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Colonel Roy M. Stanley II was a professional photo interpreter who spent some of his career working at the United States Department of Defence in a department that was responsible for the aerial film archives. During his time there he rescued a large collection of films that might otherwise have been destroyed to save space, selecting items that attracted his interest. This book is based on the D-Day photographs from that collection.
Stanley has picked out the most interesting photos from his collection, each showing an interesting aspect of the fighting, and uses his professional skills to explain what we are seeing. The collection includes photos from the pre-invasion reconnaissance effort (including some of the low level oblique pictures that showed the entire coast). Here we see how the German defences of the beaches improved in the years before the invasion, with in some cases multiple photos showing work at particular site. The pictures of intact beach defences are also interesting.
We then move on to pictures of the invasion itself, including the massive naval effort, the landings and the fighting on and behind the beaches. The scale of the naval effort is made very clear, as is the impressive size of some of the landing craft, and the ambitious nature of the Mulberry harbour and the Gooseberry breakwaters (made by sinking obsolete warships as block ships).
Most of the pictures show the actual fighting, with sections on the paratroops and gliders on the two flanks and on each of the five beaches. Again there are some amazing pictures here. Some features show up with impressive clarity - I was surprised at how visible minefields were from the air, showing up as neat rows of white dots. Tank tracks also appear very clearly, often long after the vehicles themselves have moved off. There are even some rare photos showing the actual infantry assault, including one showing hundreds of men moving off Omaha Beach. It is here that the author's professional skills come to the fore, picking out infantry where I would have only seen dots or indentifying individual types of vehicles.
Stanley also has things to say about the actual planning of the D-Day assaults, and in particular on Omaha Beach, where a great deal of effort went into frontal assaults on the German strongpoints that might better have been spent on attacking the bluffs between them.
This is a truly fascinating book, with a collection of important pictures of the D-Day landings, supported by informative captions. A great addition to the literature on this famous battle.
Chapters
1 - The Atlantic Wall
2 - Aerial Photoreconnaissance
3 - Understand the Defenses
4 - First In
5 - Over the Beaches
6 - Later and Inland
7 - Afterthoughts
Author: Colonel Roy M. Stanley II
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 272
Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
Year: 2013