D-Day_ The Battle for Normandy - Antony Beevor [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1 - The Decision
Chapter 2 - Bearing the Cross of Lorraine
Chapter 3 - Watch on the Channel
Chapter 4 - Sealing off the Invasion Area
Chapter 5 - The Airborne Assault
Chapter 6 - The Armada Crosses
Chapter 7 - Omaha
Chapter 8 - Utah and the Airborne
Chapter 9 - Gold and Juno
Chapter 10 - Sword
Chapter 11 - Securing the Beachheads
Chapter 12 - Failure at Caen
Chapter 13 - Villers-Bocage
Chapter 14 - The Americans on the Cotentin Peninsula
Chapter 15 - Operation Epsom
Chapter 16 - The Battle of the Bocage
Chapter 17 - Caen and the Hill of Calvary
Chapter 18 - The Final Battle for Saint-Lô
Chapter 19 - Operation Goodwood
Chapter 20 - The Plot against Hitler
Chapter 21 - Operation Cobra - Breakthrough
Chapter 22 - Operation Cobra - Breakout
Chapter 23 - Brittany and Operation Bluecoat
Chapter 24 - The Mortain Counter-attack
Chapter 25 - Operation Totalize
Chapter 26 - The Hammer and Anvil
Chapter 27 - The Killing Ground of the Falaise Pocket
Chapter 28 - The Paris Uprising and the Race for the Seine
Chapter 29 - The Liberation of Paris
Chapter 30 - Aftermath
Acknowledgements
Index
Acknowledgements
Notes
Select Bibliography
VIKING
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Map illustrations by John Gilkes
Photograph credits appear on pages ix-xi.
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1
The Decision
Southwick House is a large Regency building with a stucco façade and a colonnaded front. At the beginning of June 1944, five miles to the south, Portsmouth naval base and the anchorages beyond were crowded with craft of every size and type - grey warships, transport vessels and hundreds of landing craft, all tethered together. D-Day was scheduled for Monday, 5 June, and loading had already begun.
In peacetime, Southwick could have been the setting for an Agatha Christie house party, but the Royal Navy had taken it over in 1940. Its formerly handsome grounds and the wood behind were now blighted by rows of Nissen huts, tents and cinder paths. Southwick served as the headquarters of Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, the naval commander-in-chief for the invasion of Europe, and also as the advanced command post of SHAEF, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. Anti-aircraft batteries on the Portsdown ridge were positioned to defend