[b:Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris; June 6 - Aug. 5, 1944; Revised|613807|Six Armies in Normandy From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris; June 6 - Aug. 5, 1944; Revised|John Keegan|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348346434s/613807.jpg|2347547] ranks between 3 and 4 Stars, an interesting collection of vignettes highlighting the experiences of the British, American, Canadian, Polish, German and French forces in and around Normandy from Jun 6, 1944 to the liberation of Paris at the end of August. This book, written for the 40th and revised for the 50th anniversary of D-Day, isn’t a chronological recap of the battle. Rather, it jumps from the American airborne landings to the Canadian assault on Juno beach to the Scottish corridor towards Caen to the British Op Goodwood attack to the German Army counterattacks and retreats to the Polish Corps role in the Falaise Gap battle and, finally, to that epic of modern armed conflict, the liberation of Paris by the French 2nd Division blindée.Keegan starts out with a wonderful telling of his memories of the war as a young boy. I found his description of meeting the arriving Americans and then, their sudden departure for D-Day, very compelling. Beautiful writing. He then gives a background run up to the invasion through the actions and views of various players. Also very interesting. He begins the battle with the Americans jumping into Normandy and then skips around to the various participants. I found the fight of the Polish forces at Falais the most interesting while the French Paris excursion somewhat less so. All the forces come in for some muted criticism but mostly, Keegan provides more admirable episodes. Even the German forces, deservedly so, are admired for their tenacious fighting withdrawals. After all, this book was written to be read by the participants in those battles, 40 or 50 years later, when some reconciliation has taken place. No need to dwell on less heroic episodes of the fight. A worthwhile read.
Lately, the scale of the fight on the Eastern Front vs the Western Front has come under renewed scrutiny. Max Hastings in particular has stated almost 90% of German losses occurred in the East. Losses in the west pale in comparison to the eastern front. This book was written back when the fighting was thought to be comparable:
The Destruction of Army Group Centre was altogether different. The result of an offensive opened by the Russians on June 22nd, 1944, timed deliberately to coincide with the third anniversary of Barbarossa, it had been launched by 140 Soviet rifle and tank divisions against the German Fourth and Ninth Armies. Attacking on a front of 350 miles, they had in three weeks driven forward 250 miles, from the Dnieper to the Niemen, to recross the Polish border of 1939 and halt within fifty miles of East Prussia itself. And in the process 300,000 German soldiers were killed or taken prisoner and 28 divisions written off the German order of battle, dissolved as if they had never existed. For several weeks an enormous gap had yawned in the line covering the eastern approaches to Germany and it had been only the headlong pace of the Russian advance, over reaching the capacity of their supply columns to keep step with the vanguard, which had spared Hitler the wholesale collapse of his north eastern front.
The Destruction of Army Group Centre, little known as a battle though it is in the West, must therefore count among the greatest defeats ever inflicted in warfare. And yet, if strict comparisons are made between its results and those of Normandy, it may yet appear that the Western Allies’ victory was the greater. The Allies committed far fewer divisions to Normandy than did the Russians against Army Group Centre, only thirty four in all, even after making allowance for the smaller size of Russian divisions and the larger number of Western ‘corps’ and army’ troops in the divisional slice, the ratio between effort expended and result achieved stands very much in their favour. The number of enemy divisions destroyed also counts to the Western Allies’ balance. Such calculations are complicated In the middle of September, when the German high command in the West began to put its books in order, it was able to show that almost every division which had fought west of the Seine was still represented in some form on the new line which had been established in Holland and along the West Wall. But in most cases only by fragments. The twelve armoured divisions, which should have fielded 1,800 tanks, could show only 120; 2,200 had been destroyed in the Normandy battle. Of the 48 infantry divisions under Rundstedt’S command on June 6th, only 21 still stood in the order of battle in mid-September. Three had been evacuated from the West altogether. Nine were being reconstructed in the Replacement Army. Seven were besieged in French ports. Eight had been dissolved as beyond repair. And of the twenty one in nominal existence, eight were classified as remnants. Twenty seven infantry divisions had therefore been ground to dust by the British and Americans, and eleven of the twelve panzer divisions reduced to bits and pieces. Five hundred thousand German soldiers had disappeared in the process, a quarter million were dead.