Sword Beach: D-Day Baptism by Fire

The British Army’s triumphs—and many failings—on D-Day are reexamined in this elegant account. Historian Hastings (Operation Biting) recaps the British landing at Sword Beach, several miles east of the American landing sites. He highlights some extraordinary successes: glider-borne troops crash-landed their flimsy plywood aircraft right beside key bridges and seized them from astonished Germans; innovative amphibious tanks chugged through the waves and came up shooting on the beach. But Hastings also investigates serious flaws. Commanding general Bernard Montgomery’s objective of taking the city of Caen, nine miles inland, on June 6 was too ambitious, he contends, and the general leading the push, K.P. Smith, was too feckless to carry it out. Traffic jams slowed the movement of men and tanks, and lousy radio communications left them uncertain where to go. British infantry, Hastings observes, often froze and went to ground when fired upon; indeed, he paints the typical soldier as “cautious, hesitant, slow, dilatory, fearful of loss,” and extremely reluctant to follow their officers into an attack. Hastings somewhat lamely excuses this timidity as a virtue of democratic “moderation,” with immoderate courage, daring, and self-sacrifice being too German, the product of “suicidalist” Nazi “fanaticism.” Still, with its clear-eyed eschewal of hero-worship, this makes for a rich exploration of a WWII turning point and of the complex psychology of men in battle. (Nov.)