Category: D-Day: Launching the Attack

ZUEHLKE, Mark. Juno Beach: Canada's D-Day victory: June 6, 1944. 415p., bibliog., illus., index. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2005. ISBN: 1553650506.

A good popular account of the Canadian experience. First volume of a trilogy which looks at the post D-Day and break out operations. Reprinted in the UK by Orca in 2012 as Assault on Juno (ISBN: 1459800362).

KAY-BUJAK, Philip. Empire Javelin, D-Day Assault Ship: The Royal Navy Vessel that Landed the US 116th Infantry on Omaha Beach. 240p., bibliog., illus., index. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Maritime, 2024. ISBN: 9781399035811.

She was an American built LSI serving in the Royal Navy. The book focuses on her role at D-Day, landing A Company of the 116th Infantry Regiment as part of the initial assault. It also explores her career from design and construction to launch and work-up. After 6th June she continued to ferry troops across the Channel until her sinking in December 1944, either by U-boat or a mine, while carrying troops.

PHILLIPS, John Henry. The Search: The True Story of a D-Day Survivor, An Unlikely Friendship, and a Lost Shipwreck Off Normandy. ix, 324p., maps, index. London: Robinson, 2022. ISBN: 9781472146182.

The story of Landing Craft Headquarters (LCH) 185, which led the assault on Sword Beach but was sunk by a mine on 25th June 1944. A chance meeting between the author (an archaeologist) and Patrick Thomas, one of the few survivors, at a D-Day commemoration in 2016 led to a hunt for the wreck of the LCH. The story jumps backward and forward between the story of the landing craft’s war service, Thomas’s wartime service in the RN and the ultimately  successful hunt for the wreck.

MACE, Martin & GREHAN, John. Liberating Europe: D-Day to Victory 1944-1945. xiv, 226p., illus., index. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2014. ISBN: 9781783462155.

Reprints six despatches from the London Gazette with a brief introduction, namely 38045, the Dieppe Raid; 38110, the Assault Phase of the Normandy Landings; 38111, the Liberation of Europe (Operation Overlord), Operations of Coastal Command; 38204, Air Operations by the Allied Expeditionary Air Force in North West Europe 1943-44; 38171, the Final Stages of the Naval War in North West Europe; 37711, Operations in North West Europe from 6 June 1944, to 5 May 1945.

EVANS, George. The Landfall Story. 112p., illus. Liverpool, [author], 1992.

The author tells the story of LCT(3) 7074. Completed at Hebburn in April 1944 she was assigned to the Normandy Landings and formed part of the 17th Flotilla at Lowestoft before moving to Gorleston then Harwich before the assault. In April 1945 she was assigned to Western Approaches Command and converted to an Emergency Repair Vessel based at Liverpool. Her post-war career is also traced.

SADLER, John. D-Day: The British Beach Landings. 256p., bibliog., illus., index. Stroud: Amberley, 2019. ISBN: 9781445644578.

Based on personal recollections, this focuses on the morning of the landings on Gold, Juno and Sword beaches.

VERONICO, Nicholas A. D-Day: The Air and Sea Invasion of Normandy in Photos. [5], 232, [2]p., bibliog., illus. Guilford, CT: Stackpole Books, 2019. ISBN: 9780811738095.

Some 300 well reproduced photographs offer a largely American perspective on the landings. There are good tabular lists of aircraft and shipping losses.

KERSHAW, Alex. The First Wave: The D-Day Warriors Who Led the Way to Victory in the Second World War. [vii], 368p., bibliog., illus., index. New York: Dutton Caliber; London: Simon & Schuster UK, 2019. ISBN: 9781471185915.

Based on the reminiscences of those who landed first by air and sea, this offers a very personal view of the landings, with some marginal naval material.

RIDING, Christine. (ed.). Art and the War at Sea 1914-1945. 208p., bibliog., illus., index. London: Lund Humphries, 2015. ISBN: 9781848221680.

Based on the collections of the National Maritime Museum, this collection of essays focuses more on the First World War than the Second. But it provides excellent essays on the role of art in war.

BURTON, Lesley. D-Day: Our Great Enterprise. 96p., bibliog., illus., index. Gosport: Gosport Society, 1984.

A profusely illustrated local history showing how the towns of the Solent reacted to and supported the preparations for D–Day. Reprinted in 1993 by Gosport Publishing, ISBN:  0950203610. 

KEMP, Ross. Raiders. x ,294p., bibliog., illus., index. London: Century, 2012. ISBN: 1780890559.

A popular account of six raids: The FAA attack on Taranto (JUDGEMENT); the raid on Vaagso (ARCHERY); the raid on radar sites at Bruneval  (BITING); the raid on the heavy water plant in Norway (GUNNERSIDE); the raid on St Nazaire (CHARIOT); the D-Day raid on Pegasus Bridge (DEADSTICK).

Poole played its part in the preparations for invasion. Previously published in 1984 by Poole Tourist Service

GREGORY-SMITH, FRANK. Red Tobruk: Memoirs of a World War II Destroyer Commander. viii, 200p., illus., index. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2008. ISBN: 1844158624.

An autobiography. He went to Dartmouth in 1922 and by 1939 was First Lieutenant of Jaguar. After Norway and Dunkirk he stood by Eridge as her new captain. On completion she moved to the Mediterranean and a hectic war with eighteen months of convoys to Tobruk and Malta. In August 1942 she was torpedoed by an Italian MTB. Under constant air attack, she was towed to Alexandria, but was irreparable. This Mediterranean period forms the heart of the book. A brief coda describes his role as a D-Day Beachmaster.

Mainly concerned with the Western Naval Task Force assigned to give fire support to the landings at Omaha and Utah beaches. It assembled in Belfast Lough and its gathering and part in the assault are described.

The old remember the great days.

Reminiscences of a memorable period in the life of the town.

Southwick Hall was first the home of the Portsmouth navigation school HMS Dryad, but was later taken over as the command base for Eisenhower, Montgomery, and Ramsay.

Useful background on the invasion ports.

Another local history commemorative volume. A revised second edition was published in 2004.

More commemorative oral history.

A series of essays which usefully describe the central role of Hampshire as the springboard for the assault.