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Title details for Landing on the Edge of Eternity by Robert Kershaw - Available

Landing on the Edge of Eternity

Twenty-Four Hours at Omaha Beach

by Robert Kershaw
Roger Clark
Audiobook
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When Company A of the U.S. 116th Regiment landed on Omaha Beach in D-Day's first wave on 6th June 1944, it lost 96% of its effective strength. Sixteen teams of U.S. engineers arriving in the second wave were unable to blow the beach obstacles, as first wave survivors were still sheltering behind them. This was the beginning of the historic day that Landing on the Edge of Eternity narrates hour by hour.

Mustered on their troop transport decks at 2 a.m., the American infantry departed in landing craft at 5 a.m. Skimming across high waves, deafened by immense broadsides from supporting battleships and weak from seasickness, they caught sight of land at 6:15. Eleven minutes later, the assault was floundering under intense German fire. Two and a half hours in, General Bradley, commanding the landings aboard USS Augusta, had to decide if to proceed or evacuate. On June 6th there were well over 2,400 casualties on Omaha Beach—easily D-Day's highest death toll.
The Wehrmacht thought they had bludgeoned the Americans into bloody submission, yet by mid-afternoon, the American troops were ashore. Why were the casualties so grim, and how could the Germans have failed? Juxtaposing the American experience, Robert Kershaw draws on eyewitness accounts, memories, letters, and post-combat reports to expose the true horrors of Omaha Beach.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 16, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781977358462
      • File size: 413291 KB
      • Duration: 14:21:01

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from September 24, 2018
      Kershaw (24 Hours at the Somme), a military historian and former British soldier, gives a meticulously researched, gripping account of what is now praised as a great Allied victory, but at the time seemed like a crude slaughter: the Allies’ near-defeat at Omaha Beach. The Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, began the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi occupation, and its success hinged on the landing by American troops at Omaha Beach. This minute-by-minute account starts with Gen. Dwight Eisenhower worrying the landing would fail. His fears were rapidly confirmed; nearly 4,700 American were killed or wounded there. Allied command and planning decisions come in for fair criticism, and the shortcomings of the pre-landing bombardment by Allied air and naval forces are explored both through tactical analysis and the accounts of infantrymen who left their landing craft and saw their fellow soldiers butchered at the water’s edge. Kershaw’s research into the crack German troops stationed at Omaha is exceptionally detailed. Kershaw brings home the significance of the battle with suspense and uncertainty that has been glossed over in other recent accounts.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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