This key title in the acclaimed Battle Zone Normandy series explores the Allies' struggle to take Caen and its significance for the campaign.

In the week after the D-Day landings, British and Canadian forces in the east were ordered to pin down as many German troops as possible to take the pressure off the Americans, who planned to break out on the western flank. The British commander, Montgomery, wanted to capture Caen, however, and to extend the Allied bridgehead further south. To this end, two battle-hardened divisions were to make a flanking manoeuvre west of Caen, cross the River Odon, break through the enemy positions and take the high ground around Evrecy. 7th Armoured Division, the 'Desert Rats' were to capture Villers Bocage and Evrecy in a 'right hook' while 50th (Tyne Tees) Infantry Division were to take Lingevres and Les Verrieres. Unbeknown to the 'Desert Rats' a number of German Tiger tanks already held the high ground. Led by Waffen-SS tank ace Michael Wittman, these Tigers destroyed almost the entire British advance guard and forced the 'Desert Rats' to withdraw, Wittman's crew accounting for some 25 tanks and other vehicles before being knocked out themselves. At the same time the Geordies of 50th Infantry Division were fighting to take Lingevres and Les Verrieres, ably supported by the tanks of 4/7 Dragoon Guards. Sergeant "Spit" Harris, commanding a Sherman Firefly tank, knocked out no fewer than five Panther tanks, a feat rivalling Wittman's.

Operation 'Epsom, ' launched on June 29, was General Bernard Montgomery's third attempt to take the city of Caen, which had been a key D-Day objective. The attack deployed VIII Corps, consisting of 11th and Guards Armoured Divisions, 15th (Scottish) Division and 6th Independent Armoured Brigade.

This key title in the acclaimed Battle Zone Normandy series explores Operations Totalize and Tractable.

Originally published: Stroud: Sutton, 2004.

“An eye-opening exposé of the Pre-D-Day disaster and incident of friendly fire tragedy and cover up that was the Slapton Sands.” —WorldWars.com This is a book of two stories. The first is the sad tale of how at least 749 American servicemen lost their lives on a pre-D-Day landing exercise, code-named “Operation Tiger,” on the evening of 23/24 April 1943. The second, was the unanswerable question of whether the attacking E-Boats of the German Kriegsmarine had fully grasped the importance of what they had stumbled across. Because of the time scale between the operation and the actual D-Day landings, secrecy surrounding the tragedy had to be stringently adhered to, and even after the invasion of Normandy, only scant information about the incident and those who were killed was ever released. The other factor that was of major concern, was if the Germans had understood the significance of the vessels they had attacked, then the intended Allied invasion of Europe was in grave danger of having to be postponed for an indefinite period of time. In late 1943, as part of the buildup to the D-day landings at Normandy, the British government had set up a training ground at Slapton Sands in Devon, to be used by the American forces tasked with landing on Utah Beach in Normandy. Coordination and communication problems between British and American forces, resulted in friendly fire deaths during the exercise, making a bad situation even worse. The story was then lost to history until Devon resident, Ken Small, discovered evidence of the aftermath washed up on the shore at Slapton Sands in the early 1970s.

During World War II, U.S. Army generals often maintained diaries of their activities and the day-to-day operations of their command. These diaries have proven to be invaluable historical resources for World War II scholars and enthusiasts alike. Until now, one of the most historically significant of these diaries, the one kept for General Courtney H. Hodges of the First U.S. Army, has not been widely available to the public. Maintained by two of Hodges's aides, Major William C. Sylvan and Captain Francis G. Smith Jr., this unique military journal offers a vivid, firsthand account detailing the actions, decisions, and daily activities of General Hodges and the First Army throughout the war. The diary opens on June 2, 1944, as Hodges and the First Army prepare for the Allied invasion of France. In the weeks and months that follow, the diary highlights the crucial role that Hodges's often undervalued command—the first to cross the German border, the first to cross the Rhine, the first to close to the Elbe—played in the Allied operations in northwest Europe. The diary recounts the First Army's involvement in the fight for France, the Siegfried Line campaign, the Battle of the Bulge, the drive to the Roer River, and the crossing of the Rhine, following Hodges and his men through savage European combat until the German surrender in May 1945. Popularly referred to as the "Sylvan Diary," after its primary writer, the diary has previously been available only to military historians and researchers, who were permitted to use it at only the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, the U.S. Army Center for Military History, or the U.S. Army Military History Institute. Retired U.S. Army historian John T. Greenwood has now edited this text in its entirety and added a biography of General Hodges as well as extensive notes that clarify the diary's historical details. Normandy to Victory provides military history enthusiasts with valuable insights into the thoughts and actions of a leading American commander whose army played a crucial role in the Allied successes of World War II.