Overlord

Max Hastings is the author of thirty books, most about conflict, including Bomber Command, Armageddon, Das Reich, The Korean War, The Battle for the Falklands, Vietnam, Operation Pedestal and Abyss, and editor of two anthologies. He worked as a reporter for BBC television and British newspapers, covering eleven wars, including Vietnam, the 1973 Yom Kippur war and the Falklands war. Between 1986 and 2002 he served as editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, then editor of the Evening Standard. He has won many prizes for both journalism and his books. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of King’s College, London, and was knighted in 2002. He has two grown-up children, Charlotte and Harry, and lives with his wife Penny in West Berkshire, where they garden enthusiastically.

Max Hastings’s reportage of the battle is not unworthy to stand with that of the best journalists and writers who witnessed it . . . A tribute to his skills as a historian

• Section - i: List of Maps Section - ii: List of Illustrations Section - iii: Foreward Section - iv: Prologue Chapter - 1: 'Much the greatest thing we have ever attempted' Chapter - 2: Preperations: Commanders; Airmen; Invaders; Defenders Chapter - 3: To the Far Shore: The overture; The American beaches; The British beaches; Inland Chapter - 4: The British Before Caen: Closing the lines; Villers-Bocage; EPSOM Chapter - 5: The Americans Before Chebourg: The bocage; The battle for Chebourg Chapter - 6: The German Army: Stemming the Tide: Soldiers; Weapons Chapter - 7: The Battlefield: From the beachhead to the front; Casualties Chapter - 8: Crisis of Confidence: The fall of Caen; GOODWOOD Chapter - 9: The Breakout: COBRA; The limits of air power Chapter - 10: The Open Flank Chapter - 11: The Road to Falaise Chapter - 12: The Gap Section - v: Appendix A: Chronology of the Normandy Campaign Section - vi: Appendix B: Allied Order of Battle Section - vii: Appendix C: Forces available in ETO for Operation OVERLORD, D-Day, 6 June 1944 Section - viii: Appendix D: German land forces encountered by the Allies in Normandy Section - ix: Appendix E: Some British administrative statistics Section - x: Bibliography and a note on sources Section - xi: Notes and references Section - xii: Glossary Acknowledgements - xiii: Acknowledgements Index - xiv: Index