Ten Days To D-Day

Publishers Weekly

Stafford (Spies Beneath Berlin) does an excellent job of re-creating the tensions and anticipations of those who were preparing to fight on D-Day, and the stakes involved for (and often desperate movements of) nonmilitary people on the ground in Europe. Churchill, Eisenhower, Hitler and De Gaulle are here, along with Canadian rifleman Glenn Dickin; Norwegian resister Peter Moen; French resister Sonia d'Artois; double agent Juan Pujol; Albert Grunberg, who was Jewish and in hiding in Paris; and myriad Americans. (May 4) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

A common perception concerning World War II and particularly the landings at Normandy was that the Allies defeated the superior German army through the use of brute force. These two works offer a different perspective, focusing on individuals and their actions. Former diplomat Stafford, the author of several books on World War II (e.g., Secret Agent: The True Story of the Covert War Against Hitler), has produced a work that reads like a thriller. By tracing the lives of ten men and women on the eve of the Normandy landings, he seeks to provide insights into the ordinary individuals who ultimately helped win the battle of Normandy. Among these individuals are an American paratrooper, a Jew hiding from the Nazis, a Canadian infantryman waiting to land on the beaches, and a French resistance worker. Stafford also relates the actions and orders of Allied and Nazi leaders. The Whitakers, coauthors of several World War II books (e.g., Dieppe: Tragedy to Triumph), seek with the help of Copp (history, Wilifrid Laurier Univ., Canada) to dispel another myth: that German soldiers were superior to their Allied counterparts. They argue that the common Allied soldier was indeed remarkable, winning at Normandy despite inferior equipment and incompetent leadership. The Whitakers trace the lives of ordinary men 44 days after the landings as they display extraordinary courage and resourcefulness despite hostile terrain and miserable conditions. Both books are highly recommended. Lt. Col. Charles M. Minyard (Ret.), U.S. Army, Blountstown, FL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A well-conceived study of the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Normandy in 1944, focusing on the more or less ordinary people who participated in that great battle. Most of Stafford's (Spies Beneath Berlin, 2003, etc.) ten subjects were, of course, far from ordinary. In keeping with the author's interest in espionage, some are freedom fighters, members of the French and Norwegian resistance underground, and even secret agents; one is a British Wren, a member of the women's naval corps, whose top-secret job it was to decode ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore signals. Others, German and Allied, are the soldiers who fought it out on the shores of France. By Stafford's account, just about everyone had some inkling that the great battle was coming; it was by a stroke of very good fortune that the Nazis did not have detailed foreknowledge of the invasion, though for some time the Allies had been enforcing strict security measures-Churchill himself ordered that those measures be "high, wide, and handsome"-to protect the invasion force. Stafford's representative German enlisted man suspects something is up when all leave is canceled, while Hitler himself remarks to the Japanese ambassador to the Third Reich that the Allies are planning to "establish a bridgehead in Normandy or Brittany and, after seeing how things went, would then embark upon the establishment of a real second front in the Channel." Back in England, writes Stafford, ordinary folks sense something's up when the streets, shops, and movie houses are suddenly emptied of soldiers: "The crowds were a lot thinner, taxis were now easier to find, and the streets felt quieter, even subdued." Much of Stafford's narrative is a buildup to the bigevent, which has disastrous consequences for some of his actors-Erwin Rommel on one side, a Canadian rifleman named Glenn Dickin on the other-even as they and others perform heroically against the odds. A strong contribution to the literature of WWII, from an accomplished student of the era. Agent: Andrew Lownie/Andrew Lownie Literary Agency