Sand and Steel: The D-Day Invasions and the Liberation of France by Peter Caddick-Adams (review)

Seth Givens

Marine Corps History, Volume 5, Number 2, Winter 2019, pp. 85-87 (Review)

Published by Marine Corps University Press

For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/796556/summary

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. BOOK REVIEWS Seth Givens, PhD

Sand and Steel: The D-Day Invasions and the Liberation of France. By Peter Caddick-Adams. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. 1,072. $34.95 cloth.)

Ever since Cornelius Ryan wrote his classic The Longest usually in page count, and Sand and Steel makes a de- Day in 1959, the Allied invasion of Normandy during clarative statement with its robust 900-plus pages, in- World War II has captured the imaginations of bud- cluding detailed citations that scholars and students ding historians and been etched into popular memory will appreciate. To tell a story this size, Caddick-Ad- as more a social reality than a historical event. It also ams chose to divide his book in two parts, evenly bal- has been a perennial favorite of publishers, who see ancing planning and the operation itself. D-Day as a distillation of the American GI’s accom- Part one, called “Preparation,” covers all aspects plishment in Europe: the culmination of years of prep- of the groundwork for the invasion, building up to the aration and planning, the beginning of the end for moment before it began. This is therefore not a work Nazi Germany, and the rolling up of tyranny across that gets the usual D-Day treatment, which typically Western Europe. But how does one tell the story in begins aboard the stomach-churning, pitching decks such a way that readers pick up one particular book of landing ship, tanks (LSTs), or inside the vibrating and not one of the countless others? Peter Caddick- fuselage of a Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft. Adams, an accomplished scholar on World War II Instead, Caddick-Adams starts in 1940, with French who has held a number of positions in academia and Army brigadier general Charles de Gaulle’s radio the British professional military education system, be- address to his countrymen from London, notifying lieves the solution is thoroughness. them that he had established a government-in-exile His task is large. Caddick-Adams set out to pro- and calling on all French who were capable to come vide a balanced perspective of D-Day, including views to Britain or resist the German occupation at home. from the British, Canadians, and Americans who es- From there, the author touches on many topics, from tablished a beachhead at Normandy to the Germans the social and cultural aspects of American and Ca- who attempted to defend against it. His thorough- nadian soldiers and airmen based in Britain to the ness is not artifice but an argument in and of itself, sometimes-heated discussions that took place among as one of his objectives is to remind the reader that the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Operation Overlord was an Allied undertaking, not The effect of all this background is that it pro- individual British and American operations that sim- vides context for the reader about how mammoth an ply happened to occur on the same day. His argument, undertaking Operation Overlord was. Often lost in too, is that it was a monumental endeavor, and thus histories of D-Day is that it was not a given that the the story of a generation born around the globe in invasion of Europe would happen where and when it the 1910s and 1920s. Such fastidiousness is measured did. Months of arguments about strategy and logistics had to take place first. Once the decision was final- Seth Givens is a historian with the Marine Corps History Division. He is currently preparing the official Marine Corps history of Operation ized, the individuals who came from every corner of Iraqi Freedom. each Allied country began training based on the area

85 86 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 5, NO. 2 of Normandy where they would land, and with that Caddick-Adams eschews standard chronological sto- came the loss of a surprising number of lives during rytelling and uses instead the novel idea of tracking exercises. Also seldom mentioned in many works on events from west to east. The arrangement means that Overlord are the herculean efforts it took to stage he organizes his chapter by beach—Utah, Omaha, the troops and materiel in Britain. After all, every Gold, Juno, and Sword—and therefore, by default, by aircraft, tank, jeep, rifle, mortar round, and boot the unit. He should be commended for attempting a new Americans used had to be flown or shipped from the way to relate the events of 6 June, but it takes a toll on United States. the reader. Events are repeated, as he has to tell a dif- The way in which Caddick-Adams tackles the ferent perspective of the same story over several chap- first half of his work makes it somewhat of a hybrid ters, as was the case in part one. Moreover, context in terms of organization: loosely chronological in ar- for events sometimes appears 100 pages beyond when rangement but topical in content. For example, he dis- it was first needed. The particulars of the airborne cusses the American aviators who arrived in Britain in and amphibious assaults suffer the most from this is- 1942 in one chapter, highlighting what they saw and sue, distorting time and making an already intricate experienced, and then does the same for the ground story more complex. There is, however, a positive con- troops who made the trip by boat two chapters later, sequence of telling the story from west to east. The with many of the same conclusions. Trying to balance reader is subtly reminded how the environment acted the progression of time with topical discussions unfor- as an invisible hand that shaped the battle. In spite tunately makes sections of this book redundant, and of all the Allies’ planning, they could not control cur- a reader attempting to discover, say, the relationships rents and wind. For many of the assault waves, their between U.S. aviation servicemembers and the local fortune or misfortune rested on where they landed on population will have to search for information over Normandy: some arrived where they were supposed several chapters. There is also the effect of bouncing to, but right into the teeth of the waiting Germans, back and forth between 1942 and 1944 to discuss many while others were blown off course, saving them from topics. Still, Caddick-Adams does a masterful job syn- the destruction their comrades were experiencing a thesizing a growing literature from the past two de- few hundred yards away. cades on aspects of the war other than the fighting. As part two unfolds, it is clear Caddick-Adams’s While the first half of the book is split between objective is to dismantle the myths that surround 6 social, cultural, diplomatic, and military history, part June. Among them are the oft-repeated tropes of air- two, called “Invasion,” is purely operational and fo- crews dropping their paratroopers too early or too low cuses only on 6 June 1944. It is here where Caddick- and coxswains being forced to land closer to the shore Adams hits his stride, writing a gripping narrative at gunpoint. Caddick-Adams does an impressive job that seamlessly weaves together an impressive amount tracking where many of these myths began and then of primary and secondary sources, from interviews he marshaling evidence to dispel them. He also criticizes and others conducted to unit records from multiple individuals where warranted, taking military histori- archives and the sizable literature on Normandy. His an Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall to task for inac- discussion of Operation Neptune, the naval side of the curacies and mythmaking and author Cornelius Ryan operation, is one of the better on offer, a conscious de- for dramatizing events such as the fight on Pointe du cision on the author’s part to remind readers that the Hoc that became subsequently codified in popular U.S., British, Canadian, and French navies did much memory. more on D-Day than just ferry troops across the Eng- Sand and Steel is the second book in the series, lish Channel. though the work that precedes it is on the Battle To piece together what took place that day, of the Bulge (Sand and Steel, 2014). In some regards, WINTER 2019 87

Caddick-Adams has been building up to this book, as tive, and the scholar will appreciate it for its thorough he has been studying Normandy since he first visited research. The adjectiveauthoritative is bandied about as a boy in 1975, making it a labor of love. Despite today perhaps too freely, but this work deserves such the peculiarities of arrangement, the casual reader will a descriptor. enjoy Sand and Steel because of its high-quality narra- • 1775 •