From D-Day to Victory

Beginning with a look at D-Day itself, this book analyses the deadly fighting on the beaches as the Allies launched the first successful cross-Channel invasion in 900 years. It reveals how it took an agonising 12 hours and countless lives to cross just 200 yards from the shoreline to the bluffs. The story then moves to the battle for Normandy itself, which pitched the better supplied, better equipped Allies against the battle-hardened forces of Germany. It portrays the tank duels between the German Tiger tanks and the Sherman Firefly as well as the largest, most intensive bombing raid ever launched. American armour under 'Old Blood and Guts' Patton then broke out of Normandy and raced across France to secure Paris. Veteran interviews reveal the desperate fighting as the German Army in the West became trapped in the Falaise Pocket thanks to this bold manoeuvre and how just for a brief moment Allied troops could almost taste victory. But as the Germans launched an astonishing counter-offensive and the terrifying V-weapons began to rain down, the desperate defence to prevent the collapse of the Third Reich continued throughout the winter of 1944/45.
The war would not be over by Christmas as so many had hoped for and it would be another five months before Allied troops finally crossed the Rhine and fought their way towards Berlin. Now, almost 70 years afterwards, this book relies reveals the realities of the war through the words and recollections of the last surviving veterans. Using their own words and accounts it describes the terror of soldiers facing down a German tank, assaulting a machine-gun post or surviving an artillery barrage. Drawing upon expert analysis and no-holds-barred recreations, it also shows the devastating effects of the weaponry used on a daily basis in an astonishing sequence of full-colour images. Like no other book before, World War II Frontline Heroes, reveals how ordinary men and women fought and survived throughout the extraordinary final months of World War II.