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They will not grow old….*

Written on: June 6th, 2009 in Reviews

President Obama spoke in commemoration of the 1944 D-Day landings this weekend:

There’s much more about D-Day, one of the most significant military accomplishments in history at the U.S. Army’s official historical page. The Encyclopedia Britannica has resources available (usually subscription, but free here) at this site.

D-Day has been a favorite topic for military historians, as well as a few daring fiction authors who have tackled the event. Notable books about D-Day include The Steel Wave, a new novel by Jeff Shaara (better known for his Civil War fiction) and Stephen Ambrose’s D-Day, 6th June, 1944 which combines Ambrose’s signature dependence on oral histories and first-person accounts with exhaustive and accurate historical research from U.S., English and German sources. Max Hasting’s Overlord is an example of the sort of sweeping, battle focused narrative history written typically by English and European historians.

As astonishing as the sacrifice and accomplishments of the Allies on the Normandy beaches was, there were also many brave souls in Germany who faced impossible odds to fight the Nazi regime at home. A brand new book recently available from the Delaware Library Catalog was reviewed recently in the New York Times, Red Orchestra, recounts one particular opposition campaign. You can read the review as well as the first chapter online.

(* the first line of the 4th stanza of “for the fallen“, Laurence Binyon’s epitaph for the dead of the Great War, recited annually at London’s Cenotaph during Remembrance Day services.