The story behind D-Day begins in 1939 when Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, attacked Poland and ignited World War Two. The following year, the Germans occupied France and Western Europe and launched a vicious air war against Britain. In 1941, they invaded the Soviet Union. Seemingly unstoppable, the Nazis now held virtually all of Europe. They imposed a ruthless system of control and unleashed the horror of the Holocaust. However, by 1943, the tide had begun to turn in favor of the Allies, the forces opposed to Germany. In the east, despite huge losses, the Soviets began to force the Germans back.

Following nearly two years of planning and exacting preparation, Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of the Nazi-dominated European continent, was mounted in the early hours of 6th June, 1944. It was to be a pivotal event leading to the end of the Second World War and victory for the Allied forces. The invasion itself was centred on the largest amphibious landing operation in history. It involved 7000 naval vessels, 3000 aircraft, 17000 American and British paratroopers and thousands of additional military personnel. What awaited the Allied landing forces—many of them suffering the effects of sea sickness when they were delivered into the surf of the five main landing beaches on the Normandy coast of France—were key elements in the formidable defences of Hitlers vaunted Atlantic Wall. The Wall was a 2500-mile chain of various types of fortifications stretching from the North Cape to the Bay of Biscay. That portion of the German defences between Caen to the east and Cherbourg to the west was particularly menacing, due largely to the planning and implementations of Feldmarschall Erwin Rommel, appointed by Hitler to take charge of the Atlantic Wall defences.D-Day Defences revisits many of the locations within the five-beach landing area of the invasion forces, focusing on the various aspects of the German fortifications, the types of defensive systems employed against the American, British and Canadian invaders, and the results experienced by both invaders and defenders in the Allied struggle to gain and hold possession of that pathway to Berlin.

Often written during imprisonment in Allied War camps by former German officers, with their memories of the World War fresh in their minds, The Foreign Military Studies series offers rare glimpses into the Third Reich. In this study Oberst a.D. Wilhem Willemar discusses his recollections of the climatic battle for Berlin from within the Wehrmacht. “No cohesive, over-all plan for the defense of Berlin was ever actually prepared. All that existed was the stubborn determination of Hitler to defend the capital of the Reich. Circumstances were such that he gave no thought to defending the city until it was much too late for any kind of advance planning. Thus the city’s defense was characterized only by a mass of improvisations. These reveal a state of total confusion in which the pressure of the enemy, the organizational chaos on the German side, and the catastrophic shortage of human and material resources for the defense combined with disastrous effect. “The author describes these conditions in a clear, accurate report which I rate very highly. He goes beyond the more narrow concept of planning and offers the first German account of the defense of Berlin to be based upon thorough research. I attach great importance to this study from the standpoint of military history and concur with the military opinions expressed by the author.”-Foreword by Generaloberst a.D. Franz Halder.

A study of the planning and thinking that went into the creation of Hitler's "Atlantic Wall," which was intended to prevent the D-Day invasion and throw Allied soldiers back into the sea. The book details how and why the Atlantic Wall failed to perform as Hitler intended.

One of the prime objectives for the Allies following the D-Day landings was the capture of sufficient ports to supply their armies. The original Overlord plans assumed that ports along the Breton coast would be essential to expansion of the Normandy beach-head. This included the major ports at Brest and on Quiberon Bay. The newly arrived Third US Army (TUSA) under Lt. Gen. George S. Patton was delegated to take on the Brittany mission. In one of the most rapid mechanized advances of the war, TUSA had the ports of Avranches and Quiberon encircled by the second week of August 1944. But changing priorities meant that most of TUSA was redeployed, meaning only a single corps was left to take the Breton port cities. The fight would drag into 1945, long after German field armies had been driven from France. Using full colour maps and artwork as well as contemporary accounts and photographs, Brittany 1944 is the fascinating story of the siege of Germany's last bastions on the French Atlantic coast.

Chronicles the events, politics, and personalities of this pivotal day in World War II, shedding light on the strategies of commanders on both sides and the ramifications of the battle