ISBN 0-8117-0144-1
xx + 380 pages

Preface; maps; photos; Endnotes; Bibliography; Acknowledgments; Index

Appendices: Allied casualties; Medal of Honor and DSC awards; First-wave units; Initial parachute and glider assault; Ninth Air Force, Troop Carrier Command; Ninth Air Force, IX Bomber Command; US Navy Force U Bombardment Group; Capt Frank Lillyman's Pathfinder Stick; Uniforms and equipment

   My wife after all these years still doesn't understand why I read so many books about the Second World War. "Haven't you been able to figure out yet," she never tires of asking, "who won?" Likewise, after dragging her up and down one D-Day beach after another and across the Norman countryside, she assured me, "Okay, I get it. Omaha was the bloody one. There can't be much else to learn about D-Day, so why don't we just go somewhere and have a nice glass of wine?"
   Truthfully, after all these years and all these books about the Normandy invasion, it might seem the wife is right and there's nothing more to learn, so—rather than reading yet another description of D-Day—a pleasant glass of wine might actually be in order. Except that Joe Balkoski has just written the finest book about Utah Beach.
   Following his spectacular investigation of the landing at Omaha, Balkoski promised a similar volume on Utah. At the time it seemed a book about the "easy" landing might not measure up to the dramatic story of Omaha Beach, but in fact the new book proves just as gripping, just as informative, and just as rewarding. Although he saves his math for his concluding chapter, the author also points out that the reputations of Omaha as "bloody" and Utah as "bloodless" are not entirely justified. In the US Army's official history, Cross-Channel Attack, Gordon Harrison misleading noted that the 4th Division suffered "less than 200" casualties at Utah. Not only did Harrison understate the 4th's casualties, the losses at Utah after taking everything into account were according to Balkoski's calculations not far short of the losses at Omaha.

   When one views the joint seaborne and airborne invasion of the Cotentin Peninsula on June 6, 1944, in its entirety and sums up the personnel losses noted by after-action reports of the participating units, a total of about 3,450 American soldiers, sailors, and airmen became casualties during that invasion's execution. Reportedly more than half of these men were permanently lost to their units as a result of death or capture.
   The Omaha Beach invasion was a much more grandiose operation than the one on Utah Beach, but if the 14,000 paratroopers and gliderists who landed in Normandy in support of the 4th Division are added to Utah's troop total, both invasions ultimately deposited about the same number of men in France on June 6—approximately 35,000 each. In the Omaha invasion, which is now commonly perceived as a model of carnage almost unmatched in American military history, at least 4,700 souls suffered death, wounds, or capture on D-Day. In an invasion of nearly equal size, the dual seaborne-airborne assault of the Cotentin Peninsula resulted in the surprisingly high casualty sum of 3,450 men—roughly three-quarters of the Omaha figure. This number signifies a loss rate only slightly smaller than the Omaha invasion, yet to the modern observer, it is Omaha Beach rather than the more complex and innovative invasion of the Cotentin Peninsula that has come to symbolize America's grueling D-Day experience.
   That the invasion of Normandy was a profoundly perilous enterprise from the American perspective is proved conclusively by the extraordinary figure of more than 8,000 casualties suffered by U.S. servicemen regardless of how or where they entered France on D-Day. Some methods of entry were undeniably more risky than others—but none were easy. And in the weeks ahead, combat in the Norman hedgerows would not get any easier. June 6, 1944, was merely the first day of a long struggle whose end no one could foresee.

   Before he does all that arithmetic, Balkoski opens his book with an account of the planning process, notably Montgomery's demand that the relatively weak initial landings be expanded, adding Utah, Sword, and airborne landings to ensure a broader and stronger lodgement on the coast of Normandy. That expansion meant the Allies would need more troops, more landing craft, and more air assets, which in turn delayed the invasion for about a month. Balkoski follows those events, giving much credit to Montgomery—and, to some extent, Eisenhower—for their willingness to ensure that the highest military-political levels of the Allied coalition heeded the request for greater invasion strength.
   The opening chapters continue to recount the detailed planning process for each element of the assault. Along the way Balkoski also describes the Operation Tiger disaster at Slapton Sands, the leading Allied generals, and the uncertainties surrounding the massed drops of the 82nd and 101st Airborne. The early chapters also devote some ink to more touching, less warlike concerns, including the movement of men to embarkation ports for the voyage to France.

   Ike's order instantly triggered the formation of endless convoys of U.S. Army trucks, tanks, and jeeps, which commenced their journeys to the coast, roaring southward along the pastoral country roads of the beautiful South Hams region like freshets gushing downhill to the ocean after a thunderstorm. They passed through thatch-roofed villages seemingly older than Shakespeare, with names like Berry Pomeroy, Tuckenhay, and Up Exe; and as usual, the Ivy Division's infantrymen had to march on foot, burdened with equipment so heavy that the columns looked like battalions of humpbacks. By this stage of the war, if an infantryman was not thoroughly used to lengthy route marches, he didn't deserve to be in the infantry.
   If one had to fight a war, this was the time to do it. For months, the distressed Yanks had wondered whether the sun ever made an appearance in England, but the opening of Operation Overlord proved that it indeed did. The South Hams area of Devon was famous for its gentle climate, and its ubiquitous roadside hedgerows had abruptly sprouted Queen Anne's lace, foxglove, and countless other flowers in a variety of colors, releasing fragrances so potent that one could hardly imagine that the incessant columns of vehicles and marching men were heading into combat. By now the GIs had trained so often on the damp and dreary moors that the English countryside no longer had much appeal, but spring had suddenly transformed the landscape into beautiful checkerboard patterns of green and gold—the England that 4th Division men had read so much about but had so far never seen. If the troops must now depart for Normandy, perhaps never to return, this would be the way to remember England.

   After all the planning and preparations, when operations actually commenced, the author carefully tackles each of the interlocking components of the gigantic military machine in turn. First Balkoski describes the preliminary air bombardment:

   According to Ninth Air Force orders, six and a half B-26 bomb groups, a total of 341 aircraft, would participate in the Utah Beach bombardment from 6:09 to 6:27 A.M. on D-Day. Most aircraft were armed with sixteen 250-pound bombs with instantaneous fuses, ordnance that would not form craters upon impact and impede the inland movement of American vehicles once the beach was secured. However, some particularly sturdy German pillboxes required special attention, and therefore sixteen B-26s were loaded with two 2,000-pound "blockbuster" bombs apiece, the heaviest ordnance in the Ninth Air Force's inventory. Even if one of those weapons missed its target, the Germans would not fail to be impressed by its colossal blast....
   Takeoff was around 4:00 A.M. Each bomb group, typically consisting of fifty-four Marauders, gathered in the night sky a few thousand feet over Earls Colne, Great Saling, Chipping Ongar, and other Essex airfields about thirty miles northeast of London where the Ninth Air Force's bombers were based. The hazards of a nighttime assembly were demonstrated when two 394th Bomb Group Marauders collided in flight over Boreham, with the loss of all twelve crew members. Nevertheless, by sunrise, hundreds of B-26s had successfully congregated in boxes of eighteen aircraft apiece and were heading south for Normandy. The commander of the 386th Bomb Group, Lt. Col. Sherman Beaty, recalled, "How we ever managed to take off and form fifty-four ships under those conditions, I will never know—but we did." As the Marauders flew out over the English Channel, the aviators caught sight of the spectacle of thousands of ships heading for France, a vision that B-26 airmen with a feel for history surely resolved to relate to their progeny—assuming those airmen survived the war.
   The Marauders carried out their attack on Utah Beach following two entirely different methods than the Eighth Air Force used over Omaha. First, the B-26s approached their coastal targets parallel to the shoreline, not perpendicular to them as the B-24s did at Omaha. Second, the Marauders attacked their targets from the comparatively low altitudes of 4,000 to 6,000 feet—more than 10,000 feet lower than the B-24s at Omaha, and about half the altitude recommended by the Martin Company for prudent use of its Marauders.
   Both procedures put Marauder crews at obvious risk. By following the east coast of the Cotentin to Utah Beach, the Marauders would fly continuously over enemy territory and could be subjected to nearly incessant antiaircraft fire. Furthermore, at those low altitudes enemy ground fire would be both widespread and potentially deadly, as even light machine guns could join in the barrage. That such a flight route was hazardous was obvious to all; but on this day of days, the Marauders must clearly see their enemies, regardless of the risk, in order to destroy them. At such a low height, there would be no cloud cover to obstruct views, and targets should be readily discernible. Perhaps most important of all, bombardiers' anxiety over accidentally hitting friendly troops would be greatly lowered.

   The next chapter looks at the airborne landings, including the critical job performed by the pathfinder teams who jumped ahead of time to mark the landing zones. With the paratroopers on the ground and blindly but determinedly attempting to assemble and carry out their missions, Balkoski turns his attention to the seaborne landings. He's careful to give the navies their full measure of credit for safely bringing the ground troops across the Channel. Along the way he devotes some attention to Admiral Moon, commanding Force U, who later in the war took his own life, at least partly, it seems, because of the extreme stress of his job. Balkoski also examines the sinking of the USN destroyer Corry off Utah. Although evidence points to Corry's loss due to gunfire from German shore batteries—and the crew seems to have unanimously agreed on that point—the destroyer's skipper in his official report insisted the warship had been sunk by a mine. (Samuel Eliot Morison in The Invasion of France and Germany reports that Corry struck a mine while maneuvering to avoid fire from coastal guns, but notes no discrepancy or controversy in the manner of loss.)
   The amphibious assault began with a small but bloody landing by the 4th Cavalry Group on the Iles St. Marcouf where, although the twin islands were otherwise undefended, German mines took a heavy toll on the invading troops. The initial wave soon afterward hit Utah. As it turned out, however, despite all the detailed planning and careful preparation, the naval craft beached considerably south of the intended landing point. The exact cause of this mistake remains something of a mystery, all the more so because, according to Balkoski, "...six vessels operated highly accurate—and top secret—navigational gear and search radars, yielding near-perfect positional fixes and revealing coastal features with decent clarity, even through smoke and dust." Balkoski goes on to finger the relatively featureless coastline, the clouds of smoke and dust generated by the preliminary bombardment, and the strong coastal current as the likely culprits in such a critical navigational error.
   Although the troops realized they had come ashore at the wrong point, consequently threatening to upset the entire invasion scheme, it was quickly decided—largely by Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr who came ashore with the first wave—that the reinforcing waves should also be rerouted to the wrong beach instead of landing at the original destinations. This important decision tipped the balance to favor the invaders, and Balkoski rates the aged Roosevelt as one of the key figures of the landing, and a genuine hero for his courage and leadership on D-Day.
   Here's a lengthy excerpt from the book about what happened on the beach:

   One of the enduring myths of Utah Beach is that the American success there on D-Day was gained with minimal effort and little bloodshed. When compared with the fierce struggle at Omaha Beach, in retrospect one senses that the assault troops on Utah merely mopped up a few feeble and unenthusiastic enemy troops on the beach and promptly pushed inland to relieve the beleaguered paratroopers.
   Although those legends carry some measure of truth, no veteran of the Utah Beach invasion could ever declare that his accomplishments on June 6, 1944, were easy. How could they be when extremely accurate and heavy German artillery fire was plunging onto Utah Beach throughout D-Day? It was the randomness of this barrage that was so unnerving: One moment a GI would be standing next to some comrades, and the next an ear-splitting explosion would hurl shell fragments through the air, indiscriminately wounding or killing men, perhaps even tearing their bodies apart. The Germans' dominant weapon in the Cotentin certainly was their artillery, and with so many enemy batteries lining the high ground a mile or two behind the shoreline, some of which were enclosed in virtually impenetrable concrete casemates with nearly perfect observation of the coast, that artillery fire would continue to kill Americans on Utah Beach well after D-Day.
   In the opening stage of the Utah invasion, the assault troops had to worry about much more than just German artillery. The enemy's resistance nests sited on the dunes beyond the beach were decidedly active when the 4th Division stormed ashore at 6:30 A.M., and almost every GI who was there in the first hour of the attack witnessed German machine gun and sniper fire. Col. James Van Fleet, the commander of the 4th Division's 8th Infantry‹the first American unit to land on Utah Beach—corroborated that fact when he noted in a 1947 letter, "There was lots of small arms fire on Utah Beach—one of my first sergeants was killed by machine gun fire just as the leading waves of LCVPs touched down." Furthermore, to push inland, the Americans had to traverse the dunes behind the beach and maneuver around the enemy's resistance nests, a costly journey because those paths often took them straight into enemy minefields, densely packed with deadly Bouncing Betties and many other types of insidious killers.
   True, nothing on Utah could compare to the maelstrom of Omaha Beach. But the facts are inescapable that the Utah invasion easily could have degenerated into chaos in its first two or three hours, as the Omaha invasion indeed did. That in actuality it did not could be directly attributed to how effectively the Utah invasion plan worked in comparison with the near-fatal complications at Omaha. Immediately prior to H-Hour, Ninth Air Force B-26 Marauders successfully dropped thousands of bombs on Utah with deadly effect‹but on Omaha, not a single piece of ordnance from the Eighth Air Force fell anywhere near the beach. On Utah, demolition engineers and sailors efficiently cleared lanes through German beach obstacles—whereas on Omaha, only a marginal portion of this vital task was completed before high tide because of the enemy's hot fire. At Utah, DD amphibious tanks managed to swim to shore safely‹but at Omaha, more than two dozen were swamped and lost at sea. Finally, German reserves in the Cotentin Peninsula could not rescue their beleaguered comrades in the coastal defenses because two American airborne divisions had landed in their midst; in contrast, German reinforcements from the interior could move to Omaha in comparative safety on June 6.
   On both beaches, Germans survived the Allied preinvasion bombardment in sizable numbers, but that number was substantially greater on Omaha than it was on Utah. More important, on Omaha, those enemy troops occupied high ground that was nearly unassailable, and many of them fought from positions that provided them with near-perfect fields of fire directly into the flanks of the GIs as they stormed out of their landing craft, a circumstance that produced appalling casualties among the invaders. In contrast, at Utah, those Germans who had endured the shower of bombs from the Ninth Air Force prior to H-Hour had only to peer out of their pillboxes' apertures to appreciate that their task was impossible. They had no high ground and could shoot only at what they could see‹which was not much. About the only thing the dazed defenders could indeed perceive was hundreds of obviously fervent American soldiers rushing across the beach and up the dunes, heading straight for the German resistance nests with deadly intent. Ultimately, the American success on Utah could be attributed in large measure to overwhelming numbers and terrain highly unfavorable to the defender.
   Such an apparently effortless success on Utah Beach must have astonished the men who planned that invasion. During the planning process, the Utah assault had always seemed risky, because the Cotentin was so distant from the other four invasion sites, and the flooded terrain behind the coast made any movement inland highly problematic. No one knew what to expect, but General Collins had to prepare for the worst. Those staff officers who understood how German generals made war presumed that the enemy would do its best to make that worst-case scenario a reality on D-Day.

   The remaining chapters of Utah Beach tell the story of each American battalion as the airborne troops tried desperately to seize and hold their objectives while the seaborne forces attempted to push forward across vulnerable causeways and flooded fields to link up with the 82nd and 101st. While these events might not resonate with the same dramatic intensity as the life and death struggle on the water's edge at Omaha, Balkoski dispels the notion that the battle unfolded exactly according to plan with no more complications or casualties than a walk in the park. His clear, unadorned text and simple but effective sketch maps allow readers to track all the action and easily grasp the larger view of the unfolding battle while still following the exploits of individual men on the ground.
   As with his earlier work on Normandy, including Beyond the Beachhead as well as Omaha Beach, the author mostly sticks to the straightforward, readily verifiable aspects of the invasion as originally recorded by the men who were there. He is not one to write unsubstantiated stories or offer controversial opinions for dramatic effect, but early in the book he manages to produce an unusual view of Montgomery. While describing the planning behind Operation Overlord and Monty's impact on the scheme, Balkoski rightly notes that the field marshal was never known as a risk-taker. He goes on to indicate, however, that Montgomery's insistence on adding two new beaches (Utah and Sword) to the amphibious landings and his demand that the American paratroopers land behind Utah Beach amounted to risk-taking on a huge scale.

   Within senior Allied command circles in England in early 1944, whispers began to circulate that General Montgomery was unworthy of the lofty reputation he had gained in the Mediterranean over the past fifteen months. These whispers swelled steadily until after the war Monty was openly defined by his critics as a general with an absolute aversion for risk. One senior RAF airman, Sir Arthur Coningham, said of Monty, "He wouldn't fight until he had everything." General Bradley agreed with this sentiment. Eisenhower's chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, remarked after the end of the European war, "Bradley last night said that Monty never won a battle anyone else couldn't have won."
   But if Monty's direction of the Overlord planning process in 1944 was typical of his generalship, these criticisms were overly harsh. Even if Montgomery was not the first general to conclude that the COSSAC invasion scheme must be modified, his self-styled role as the chief proponent of a revamped Overlord—viewed by many witnesses as arrogant—put his at reputation as a great military leader on the line. With arrogance comes risk: Had only a single one of his changes to the invasion plan failed to work in actuality, Monty would have had to shoulder most of the blame.
   Furthermore, many of Monty's revisions to the COSSAC plan were certainly risky, and in displaying a determination to take these risks, he exhibited at least one of the qualities of great generalship. Of all the changes to Overlord instigated by Montgomery, the most perilous by far was his resolve to add an invasion beach to the plan at the eastern base of the Cotentin Peninsula—the beach that has since been known as Utah....
   True, Monty's insistence that COSSAC's "limited forces" must be augmented would help—but would a heftier assault force be sufficient to overcome the obvious isolation of Utah Beach that COSSAC had defined as its greatest risk? No one, including Monty, knew....
   Perhaps Monty was not so cautious after all.

   Interesting as that opinion might be, it also seems to be off base. Balkoski is entirely right that Monty has never had a reputation as a gambler. Adding to the Normandy invasion force, however, did not amount to taking greater risks. While Utah itself might have been a chancy undertaking, and the massive American airborne landing was certainly a gamble, insisting on throwing the maximum punch at the enemy was absolutely in line with Montgomery's pattern of behavior. In every battle he fought during the war, Montgomery always wanted more troops, more tanks, more artillery, and more aircraft. Normandy was no different. Adding more troops, more beaches, and more airborne landings was not a bold gamble, it was the same old symptom of Monty's aversion to risk, of his unwillingness to throw the dice until the odds had been stacked in his favor. Had Montgomery agreed to assault Normandy with the original allotment of forces, that would have been a sign of risk-taking. Insisting on more forces was strictly standard operating procedure for the cautious old plodder.
   Whatever the risk analysis at Utah Beach says about Montgomery, there's no doubt that Joe Balkoski has certainly weighed all the factors that affected the invasion. From planning to defensive measures to preparatory bombardment to airborne landings to amphibious assault, the book covers all the bases. From the early morning until the late night of 6 June 1944, the events at Utah and on the Cotentin peninsula are thoroughly explored, with the locations and operations of each battalion clearly charted in great detail. As in Omaha Beach, Balkoski punctuates his chapters with chunks of text written by participants in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. He explains that the memories of the veterans make the best historical record, but that only the freshest memories are the most reliable, so he gathers material from letters, debriefings, and other sources to add insight (and impact) from men who were on the spot. These include, among many others, Teddy Roosevelt Jr, Omar Bradley, George Koskimaki (who later penned his own multi-volume memoirs), and even the father of a woman with whom this reviewer works.
   The author rounds out his book with plentiful sketch maps that make it easy to follow the action on the ground, some well-chosen photographs, appendices on OBs, casualties, etc, endnotes, bibliography, and an index.
   Like his Omaha Beach, Balkoski's new book is highly recommended as one of the best of the year. So go ahead and take a break and have a glass of wine with your wife, but—even if it seems there's no more to learn about the topic—make sure you get your hands on a copy of Utah Beach.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Stackpole.
   Thanks to Stackpole for providing this review copy.