Ted H. Kim's Weblog

Friday August 27, 2004

Decision in Normandy

So what can you do with a new baby sleeping on your shoulder? Back in June I was faced with this question. You can read military history of course! If you are like me, you have way too many unread books piling up. Years ago I bought a used copy of Decision in Normandy by Carlo d'Este. I am glad I finally got to read this book.

Decision in Normandy is, of course, about the WWII Normandy campaign including the D-Day landings. The emphasis of the book is on trying to follow the thinking of the allied commanders and sorting out the controversies of the campaign. Certainly, the history of battle is there with all the basic facts. But it is not one of those books relating the most minute Order of Battle details and all sorts of figures on daily casualty reports. Nor is it one of those "you are there" books relating all sorts of personal stories of the combatants. For that you should read The Longest Day.

My perception is that D'Este is relatively well-known author (especially his Patton book), though I haven't read his other books. This book has an almost academic style, but it is still very readable. The book seems well-researched and meticulous. I am not sure why there isn't more about the German perspective, except that many of the main participants (like Rommel) were dead. Of course, there are limits to trying to get inside the heads of the commanders and recapturing their thinking from that time. But there is no shortage of material about the Allied side to shift through (the victors always write the histories).

Much of the controversy comes down to Montgomery's claims. Monty receives a lot of criticism in this book, but my personal feeling is that the criticism is fair. As you would expect, there is quite a bit about grabbing Caen quickly, Monty's phase lines, pinning German armor in the British sector and Falaise. But there is also a lot of other fascinating material. Personally, I found the discussion on several other points very interesting, including: the earlier invasion plans, the opposition to Anvil-Dragoon, the British infantry shortage and the use of airpower in a carpet bombing mode.

My pet peeve in reading military history is bad maps. Maps are key to any military history. It's certainly true here too. My personal "map test" is to see if the maps actually show what is mentioned in the text. The most common error here is to have the map depict the general area and all the large landmarks but none of smaller towns and ridges actually making up the battles mentioned in text. Does that happen in this book too? Occasionally it does, but not very often. There are also some passages which would have been helped by having another map, instead of trying to extrapolate from the others. I do have to say the maps are clearly drawn, and this book does better than average.

Overall, I give this book high marks both as relatively in-depth, original military history and as an enjoyable read. I look forward to reading more of Carl d'Este's books, including some of his WWII Mediterranean front books.

PS: My original entry into reading military history was from board wargames. So I certainly can't pass up a chance to recommend a wargame on this subject. There are a lot of D-Day games to choose from, but I will just mention one, Breakout: Normandy. While the game does not cover the period of the historical breakout and Falaise, it's quite a good board wargame about the invasion and trying to secure a breakout. Game units are regiment/brigade level. One turn in the game covers a day using Avalon Hill's "impulse/area movement" system. It's overall complexity is medium, and it plays relatively fast -- and of course, it is great fun. If you really want to delve into it, also take a look at Web-Grognards and on the ConsimWorld discusssion board.

For a game concentrating on the breakout and aftermath, Decision in France looks promising. However, I don't have enough experience with it to give it an unqualified recommendation. There is some discussion of this game on ConsimWorld here.

Technorati Tags: books, boardgames

(2004-08-27 12:00:00.0) Permalink