For those who loved Stephen E. Ambrose's Band of Brothers and E.B. Sledge's With the Old Breed. Drawing on toughness and skills forged in hardscrabble Depression-era North Carolina, Bronze Star recipient and expert B.A.R. rifleman Harold Frank invades Normandy, fights Germans, and endures a grueling stint in a German POW camp where he witnesses the fire-bombing of Dresden. From D-Day to Dresden with a Crack Shot B.A.R. Rifleman D-Day 1944: twenty-year-old PFC Harold Frank had moved as one with his battalion onto the shores of Utah Beach, pushing into France to cut off and blockade the pivotal Nazi-occupied deep-water port of Cherbourg. As a recognized crack shot with WW II's iconic American automatic rifle, Frank fought bravely across the bloody hedgerows of the Cotentin Peninsula. During the most intense fighting, Frank was ambushed and wounded in a deadly, nine-hour firefight with Germans. Taken prisoner and with a bullet lodged under one arm, Frank found himself dumped first in a brutal Nazi POW concentration camp, then shipped to a grueling work camp on the outskirts of Dresden, Germany, where the young PFC was exposed to the vengeance of a crumbling Nazi regime, the menace of a rapidly advancing Russian military—and the danger of thousands of Allied bombers screaming overhead during the firebombing of Dresden. Historian Mark Hager builds on hundreds of hours of interviews with Harold Frank, sharing the intimate and heart-pounding account of Frank’s journey as a child of the Great Depression to the bloody shores of the D-Day invasion, into the bowels of Nazi Germany, and back to the U.S. where as a young man Harold would spend years resolutely dealing with the lingering effects of starvation rations while determinedly building a new life—a life always mindful of the legacy of his POW experience and his faithful service in America’s hard-fought war against Nazi aggression.

It all started because of a rifle. The Rifle is an inspirational story and hero’s journey of a 28-year-old U.S. Marine, Andrew Biggio, who returned home from combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, full of questions about the price of war. He found answers from those who survived the costliest war of all -- WWII veterans. It began when Biggio bought a 1945 M1 Garand Rifle, the most common rifle used in WWII, to honor his great uncle, a U.S. Army soldier who died on the hills of the Italian countryside. When Biggio showed the gun to his neighbor, WWII veteran Corporal Joseph Drago, it unlocked memories Drago had kept unspoken for 50 years. On the spur of the moment, Biggio asked Drago to sign the rifle. Thus began this Marine’s mission to find as many WWII veterans as he could, get their signatures on the rifle, and document their stories. For two years, Biggio traveled across the country to interview America’s last-living WWII veterans. Each time he put the M1 Garand Rifle in their hands, their eyes lit up with memories triggered by holding the weapon that had been with them every step of the war. With each visit and every story told to Biggio, the veterans signed their names to the rifle. 96 signatures now cover that rifle, each a reminder of the price of war and the courage of our soldiers.

Illustrated with over 40 photos and 15 maps of the engagement. The momentous events of the 6th of June 1944, D-Day, still resonate around the world, almost 200,000 Allied Soldiers were thrown against the Nazi dominated coast of France in a bid to free Western Europe from the Fascist grip that had held it since 1939. Although massive air and naval bombardments proceeded the landings the mission would succeed or fail based on the ground troops being able to force their way in land and allow a secure bridgehead to be formed out of enemy artillery range. However, the buildup of supplies and troops for the millions strong armies necessary to liberate Europe could not be brought through the improvised Mulberry harbour on the unprotected beaches of Normandy, a port must be taken. The troops on the far left of the line attacking the beach code-named “Utah” would be tasked not only with the initial assault of the coastline but to eventually capture Cherbourg and the Cotentin Peninsula. The fighting on D-Day on the beach was tough but successful, very since the early morning the paratroops fought in many groups some numbering a few men up to battalion size to secure the vital targets inland. The Germans were aware of the importance of the landing only gradually, but launched fierce counterattacks against the Americans coming across the flooded land inland from the beaches. The port of Cherbourg and town were heavily defended and had many difficult fortifications to be overcome, but the Americans were equal to the task and eventually captured it ensuring the supply lines for the armies that would engage and fight Hitler’s legions across France, Belgium , Holland and into Germany. An excellent study of the second American Beach landing and along with its companion volume, OMAHA BEACHHEAD, provide an unparalleled record of the fighting of the American forces on D-Day and in the Bocage fighting in Normandy.

This account focuses on the tactical operations of the Third Army and its subordinate units between 1 September and 18 December 1944.