again, Balkoski emphasizes the men who were involved and what happened to them, while Lewis focuses on how and why decisions were made. On the other hand, Balkoski points out that even after, due to considerations of tidal conditions and daylight, General Leonard Gerow of V Corps recommended 6 June as the optimal date for D-Day, Eisenhower nevertheless chose 5 June as the invasion date; only the weather-induced postponement moved the actual landing to the date originally preferred by Gerow and his staff.
   The author next considers the passage of Force O, the naval component heading for Omaha Beach, and during these pages he begins to make best use of a multitude of snippets from veterans, mostly written immediately after the events and imparting a great deal of immediacy and flavor to the proceedings. He also discusses the German failure to utilize their nearly unsweepable "pressure mines" to disrupt and destroy the naval task force, and Hitler's decision to withhold such mines until after the invasion, at which time the Luftwaffe would, in theory, begin to lay thousands of them in the waters off the Allied beachhead. This was neither the first nor last of the Fuehrer's plans to fail to come to fruition.
    As the soldiers aboard their landing craft drew close to the beach, naval gunfire and LCT(R)-launched rockets screamed overhead. Lewis devotes considerable space to dissecting all the issues surrounding naval gunfire, while Balkoski reduces this to a few pages but adds the firsthand reactions of assaulting troops who experienced the "drenching" fire. Balkoski also writes nine thorough pages about the inaccurate aerial bombing, mixing in more snippets from airmen.
   The same approach pays more dividends when the subject turns to the ill-fated duplex drive tanks. In this case, Balkoski allows the vets to tell much of the story, using over a dozen separate quotes in the span of about eight pages. (This material is also illustrated with a map identifying each tank-bearing landing craft and its fate.) On the other hand, when A Company of the 116th Infantry hit the beach at Vierville draw, so many of them died immediately—including every member of the company commander's 31-man boat team—that fewer accounts from survivors are available to flesh-out that part of the landing.
   All the way up and down Omaha, however, the first wave hits the beach accompanied by Balkoski's narrative and carefully balanced with more quotes.

   Aside from Captain Fellers's Company A, the 116th's first wave had scattered badly. When Fellers came ashore in front of the Vierville draw at H-Hour, Company G was supposed to have been immediately on his left, but the navy put G ashore so far to the east that he could not even see them.
   Companies F and G came ashore with little semblance of the neatness dictated by the plan. As the men exited in three files from their landing craft into the surf, officers and NCOs realized that they had been put down in the wrong place. A dozen or so little beach villas tucked into a break between the bluffs indicated that this must be the Les Moulins draw. Near the draw's mouth on the beachfront lay a landmark with which the troops were unfamiliar: a large three-story house with a distinctive mansard roof—more proof that the two outfits were on the wrong beach.

Pfc John Robertson
Company F, 116th Infantry, 29th Division
Most of my boat team was seasick. I remember heaving over the side, and someone said. "Get your head down! You'll get killed!" I said: "I'm dying anyway!" So here we are, all seasick, ahead of everyone else, no bomb craters to get in, and heading straight into machine gun fire. That was my definition of Hell.

Pfc August Bruno
Company G, 116th Infantry, 29th Division, September 1944
We didn't expect any trouble on the beach and had been told not to run.

Pvt. Rocco Russo
Company F, 116th Infantry, 29th Division
We landed in three or four feet of water, and the ramp failed to go down. Our lieutenant yelled to the tech sergeant, "What do we do, sergeant?" The sergeant yelled back: "Go over the side, lieutenant!" Each of us close to the lieutenant cupped our hands together to give him a boost up the side of the vessel. About the time [he] got on top, the ramp went down and we started leaving the boat.... Many of us fell down, but we had life preservers [actually life belts] on and did not drown.

   Despite the absence of enemy fire when the first files of GIs started to exit their landing craft, the beach in front of Les Moulins would soon be a very hazardous place. The Germans had not been driven from their pillboxes, and the Americans had to cross 400 yards of beach directly in front of those pillboxes to get at the enemy. Just as they had done at the Vierville draw, the Germans held their fire until most of the LCVPs had been emptied and the men had advanced through the surf up to the first belt of German beach obstacles.
   With no place to hide, several F and G Company men, like their Company A brethren, were cut down the moment the enemy opened fire. Some of the remainder pressed on; others dropped to the sand and crawled forward to seek shelter behind the obstacles. They would not he able to remain there long, as the rapidly rising tide impelled them to move ahead or drown.
   Although the two companies endured grave casualties, several factors saved them from the near total annihilation suffered by Company A. Drifting smoke from the grass tires partially masked German machine gunners who otherwise would have had perfect fields of fire. Moreover, the bluffs on this beach sector were strictly perpendicular to their line of advance, and the enemy was therefore incapable of achieving the flanking fire that hail proved so lethal on Dog Green. Finally, several 743rd Tank Battalion Shermans had successfully beached in this sector, and more would arrive soon. As the tanks wove slowly through the belt of enemy beach obstacles, nearby GIs could follow closely behind and gain at least a fair degree of cover.

   The book follows this same approach for its remaining two hundred pages. Balkoski writes several cogent pages about the situation followed by a selection of quotations, each running from a sentence or two to a few paragraphs. The author shifts up or down the beach with another page or two of informative material followed by more firsthand reports. The back-and-forth between Balkoski's wider view and the on-the-scene accounts neatly balance and complement each other. Some of the individuals especially stand out, such as Lieutenant Jimmie Monteith, even when they left no written record (Monteith was killed in action) because the author has been able to track down and assemble information from a variety of eyewitnesses. Similarly, General Norm Cota's heroics emerge from these pages in more detail—and larger than life—than in other accounts.
   Balkoski makes it abundantly clear that when the assault plan broke down in the face of unexpectedly strong and stubborn resistance, only the flexibility and determination of the surviving officers, non-coms, and troops saved the day. In particular, more than one depleted group of soldiers realized that instead of trying to force a way through the heavily defended draws they had been ordered to capture, the only sensible alternative involved attacking straight up the bluffs behind the beach. Likewise, the decision by Captain Goranson to turn his Rangers east instead of moving to the west toward Pointe de la Percee yielded a huge pay-off for the Yanks. As Balkoski tracks each unit—or at least each tangled knot of troops—on an almost minute-by-minute basis, he provides the rational, retrospective explanation of events while the soldiers themselves supply the emotion and drama of the moment.
   This is a potent mixture of fact and feeling expertly delivered, producing a book both instructive and moving. Added to the inherent excitement of the situation, all this makes Omaha Beach difficult to put down.
   The author identifies four main reasons for the American success at Omaha: "The Germans were surprised; the Americans applied overwhelming force; American soldiers were superbly prepared for the task; and the German defenses were incomplete." Mostly dismissing the possibility of increased naval and air bombardment of the landing zone because the consequent delays would have reduced the numbers of troops who could have been landed on 6 June, regarding "overwhelming force" Balkoski means foot soldiers. He quotes (as he does more than once in earlier chapters) Colonel Taylor of the 16th Infantry Regiment who judged the foundation of the Omaha plan involved "throw[ing] troops at the enemy defenses until something broke." Intentionally or otherwise, the author (along with Colonel Taylor) seems to echo the "brute force" philosophy of American victory, although he also praises the skill, courage, and determination of the troops.
   The last chapter discusses various estimates of American casualties at Omaha. Balkoski's intensive research has uncovered casualty reports which make the losses look considerably higher than previously tallied. According to his lengthy unit-by-unit return in Appendix I, killed, wounded, and missing at Omaha on 6 June totaled over 4700 men. Appendix II prints the citations for the three Medals of Honor awarded at Omaha as well as a list of all the Distinguished Service Cross awards. Appendix III gives an extremely detailed roster of all the first-wave units down to company level with commanders, transport vessels, and similar information for each.
   The maps in Omaha Beach also deserve praise. Designed (and for the most part executed) by the author, these complement the text perfectly. Plentiful and almost diagrammatic in nature, each map clearly shows all the key points: current level of tide, buildings and German strongpoints, exact places where specific units actully landed, location and identification of individual landing craft and tanks, and even the locations and routes taken by individual soldiers. It's only quibbling to note that some of the maps are oriented with north at the top, and others with south at the top; it might have been preferable to arrange them all the same way.
   Nonetheless, while the text itself is quite strong, the excellent appendices, maps, and photos make the book even more of a pleasure.
   By comparison, after all these years The Longest Day seems sketchy and a bit dated despite Cornelius Ryan's groundbreaking work. Stephen Ambrose allowed the words of the veterans to carry much of the load in his D-Day, resulting in a book which lacks the precision, accuracy, thoroughness, and balance of Balkoski's text. While Omaha Beach lavishly utilizes firsthand reports, the author does most of the heavy lifting himself. Balkoski writes thoughtfully and respectfully while avoiding hyperbole and jingoism, and he keeps the spotlight completely off himself without trying to profit from the deeds and words of the D-Day veterans.
   This is probably the best book ever written about Omaha Beach, certain to be a very strong contender when our "Top Ten" voting rolls around, and an impressive beginning to what will be a long season of D-Day publications. If the all the D-Day titles on tap this year from all the other authors and publishers prove to be as well-researched, well-reasoned, and well-written as this one, we're in for a treat of unprecedented proportions. That's not a realistic expectation, but Joe Balkoski has indicated he'll be producing additional volumes on other facets of American forces in Normandy, and it's a safe bet those will be of equally high quality.
   Very highly recommended.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Stackpole Books.
   Thanks to Stackpole for providing this review copy.