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The Longest Day
The unparalleled work of history that recreates the battle that changed World War II -- now in a new edition for the 50th anniversary of D-Day.
Newly in print for the first time in years, this is the classic story of the invasion of Normandy, and a book that endures as a masterpiece of living history. A compelling tale of courage and heroism, glow and tragedy, The Longest Day painstakingly recreates the fateful hours that preceded and followed the massive invasion of Normandy to retell the story of an epic battle that would turn the tide against world fascism and free Europe from the grip of Nazi Germany.
For this new edition of The Longest Day, the original photographs used in the first 1959 edition have been reassembled and painstakingly reproduced, and the text has been freshly reset. Here is a book that is a must for any follower of history, as well as for anyone who wants to better understand how free nations prevailed at a time when darkness enshrouded the earth.
Newly in print for the first time in years, this is the classic story of the invasion of Normandy, and a book that endures as a masterpiece of living history. A compelling tale of courage and heroism, glow and tragedy, The Longest Day painstakingly recreates the fateful hours that preceded and followed the massive invasion of Normandy to retell the story of an epic battle that would turn the tide against world fascism and free Europe from the grip of Nazi Germany.
For this new edition of The Longest Day, the original photographs used in the first 1959 edition have been reassembled and painstakingly reproduced, and the text has been freshly reset. Here is a book that is a must for any follower of history, as well as for anyone who wants to better understand how free nations prevailed at a time when darkness enshrouded the earth.
350 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
About the author
Cornelius Ryan
14 books274 followersCornelius Ryan was born in Dublin. After finishing his education he moved to London in 1940, and became a war correspondent for ''The Daily Telegraph'' in 1941.
He initially covered the air war in Europe during WW II, flew along on fourteen bombing missions with the Eighth Air Force and Ninth Air Force United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), then joined General Patton's Third Third Army and covered its actions until the end of the European war. He transferred to the Pacific theater in 1945, and then to Jerusalem in 1946.
Ryan emigrated to the United States in 1947 to work for Time magazine, where he reported on the postwar tests of atomic weapons carried out by the United States in the Pacific. This was followed by work for other magazines, including Collier's Weekly and Reader's Digest.
He married Kathryn Morgan (1925–1993), a novelist, and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1951.
On a trip to Normandy in 1949 Ryan became interested in telling a more complete story of D-Day than had been produced to date. He began compiling information and conducting over 1000 interviews as he gathered stories from both the Allies and the Germans, as well as the French civilians.
In 1956 he began to write down his World War II notes for The Longest Day, which tells the story of the invasion of Normandy. Published in 1959 it was an instant success.
His next work was Last Battle The Classic History of the Battle for Berlin (1966), about the Battle of Berlin.
This work was followed by A Bridge Too Far (1974), which tells the story of Operation Market Garden, the ill-fated assault by allied airborne forces on the Netherlands culminating in the Battle of Arnhem.
Ryan was awarded the French Legion of Honor, and an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from Ohio University, where the Cornelius Ryan Collection is housed (Alden Library). He was diagnosed with cancer in 1970, and struggled to finish A Bridge Too Far during his illness. He died in Manhattan, while on tour promoting the book, A Bridge Too Far, only two months after publication.
Four years after his death, Ryan's struggle with cancer was detailed in A Private Battle written by his wife, from notes he had secretly left behind for that purpose. He is buried in the Ridgebury Cemetery in northern Ridgefield, Connecticut.
Biography info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corneliu...
He initially covered the air war in Europe during WW II, flew along on fourteen bombing missions with the Eighth Air Force and Ninth Air Force United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), then joined General Patton's Third Third Army and covered its actions until the end of the European war. He transferred to the Pacific theater in 1945, and then to Jerusalem in 1946.
Ryan emigrated to the United States in 1947 to work for Time magazine, where he reported on the postwar tests of atomic weapons carried out by the United States in the Pacific. This was followed by work for other magazines, including Collier's Weekly and Reader's Digest.
He married Kathryn Morgan (1925–1993), a novelist, and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1951.
On a trip to Normandy in 1949 Ryan became interested in telling a more complete story of D-Day than had been produced to date. He began compiling information and conducting over 1000 interviews as he gathered stories from both the Allies and the Germans, as well as the French civilians.
In 1956 he began to write down his World War II notes for The Longest Day, which tells the story of the invasion of Normandy. Published in 1959 it was an instant success.
His next work was Last Battle The Classic History of the Battle for Berlin (1966), about the Battle of Berlin.
This work was followed by A Bridge Too Far (1974), which tells the story of Operation Market Garden, the ill-fated assault by allied airborne forces on the Netherlands culminating in the Battle of Arnhem.
Ryan was awarded the French Legion of Honor, and an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from Ohio University, where the Cornelius Ryan Collection is housed (Alden Library). He was diagnosed with cancer in 1970, and struggled to finish A Bridge Too Far during his illness. He died in Manhattan, while on tour promoting the book, A Bridge Too Far, only two months after publication.
Four years after his death, Ryan's struggle with cancer was detailed in A Private Battle written by his wife, from notes he had secretly left behind for that purpose. He is buried in the Ridgebury Cemetery in northern Ridgefield, Connecticut.
Biography info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corneliu...
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June 6, 2021
“The first-wave assault troops could not yet see the misty shores of Normandy. They were still more than nine miles away. Some warships were already dueling with German naval coastal batteries, but the action as yet was remote and impersonal for the soldiers in the boats…Seasickness was still their biggest enemy. Few were immune. The assault boats, each loaded with about thirty men and all their weighty equipment, rode so low in the water that waves rolled over the side and out again. With each wave the boats pitched and tossed, and Colonel Eugene Caffey of the 1st Engineers Special Brigade remembers that some of the men in his boat ‘just lay there with the water sloshing back and forth over them, not caring whether they lived or died.’ But for those among them not yet incapacitated by seasickness, the sight of the great invasion fleet looming up all about them was awesome and wonderful. In Corporal Gerald Burt’s boatload of demolition engineers, one man wistfully remarked that he wished he’d brought his camera…”
- Cornelius Ryan, The Longest Day
The most surprising thing about Cornelius Ryan’s D-Day classic The Longest Day is how short it is. Despite its epic subject matter – and despite the prodigious length of the epic movie that followed its publication – The Longest Day comes in at under 300 pages. This, combined with Ryan’s novelistic writing style, made for a surprisingly quick read. Yet it still packs a bunch, an immediacy that speaks to its intimate, present-tense style.
Ryan was an Irish-born war correspondent who saw World War II firsthand. He flew along on bomber missions with the U.S. Air Force and was later embedded with General Patton’s Third Army. When he decided to write about D-Day, he and a team of researchers sent questionnaires around the globe. These went to all manner of participant, from the German high command to French Resistance members to ordinary civilians. According to Ryan, a thousand interviews were collected, collated, cross-checked, and then bolstered with further questions. He set out to tell a story comprised of a thousand stories.
(This is about the extent of Ryan’s disclosed methodology – more on that in a bit).
The collection – by Ryan and his team – of primary sources is The Longest Day’s great contribution to history. Even though only a fraction of these accounts are used in the book, they are presumably available, somewhere, for use by other historians. This matters. The Longest Day was first published in 1959, a mere fifteen years after the invasion that helped save the world. We are now approaching the 75th year since that faithful day, and even the youngest surviving participants would be in their nineties. The Longest Day has become something of a time capsule, preserving the stories of the men and women who were there, before too much time had passed.
Perhaps the main reason The Longest Day is a recognized classic of historical writing is its style. It is composed as a novel, with lines of dialogue and interior thoughts. Ryan breaks the narrative into brief, vivid vignettes, some with self-contained arcs, others with storylines that pay off throughout the book.
On the first page, we begin in the village of La Roche-Guyon, described wonderfully as a place that “had sat undisturbed for nearly twelve centuries in a great lazy loop of the Seine.” A bell tolls 6:00 a.m. in the Church of St. Samson. On the last page, in the kind of mirror-twinned scene you’d get in fiction, Ryan returns to the village of La Roche-Guyon, where the bell tolls midnight.
Ryan separates his story into three parts: the buildup to the invasion (The Wait); the paratroopers’ war (The Night); and the seaborne invasion itself (The Day). He gives you the vantage point of Eisenhower and Rommel, but his focus is on the lesser known participants, from American generals Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and Norman Cota, to Staff Sergeant Alfred Eigenberg, a medic with the 6th Engineers Special Brigade:
Ryan’s method – whether it involves crusty old generals or callow young riflemen – is pointillist. In deciding to describe this event as it would have been be told in a war novel, Ryan eschews any extended presentation of the overall picture. He does not describe or analyze the strategy. He does not follow the progress of individual units. He does not list the various units banging away at each other on those bloody beaches. His is an experiential account, interested in what the soldiers felt, saw, and did, and not overly concerned with tactical descriptions or orders of battle. For Ryan, it is enough to note that the Allies won and the Germans lost.
(I don’t know if this is true of all editions, but there is not a single map, save for a picture of a German map that is included with the photo inserts).
The ground-level viewpoint is so vital and propulsive you don’t really stop to think how all these disparate anecdotes twine together to form a historical result. Ryan’s style is such that you can be absorbed into these accounts despite having no idea – spatially, temporally – where many of these individual actions are taking place.
(Of course, I’ve read books about D-Day before, so the lack of maps and a bird’s eye view did not hamper me. Newcomers to D-Day might want to unfurl a map of the French coast).
Unfortunately, Ryan’s novelistic approach is taken a bit too far. This is a work of non-fiction, in which a massive effort – according to Ryan – took place to gather and corroborate facts. However, Ryan does not use footnotes, endnotes, or any type of notes. He gives a list of “contributors,” but does not incorporate that into any sort of citation system. Perhaps this is a nitpick more than a substantive issue, but there are times when a story seemed too good to be true, and when I instinctively turned to the back of the book, I kept remembering there was no way to tell.
This does nothing to diminish The Longest Day’s place in the literary-historical firmament. Ryan did a great service by collecting these remembrances and shaping them into something gripping and lasting. History should never be boring. History is life, only yesterday. Ryan’s version of D-Day will be read and reread as long as people care about World War II. June 6, 1944 is a day that will be undimmed by the memory of time. The Longest Day will continue to exist right alongside it.
- Cornelius Ryan, The Longest Day
The most surprising thing about Cornelius Ryan’s D-Day classic The Longest Day is how short it is. Despite its epic subject matter – and despite the prodigious length of the epic movie that followed its publication – The Longest Day comes in at under 300 pages. This, combined with Ryan’s novelistic writing style, made for a surprisingly quick read. Yet it still packs a bunch, an immediacy that speaks to its intimate, present-tense style.
Ryan was an Irish-born war correspondent who saw World War II firsthand. He flew along on bomber missions with the U.S. Air Force and was later embedded with General Patton’s Third Army. When he decided to write about D-Day, he and a team of researchers sent questionnaires around the globe. These went to all manner of participant, from the German high command to French Resistance members to ordinary civilians. According to Ryan, a thousand interviews were collected, collated, cross-checked, and then bolstered with further questions. He set out to tell a story comprised of a thousand stories.
(This is about the extent of Ryan’s disclosed methodology – more on that in a bit).
The collection – by Ryan and his team – of primary sources is The Longest Day’s great contribution to history. Even though only a fraction of these accounts are used in the book, they are presumably available, somewhere, for use by other historians. This matters. The Longest Day was first published in 1959, a mere fifteen years after the invasion that helped save the world. We are now approaching the 75th year since that faithful day, and even the youngest surviving participants would be in their nineties. The Longest Day has become something of a time capsule, preserving the stories of the men and women who were there, before too much time had passed.
Perhaps the main reason The Longest Day is a recognized classic of historical writing is its style. It is composed as a novel, with lines of dialogue and interior thoughts. Ryan breaks the narrative into brief, vivid vignettes, some with self-contained arcs, others with storylines that pay off throughout the book.
On the first page, we begin in the village of La Roche-Guyon, described wonderfully as a place that “had sat undisturbed for nearly twelve centuries in a great lazy loop of the Seine.” A bell tolls 6:00 a.m. in the Church of St. Samson. On the last page, in the kind of mirror-twinned scene you’d get in fiction, Ryan returns to the village of La Roche-Guyon, where the bell tolls midnight.
Ryan separates his story into three parts: the buildup to the invasion (The Wait); the paratroopers’ war (The Night); and the seaborne invasion itself (The Day). He gives you the vantage point of Eisenhower and Rommel, but his focus is on the lesser known participants, from American generals Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and Norman Cota, to Staff Sergeant Alfred Eigenberg, a medic with the 6th Engineers Special Brigade:
On Dog Red, [Eigenberg] came across a young soldier sitting in the sand with his leg ‘laid open from the knee to the pelvis…’ The wound was so deep that Eigenberg could clearly see the femoral artery pulsing. The soldier was in deep shock. Calmly he informed Eigenberg, ‘I’ve taken my sulfa pills and I’ve shaken all my sulfa powder into the wound. I’ll be all right, won’t I?’ The nineteen-year-old Eigenberg didn't quite know what to say. He gave the soldier a shot of morphine and told him, ‘Sure, you’ll be all right.’ Then, folding the neatly sliced halves of the man’s leg together, Eigenberg did the only thing he could think of – he carefully closed the wound with safety pins.
Ryan’s method – whether it involves crusty old generals or callow young riflemen – is pointillist. In deciding to describe this event as it would have been be told in a war novel, Ryan eschews any extended presentation of the overall picture. He does not describe or analyze the strategy. He does not follow the progress of individual units. He does not list the various units banging away at each other on those bloody beaches. His is an experiential account, interested in what the soldiers felt, saw, and did, and not overly concerned with tactical descriptions or orders of battle. For Ryan, it is enough to note that the Allies won and the Germans lost.
(I don’t know if this is true of all editions, but there is not a single map, save for a picture of a German map that is included with the photo inserts).
The ground-level viewpoint is so vital and propulsive you don’t really stop to think how all these disparate anecdotes twine together to form a historical result. Ryan’s style is such that you can be absorbed into these accounts despite having no idea – spatially, temporally – where many of these individual actions are taking place.
(Of course, I’ve read books about D-Day before, so the lack of maps and a bird’s eye view did not hamper me. Newcomers to D-Day might want to unfurl a map of the French coast).
Unfortunately, Ryan’s novelistic approach is taken a bit too far. This is a work of non-fiction, in which a massive effort – according to Ryan – took place to gather and corroborate facts. However, Ryan does not use footnotes, endnotes, or any type of notes. He gives a list of “contributors,” but does not incorporate that into any sort of citation system. Perhaps this is a nitpick more than a substantive issue, but there are times when a story seemed too good to be true, and when I instinctively turned to the back of the book, I kept remembering there was no way to tell.
This does nothing to diminish The Longest Day’s place in the literary-historical firmament. Ryan did a great service by collecting these remembrances and shaping them into something gripping and lasting. History should never be boring. History is life, only yesterday. Ryan’s version of D-Day will be read and reread as long as people care about World War II. June 6, 1944 is a day that will be undimmed by the memory of time. The Longest Day will continue to exist right alongside it.
August 25, 2015
6 June 1944 is a day that can be seen as the pivotal point of World War II, which definitely swung the momentum of war in favor of the Allied forces. It was a day when the allied forces successfully opened the final European phase of the World War II by invading and gaining footholds on the shores of France, which was the first step, aimed at freeing the continent from Nazi occupation. The Longest Day from Cornelius Ryan is a masterpiece of military history and a true classic, which gives the reader a thrilling account on the tragic yet heroic battle, which happened on 6 June 1944, the D-Day. Even though there are hundreds of books that narrates the history, massive battle, events and the aftermath of the Allied Invasion at Normandy, ‘The Longest Day’ with it’s captivatingly lucid, novel like narrative and succinctness shines among them.
‘The Longest Day’ is all about the story of the people: the men of the Allied forces, the enemy they fought and the civilians who were caught up in the bloody confusion of D-Day. The book was the result of exhaustive researches and interviews that Cornelius Ryan conducted with the survivors of that eventful day. With great skill the author creates an epic overview of the Allied Invasion out of little anecdotes and personal experiences told from the perspective of participants from all camps – Americans, British, Canadians, Germans and French.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel who was the commander in chief of the Army Group B and who was responsible for the German defenses at Normandy foresaw the importance of the Allied Invasion attempts on the course of war and on German history. His predictions about such an invasion can be seen from his words taken from a conversation with his aide Hauptmann Helmuth Lang on 22 April 1944.
Cornelius Ryan decided on the title of the book based on this statement from Rommel.
The book is divided into three segments named ‘The Wait’, which describes the events and decisions on both the Allied and German sides leading up to the assault; ‘The Night’, which describes the colossal airborne assaults and paratroop landings which started the Invasion and ‘The Day’, which describes the epic beach assaults that occurred on the shores between the mouth of the Orne River near Caen to the base of Cotentin peninsula with five major invasion beaches codenamed Omaha, Utah, Sword, June and Gold.
Cornelius Ryan packs all the horrific intensity of the beach assaults through eyewitness accounts, which makes the reader feel he is right there on the beachfront. This can be perceived from one such experience taken from the book, that describes the action from “Bloody Omaha”.
Even though this is a rather slim volume ‘The Longest Day’ captures all the glory, bravery, carnage, agony, tragedy and disgrace of such an epic event – an event that saw about 90,000 British & American troops in the beach invasion, about 20,000 airborne troops, 5000 vessels and 11000 aircraft sorties – beautifully. What makes this book standout from the rest is the way in which the author makes it an experience for the reader by bringing key moments of the epic battle through the feelings of actual participants rather than deeply investigating the actual strategies and unit by unit combat descriptions. This is a classic military history piece, which is highly recommended for anyone interested in military conflicts, world war literature or history.
The 1962 massive hit war movie with the same title was based on this book. Detailed Reveiw with photographs can be accessed from here
‘The Longest Day’ is all about the story of the people: the men of the Allied forces, the enemy they fought and the civilians who were caught up in the bloody confusion of D-Day. The book was the result of exhaustive researches and interviews that Cornelius Ryan conducted with the survivors of that eventful day. With great skill the author creates an epic overview of the Allied Invasion out of little anecdotes and personal experiences told from the perspective of participants from all camps – Americans, British, Canadians, Germans and French.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel who was the commander in chief of the Army Group B and who was responsible for the German defenses at Normandy foresaw the importance of the Allied Invasion attempts on the course of war and on German history. His predictions about such an invasion can be seen from his words taken from a conversation with his aide Hauptmann Helmuth Lang on 22 April 1944.
The war will be won or lost on the beaches. We’ll have only one chance to stop the enemy and that’s while he’s in the water ... struggling to get ashore. Reserves will never get up to the point of attack and it’s foolish even to consider them. The Hauptkampflinie [main line of resistance] will be here ... everything we have must be on the coast. Believe me, Lang, the first twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive ... for the Allies, as well as Germany, it will be the longest day.”
Cornelius Ryan decided on the title of the book based on this statement from Rommel.
The book is divided into three segments named ‘The Wait’, which describes the events and decisions on both the Allied and German sides leading up to the assault; ‘The Night’, which describes the colossal airborne assaults and paratroop landings which started the Invasion and ‘The Day’, which describes the epic beach assaults that occurred on the shores between the mouth of the Orne River near Caen to the base of Cotentin peninsula with five major invasion beaches codenamed Omaha, Utah, Sword, June and Gold.
Cornelius Ryan packs all the horrific intensity of the beach assaults through eyewitness accounts, which makes the reader feel he is right there on the beachfront. This can be perceived from one such experience taken from the book, that describes the action from “Bloody Omaha”.
Sergeant Barton A. Davis of the 299th Engineer Combat Battalion saw an assault boat bearing down on him. It was filled with 1/ Division men and was coming straight in through the obstacles. There was a tremendous explosion and the boat disintegrated. It seemed to Davis that everyone in it was thrown into the air all at once. Bodies and parts of bodies landed all around the flaming wreckage. “I saw black dots of men trying to swim through the gasoline that had spread on the water and as we wondered what to do a headless torso flew a good fifty feet through the air and landed with a sickening thud near us.” Davis did not see how anyone could have lived through the explosion, but two men did. They were pulled out of the water, badly burned but alive.
Even though this is a rather slim volume ‘The Longest Day’ captures all the glory, bravery, carnage, agony, tragedy and disgrace of such an epic event – an event that saw about 90,000 British & American troops in the beach invasion, about 20,000 airborne troops, 5000 vessels and 11000 aircraft sorties – beautifully. What makes this book standout from the rest is the way in which the author makes it an experience for the reader by bringing key moments of the epic battle through the feelings of actual participants rather than deeply investigating the actual strategies and unit by unit combat descriptions. This is a classic military history piece, which is highly recommended for anyone interested in military conflicts, world war literature or history.
The 1962 massive hit war movie with the same title was based on this book. Detailed Reveiw with photographs can be accessed from here
June 6, 2023
The Longest Day, Cornelius Ryan’s classic history of the D-Day invasion, takes its title from an assessment offered by German general Erwin Rommel to his aide in April of 1944, over a month before the invasion of Normandy took place. “Believe me, Lang,” Rommel said that spring day, “the first twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive….for the Allies, as well as Germany, it will be the longest day.” Six weeks later, on 6 June 1944, the Allies invaded Normandy; and no doubt many of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who survived that day, whether Allied or German, would agree that it had been the longest day of their lives.
When The Longest Day: June 6, 1944 was published in 1959, it represented something new in the chronicling of the Second World War. Much had been written about the war, of course; but never before had a journalist sought out so much first-hand testimony, from so many sources, and woven it into a narrative that would combine historical accuracy with broad popular appeal. The end of the war was as recent for the people of that time as the beginning of the Iraq War is for people of today, and therefore the time was right for someone to seek out people whose memories of the invasion were still fresh, and let them tell their stories.
Ryan, an Irish-born journalist, had begun covering the war in 1941, as a 21-year-old reporter for The Daily Telegraph; he flew on bombing missions with the Eighth Air Force, and later accompanied General George Patton’s Third Army on its eastward march across occupied Europe and into Germany. He knew the war from first-hand experience, and no doubt that shared experience helped him bond with, and invite frank testimony from, the hundreds of people whom he interviewed as part of the work of writing this book.
With his journalist’s eye for the telling detail, Ryan excels at conveying a you-are-there immediacy, as when he describes an NBC correspondent looking over at General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and watching the supreme Allied commander’s eyes fill with tears as airplanes take off from an airfield in southern England. Ryan’s skill as a storyteller makes The Longest Day a prime example of how a great epic story is often a collection of compelling anecdotes, as in this account of how Madame Angèle Levrault, a 60-year-old educator who lived in the village of Sainte-Mère-Église, responded when an American paratrooper dropped into her garden:
“Quickly the eighteen-year-old trooper whipped out a knife, cut himself loose from his chute, grabbed a large bag and stood up. Then he saw Madame Levrault. They stood looking at each other for a long moment. To the old Frenchwoman, the paratrooper looked weirdly frightening. He was tall and thin, his face was streaked with war paint, accentuating his cheekbones and nose. He seemed weighted down with weapons and equipment. Then, as the old lady watched in terror, unable to move, the strange apparition put a finger to his lips in a gesture of silence and swiftly disappeared. At that moment, Madame Levrault was galvanized to action. Grabbing up the skirts of her nightwear, she dashed madly for the house. What she had seen was one of the first Americans to land in Normandy. The time was 12:15 A.M., Tuesday, June 6, 1944. D-Day had begun” (pp. 104-05).
Ryan’s diligent interview work contributes to a taut, well-organized narrative that captures well the dangers that the soldiers of D-Day faced. Consider, in that regard, this description of what the Americans faced as their landing craft approached Utah Beach:
“In an instant the war had become personal. Troops heading for Utah Beach saw a control boat leading one of the waves suddenly rear up out of the water and explode. Seconds later heads bobbed up and survivors tried to save themselves by clinging to the wreckage. Another explosion followed almost immediately. The crew of a landing barge trying to launch four of the thirty-two amphibious tanks bound for Utah had dropped the ramp right onto a submerged sea mine. The front of the craft shot up and Sergeant Orris Johnson on a nearby LCT watched in frozen horror as a tank ‘soared more than a hundred feet into the air, tumbled slowly end over end, plunged back into the water and disappeared.’ Among the many dead, Johnson learned later, was his buddy, Tanker Don Neill.” (p. 204)
As for the German defenders, Ryan makes clear that the cause they serve was an evil one; he focuses on the cruelty and malice of Hitler, the Gestapo, and the S.S. But in considering the German soldiers’ service at Normandy, he keeps his emphasis squarely on the way the Germans faced the strains and horrors of war, just as he does with the Allied soldiers, as when he chronicles the D-Day experience of Major Werner Pluskat, a leader of the defense on the Normandy beaches. Disbelieved by his superiors at headquarters when he sees the vast invasion armada closing in on the beaches, a frustrated Pluskat shouts into the phone, “If you don’t believe me…come up here and see for yourself! It’s fantastic! It’s unbelievable!” Asked where the ships are heading, “Pluskat, phone in hand, looked out the aperture of the bunker and replied, ‘Right for me’” (p. 186).
The Longest Day concludes on a hopeful note, as Tuesday, 6 June 1944, draws to a close, focusing on the village that had been Rommel’s headquarters: “La Roche-Guyon was silent. Soon this most occupied of all French villages would be free – as would the whole of Hitler’s Europe. From this day on the Third Reich had less than one year to live�� (p. 302). For the rest of his life, Ryan would continue with his examination of the Second World War’s Western Front, writing two more epic World War II books -- A Bridge Too Far (1974), an account of the ill-fated Allied attempt to take Arnhem, Holland, in September 1944; and The Last Battle (1966), a chronicling of the final Battle of Berlin, and of the concomitant fall of the Nazi regime, in April and May of 1945. Together, the three books make up a singularly powerful trilogy of the Second World War in the West – a trilogy that Ryan barely managed to complete before his too-early death from prostate cancer at age 54.
The Longest Day was quite the publishing event when it appeared in bookstores in 1959. Within three years, it had been brought to the big screen by producer Darryl F. Zanuck, with a screenplay written by Ryan himself and a true all-star cast: Eddie Albert, Paul Anka, Richard Burton, Red Buttons, Sean Connery, Fabian, Henry Fonda, Leo Genn, Jeffrey Hunter, Curt Jürgens, Peter Lawford, Roddy McDowall, Sal Mineo, Robert Mitchum, Kenneth More, Edmond O’Brien, Robert Ryan, George Segal, Rod Steiger, Robert Wagner, John Wayne, and Stuart Whitman, among others. That so many top actors were willing to gather together, for what they knew would be relatively brief appearances in a film with a great deal of ground to cover, speaks to the importance of The Longest Day in its time. It remains an essential history of the D-Day invasion.
When The Longest Day: June 6, 1944 was published in 1959, it represented something new in the chronicling of the Second World War. Much had been written about the war, of course; but never before had a journalist sought out so much first-hand testimony, from so many sources, and woven it into a narrative that would combine historical accuracy with broad popular appeal. The end of the war was as recent for the people of that time as the beginning of the Iraq War is for people of today, and therefore the time was right for someone to seek out people whose memories of the invasion were still fresh, and let them tell their stories.
Ryan, an Irish-born journalist, had begun covering the war in 1941, as a 21-year-old reporter for The Daily Telegraph; he flew on bombing missions with the Eighth Air Force, and later accompanied General George Patton’s Third Army on its eastward march across occupied Europe and into Germany. He knew the war from first-hand experience, and no doubt that shared experience helped him bond with, and invite frank testimony from, the hundreds of people whom he interviewed as part of the work of writing this book.
With his journalist’s eye for the telling detail, Ryan excels at conveying a you-are-there immediacy, as when he describes an NBC correspondent looking over at General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and watching the supreme Allied commander’s eyes fill with tears as airplanes take off from an airfield in southern England. Ryan’s skill as a storyteller makes The Longest Day a prime example of how a great epic story is often a collection of compelling anecdotes, as in this account of how Madame Angèle Levrault, a 60-year-old educator who lived in the village of Sainte-Mère-Église, responded when an American paratrooper dropped into her garden:
“Quickly the eighteen-year-old trooper whipped out a knife, cut himself loose from his chute, grabbed a large bag and stood up. Then he saw Madame Levrault. They stood looking at each other for a long moment. To the old Frenchwoman, the paratrooper looked weirdly frightening. He was tall and thin, his face was streaked with war paint, accentuating his cheekbones and nose. He seemed weighted down with weapons and equipment. Then, as the old lady watched in terror, unable to move, the strange apparition put a finger to his lips in a gesture of silence and swiftly disappeared. At that moment, Madame Levrault was galvanized to action. Grabbing up the skirts of her nightwear, she dashed madly for the house. What she had seen was one of the first Americans to land in Normandy. The time was 12:15 A.M., Tuesday, June 6, 1944. D-Day had begun” (pp. 104-05).
Ryan’s diligent interview work contributes to a taut, well-organized narrative that captures well the dangers that the soldiers of D-Day faced. Consider, in that regard, this description of what the Americans faced as their landing craft approached Utah Beach:
“In an instant the war had become personal. Troops heading for Utah Beach saw a control boat leading one of the waves suddenly rear up out of the water and explode. Seconds later heads bobbed up and survivors tried to save themselves by clinging to the wreckage. Another explosion followed almost immediately. The crew of a landing barge trying to launch four of the thirty-two amphibious tanks bound for Utah had dropped the ramp right onto a submerged sea mine. The front of the craft shot up and Sergeant Orris Johnson on a nearby LCT watched in frozen horror as a tank ‘soared more than a hundred feet into the air, tumbled slowly end over end, plunged back into the water and disappeared.’ Among the many dead, Johnson learned later, was his buddy, Tanker Don Neill.” (p. 204)
As for the German defenders, Ryan makes clear that the cause they serve was an evil one; he focuses on the cruelty and malice of Hitler, the Gestapo, and the S.S. But in considering the German soldiers’ service at Normandy, he keeps his emphasis squarely on the way the Germans faced the strains and horrors of war, just as he does with the Allied soldiers, as when he chronicles the D-Day experience of Major Werner Pluskat, a leader of the defense on the Normandy beaches. Disbelieved by his superiors at headquarters when he sees the vast invasion armada closing in on the beaches, a frustrated Pluskat shouts into the phone, “If you don’t believe me…come up here and see for yourself! It’s fantastic! It’s unbelievable!” Asked where the ships are heading, “Pluskat, phone in hand, looked out the aperture of the bunker and replied, ‘Right for me’” (p. 186).
The Longest Day concludes on a hopeful note, as Tuesday, 6 June 1944, draws to a close, focusing on the village that had been Rommel’s headquarters: “La Roche-Guyon was silent. Soon this most occupied of all French villages would be free – as would the whole of Hitler’s Europe. From this day on the Third Reich had less than one year to live�� (p. 302). For the rest of his life, Ryan would continue with his examination of the Second World War’s Western Front, writing two more epic World War II books -- A Bridge Too Far (1974), an account of the ill-fated Allied attempt to take Arnhem, Holland, in September 1944; and The Last Battle (1966), a chronicling of the final Battle of Berlin, and of the concomitant fall of the Nazi regime, in April and May of 1945. Together, the three books make up a singularly powerful trilogy of the Second World War in the West – a trilogy that Ryan barely managed to complete before his too-early death from prostate cancer at age 54.
The Longest Day was quite the publishing event when it appeared in bookstores in 1959. Within three years, it had been brought to the big screen by producer Darryl F. Zanuck, with a screenplay written by Ryan himself and a true all-star cast: Eddie Albert, Paul Anka, Richard Burton, Red Buttons, Sean Connery, Fabian, Henry Fonda, Leo Genn, Jeffrey Hunter, Curt Jürgens, Peter Lawford, Roddy McDowall, Sal Mineo, Robert Mitchum, Kenneth More, Edmond O’Brien, Robert Ryan, George Segal, Rod Steiger, Robert Wagner, John Wayne, and Stuart Whitman, among others. That so many top actors were willing to gather together, for what they knew would be relatively brief appearances in a film with a great deal of ground to cover, speaks to the importance of The Longest Day in its time. It remains an essential history of the D-Day invasion.
February 10, 2017
The Allies messed up the Normandy invasion.
The Germans messed up the defence even more.
Therefore, the Allies won World War II.
In the process, quite a lot of people died needlessly.
End of story.
The Germans messed up the defence even more.
Therefore, the Allies won World War II.
In the process, quite a lot of people died needlessly.
End of story.
June 11, 2015
I finished this book three days after the 71st anniversary of D-Day, the Allied landings in Hitler's Fortress Europa. I have no idea why I never read this classic history before since I am a military buff and am interested in anything about WWII (and WWI, as well). I was impressed by the author's approach to the telling of Operation Overlord, the largest invasion in history......he used the words of survivors of that bloody day to tell the story as well as some pictures that had not been seen before the publication of this book. Many times, military histories offer complicated narratives of the plans and troop movements but Ryan avoids that. His is a straightforward, often heartbreaking tale of the turning point of WWII; however, I agree with another reviewer who stated that a few maps would have been helpful in designating and locating the beaches of Omaha, Juno, Sword, Gold, and Utah on the French coast. But that is a minor point.
One of the most ironic asides of this book is how Ryan decided on a title...."Believe me, Lang, the first twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive....the fate of Germany depends on the outcome....for the Allies, as well as Germany, it will be the longest day" - Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to his aide, April 22, 1944.
One of the most ironic asides of this book is how Ryan decided on a title...."Believe me, Lang, the first twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive....the fate of Germany depends on the outcome....for the Allies, as well as Germany, it will be the longest day" - Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to his aide, April 22, 1944.
December 10, 2016
I think the only reason I didn't rate this higher is the audio narrator, although the format of the book also wasn't to my taste. I just felt like a timeline was being regurgitated instead of having a story told. What is so amazing to me is just how active this one day in June was, and how it almost felt apart.
June 6, 2016
Today, on the 72nd anniversary of D-Day, this book is as relevant as ever. I read it as a youngster and have re-read it. There are some days that pivotal in world history and 6 June 1944 is certainly one of them. To learn the history of that day from all perspectives, winners, losers, innocents caught up in it, is to understand the width and depth of the human experience. When researching this day, this year for my own D-Day book, I learned more with each page re-read.
I recommend this book and A Bridge Too Far.
I recommend this book and A Bridge Too Far.
Want to read
October 26, 2020Movie review :
Epic World War II film of the Normandy landings on D Day,June 6 1944.
All star cast including John Wayne,Henry Fonda,Robert Mitchum,Sean Connery,Richard Burton and many more.Some of the actors had seen action during the war.
Great action sequences,a very lengthy film but a very entertaining one as well.The only drawback is that it is in black and white,in an era when colour films were regularly being made.A colourized version was released much later.
Thrilling film,great entertainment.
Epic World War II film of the Normandy landings on D Day,June 6 1944.
All star cast including John Wayne,Henry Fonda,Robert Mitchum,Sean Connery,Richard Burton and many more.Some of the actors had seen action during the war.
Great action sequences,a very lengthy film but a very entertaining one as well.The only drawback is that it is in black and white,in an era when colour films were regularly being made.A colourized version was released much later.
Thrilling film,great entertainment.
November 13, 2007
One of the greatest books about WWII and D-Day. I've read it and seen the movie many times. Always good to go back and reread the stories of our hero WWII soldiers for inspiration and gratitude.
November 8, 2018
On June 6, 2019 thousands will descend onto the beaches of Normandy to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the allied landing that would eventually bring an end to Nazi domination of Europe during World War II. Since my wife and I plan on traveling to Normandy at that time I felt it was important to read the latest works on the topic. It made sense to me to reread Cornelius Ryan’s THE LONGEST DAY, first published in 1959, a book that has not lost its resonance to this day. As I began to familiarize myself with the history of the events that led up to the invasion, the invasion itself, and its historical ramifications I felt revisiting Ryan's work a useful place to start.
Ryan’s work, along with A BRIDGE TO FAR and THE LAST BATTLE are well written accounts of the war that in most cases have stood the test of time. In THE LONGEST DAY, Ryan recounts the horrors of war that took place the night of the invasion, and what followed the day after. His research consisted of hundreds of interviews of the participants including Americans, Canadians, British, French, and German soldiers and civilian, along with primary documents that were available. In his account we can discern the difficulties in planning the invasion, carrying it out, and its emotional and physical impact on those who approached the Normandy beaches, and what transpired once they landed. In the end roughly 12,000 allied soldiers perished in the attack, with the Americans bearing half the number of casualties.
Ryan possesses an almost intimate knowledge of what transpired, particularly the thoughts of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, who believed an allied invasion would coincide with a Russian move in the east. Since a Russian attack was delayed because of a late thaw in Poland, Rommel decided to travel home on June 5th. Rommel firmly believed that he had left the beaches protected with the numerous underwater obstacles he created as well as the 60 million mines that were buried on the beaches. For Rommel, the key was to destroy invasion forces in the water before they could reach land.
At times, Ryan’s account reads like a novel as he describes the various aspects of the invasion. Whether he is describing the actions of allied midget submarines X20 and X23 off the shore of Normandy, the inability of the German command to obtain permission to release the 12th SS and Panzer Lehr divisions to combat the invasion, the experiences of individuals as they tried to cope with what was occurring around them, Ryan places the reader in the middle of the action, and one can visualize what is happening very clearly from his descriptions.
Ryan is correct in his account of how the German High Command reacted to reports of the allied landings. They could not accept the magnitude of the assault and those who were witnessing it, like Major Werner Pluskot could not seem to convey to higher ups that “a ghostly armada somehow appeared from nowhere.” Ryan presents a realistic portrayal as the allied landing forces begin to approach the beaches as he describes the many accidents, drownings, explosions, and deaths that occurred before the fighting even commenced. Ryan’s reporting of certain incidents is chilling; for example, when soldiers saw their compatriots drowning or injured, they were ordered not to assist them and stick to the tight schedule that planners wanted implemented.
Ryan’s descriptive approach is on full display as he describes the paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st Airborne units and their plight as they parachuted behind German lines as the first component of the invasion. Ryan provides individual stories of the participants ranging from Lt. Colonel Benjamin Vandervoort who fought for 40 days on a broken ankle, General Dwight Eisenhower’s agonizing decision making in dealing with weather issues as he tries to determine whether to unleash allied forces, to members of the French underground and their work, to civilians in England, Germany, and France and how they dealt with loss and anxiety about their loved ones.
There are several interesting aspects dealing with the technological ingenuity of the allies, particularly the creation of two floating harbors that were towed across the channel, each harbor amazingly replicating the size of Dover, England. The invasion was a logistical nightmare and Ryan does a wonderful job providing insights into how certain problems were dealt with.
Ryan’s work was published in 1959 after years of research and the final product was exemplary when written and remains a classic account of D-Day seventy-five years later.
Ryan’s work, along with A BRIDGE TO FAR and THE LAST BATTLE are well written accounts of the war that in most cases have stood the test of time. In THE LONGEST DAY, Ryan recounts the horrors of war that took place the night of the invasion, and what followed the day after. His research consisted of hundreds of interviews of the participants including Americans, Canadians, British, French, and German soldiers and civilian, along with primary documents that were available. In his account we can discern the difficulties in planning the invasion, carrying it out, and its emotional and physical impact on those who approached the Normandy beaches, and what transpired once they landed. In the end roughly 12,000 allied soldiers perished in the attack, with the Americans bearing half the number of casualties.
Ryan possesses an almost intimate knowledge of what transpired, particularly the thoughts of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, who believed an allied invasion would coincide with a Russian move in the east. Since a Russian attack was delayed because of a late thaw in Poland, Rommel decided to travel home on June 5th. Rommel firmly believed that he had left the beaches protected with the numerous underwater obstacles he created as well as the 60 million mines that were buried on the beaches. For Rommel, the key was to destroy invasion forces in the water before they could reach land.
At times, Ryan’s account reads like a novel as he describes the various aspects of the invasion. Whether he is describing the actions of allied midget submarines X20 and X23 off the shore of Normandy, the inability of the German command to obtain permission to release the 12th SS and Panzer Lehr divisions to combat the invasion, the experiences of individuals as they tried to cope with what was occurring around them, Ryan places the reader in the middle of the action, and one can visualize what is happening very clearly from his descriptions.
Ryan is correct in his account of how the German High Command reacted to reports of the allied landings. They could not accept the magnitude of the assault and those who were witnessing it, like Major Werner Pluskot could not seem to convey to higher ups that “a ghostly armada somehow appeared from nowhere.” Ryan presents a realistic portrayal as the allied landing forces begin to approach the beaches as he describes the many accidents, drownings, explosions, and deaths that occurred before the fighting even commenced. Ryan’s reporting of certain incidents is chilling; for example, when soldiers saw their compatriots drowning or injured, they were ordered not to assist them and stick to the tight schedule that planners wanted implemented.
Ryan’s descriptive approach is on full display as he describes the paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st Airborne units and their plight as they parachuted behind German lines as the first component of the invasion. Ryan provides individual stories of the participants ranging from Lt. Colonel Benjamin Vandervoort who fought for 40 days on a broken ankle, General Dwight Eisenhower’s agonizing decision making in dealing with weather issues as he tries to determine whether to unleash allied forces, to members of the French underground and their work, to civilians in England, Germany, and France and how they dealt with loss and anxiety about their loved ones.
There are several interesting aspects dealing with the technological ingenuity of the allies, particularly the creation of two floating harbors that were towed across the channel, each harbor amazingly replicating the size of Dover, England. The invasion was a logistical nightmare and Ryan does a wonderful job providing insights into how certain problems were dealt with.
Ryan’s work was published in 1959 after years of research and the final product was exemplary when written and remains a classic account of D-Day seventy-five years later.
May 16, 2019
My first comment in Goodreads about this book is: "an orgasmic experience". Haha, I know some people will be intrigued by such clause (and I did receive one comment). Anyway, I did mean it. This book is orgasmic. Seriously.
For those who’ve seen the movie, better erase it from your memory. This kind of book can not be shortened into a three-hour movie, it has to become a series. And maybe have to be directed by someone like Steven Spielberg, LOL. It is not only about D-Day, but also about the background stories of that blessed day. Using more than 1,000 sources for this book – former US, British, Allied Forces soldiers, inhabitants of Normandy, even lots of former Nazi officers – Cornelius has successfully blended all their stories (even if it is only a scrap of details) into a masterpiece.
My head shook with disbelief a number of times when reading this book. How could the Third Reich become so dim-witted? Bear in mind that D-Day operation, better known as Operation Overlord, had so many flaws in it, from the planning to the execution, which made it bound to fail. For example, intelligence report that killed hundreds of US Rangers to destroy a battery of guns which never existed. However, the Wehrmacht seemed to create better mess. Hence, they went into almost complete disarray.
Imagine this: the only division stationed in Normandy (Seventh Army) was the last division that was notified of an ongoing invasion. Imagine this: there was only one Luftwaffe’s offensive and one E-boat attack during D-Day. Imagine this: there was a ready-to-fight panzer division who were forced to sit down watching helplessly the Allied Forces swarmed into Normandy just because Hitler's staff decided not to notify the Fuhrer and let him sleep in the make-believe beautiful world of Berchtesgaden until afternoon, while D-Day was started since midnight and H-Hour 6.30 AM. Furthermore, the exalted, legendary Field Marshall Rommel, who knew from day one that Normandy was not invincible, seemed to be forgotten in the frenzy; nobody told him about the landings before it was too late. A combination of red tape, ignorance and cockiness ruined the Krauts, for sure.
My favorite part of the book is "The Night" chapter. Well, I just love WW II paratroopers’ stories and this time it’s not only the 101st Airborne Division that was described, but also the more battle-tested 82nd, as well as the British 6th division. One could not compare the atrocities and horrors experience by the paratroopers and the sea-borne soldiers. However, if I could choose, I definitely do not want to be one of those soldiers who landed in the ‘Omaha’ beach. No way in hell.
The tales about bravado showed by the soldiers, paratroopers, sailors, medics, minesweepers, etc in this book were exceptional, spiced up with occasional humors. Fallacies from both sides seemed to create a number of hilarious events, such as when a small unit of Allied soldiers came across a German unit in a French rural road, both units only stared and passed each other and did nothing (!) because they were just too shocked over the presence of each other . Well, I guess it should be too hard from the author to have so many materials, since this is a military event that involved more than 5,000 ships, hundreds of airplanes/bombers/gliders/etc and hundreds of thousands of men with various nationalities.
A day when all might and force of the free world came to liberate the occupied continent from a malevolence that the world had never seen before. A day to remember.
For those who’ve seen the movie, better erase it from your memory. This kind of book can not be shortened into a three-hour movie, it has to become a series. And maybe have to be directed by someone like Steven Spielberg, LOL. It is not only about D-Day, but also about the background stories of that blessed day. Using more than 1,000 sources for this book – former US, British, Allied Forces soldiers, inhabitants of Normandy, even lots of former Nazi officers – Cornelius has successfully blended all their stories (even if it is only a scrap of details) into a masterpiece.
My head shook with disbelief a number of times when reading this book. How could the Third Reich become so dim-witted? Bear in mind that D-Day operation, better known as Operation Overlord, had so many flaws in it, from the planning to the execution, which made it bound to fail. For example, intelligence report that killed hundreds of US Rangers to destroy a battery of guns which never existed. However, the Wehrmacht seemed to create better mess. Hence, they went into almost complete disarray.
Imagine this: the only division stationed in Normandy (Seventh Army) was the last division that was notified of an ongoing invasion. Imagine this: there was only one Luftwaffe’s offensive and one E-boat attack during D-Day. Imagine this: there was a ready-to-fight panzer division who were forced to sit down watching helplessly the Allied Forces swarmed into Normandy just because Hitler's staff decided not to notify the Fuhrer and let him sleep in the make-believe beautiful world of Berchtesgaden until afternoon, while D-Day was started since midnight and H-Hour 6.30 AM. Furthermore, the exalted, legendary Field Marshall Rommel, who knew from day one that Normandy was not invincible, seemed to be forgotten in the frenzy; nobody told him about the landings before it was too late. A combination of red tape, ignorance and cockiness ruined the Krauts, for sure.
My favorite part of the book is "The Night" chapter. Well, I just love WW II paratroopers’ stories and this time it’s not only the 101st Airborne Division that was described, but also the more battle-tested 82nd, as well as the British 6th division. One could not compare the atrocities and horrors experience by the paratroopers and the sea-borne soldiers. However, if I could choose, I definitely do not want to be one of those soldiers who landed in the ‘Omaha’ beach. No way in hell.
The tales about bravado showed by the soldiers, paratroopers, sailors, medics, minesweepers, etc in this book were exceptional, spiced up with occasional humors. Fallacies from both sides seemed to create a number of hilarious events, such as when a small unit of Allied soldiers came across a German unit in a French rural road, both units only stared and passed each other and did nothing (!) because they were just too shocked over the presence of each other . Well, I guess it should be too hard from the author to have so many materials, since this is a military event that involved more than 5,000 ships, hundreds of airplanes/bombers/gliders/etc and hundreds of thousands of men with various nationalities.
A day when all might and force of the free world came to liberate the occupied continent from a malevolence that the world had never seen before. A day to remember.
November 11, 2021
An 8 hour and 45 minute unabridged audiobook.
The author really knows how to craft a story and keep the readers attention. Just random tidbits of personal information such as what a particular general had for breakfast before reviewing battle reports. It reads as a novel while covering actual historical events. I really liked it.
The author really knows how to craft a story and keep the readers attention. Just random tidbits of personal information such as what a particular general had for breakfast before reviewing battle reports. It reads as a novel while covering actual historical events. I really liked it.
June 23, 2019
After reading The Longest Day it is immediately apparent why my copy of the book has the tagline, The classic epic of D-Day printed on the cover. In this book, Cornelius Ryan delivers a very human-oriented account of D-Day.
Ryan begins with The Wait; that is, he spends a little time describing the build-up to the invasion. He brings us to the German headquarters, where the discord is rather shocking; to the Allied headquarters, where the vagaries of the weather are preying on Eisenhower’s mind; to the French citizens of Normandy, living their daily routine under the yoke of occupation; to the Allied soldiers in England, whittling away the hours by gambling, praying, writing letters to family, and more.
On midnight, June 6th, Ryan begins the tale of D-Day in earnest. He skillfully weaves the story of the preparatory airborne operations by drawing on the experiences of French resistance fighters, paratroopers, and Germans alike. The confusion and chaos (on all sides) is almost tangible. It seems ludicrous to me that the German higher command were so slow on the uptake that these raids were the preliminary steps of the long-awaited invasion.
The narrative then changes gear to focus on the beach landings—arguably the most drama episode of D-Day. There isn’t much for me to say here, except that Ryan’s writing is an excellent tribute to the men who stormed the Normandy beaches on June 6th, 1944.
As mentioned above, Ryan’s eloquent use of first-hand accounts is what makes this book special. In the acknowledgments, Ryan states that he crafted the narrative from the knowledge gained by conducting interviews with over one thousand D-Day survivors, from all sides. 383 of these interviews were used in the text. I really enjoyed how balanced the narrative is, as Ryan would switch back and forth between American, British, French, and German perspectives.
Ultimately, The Longest Day is the premier human history of D-Day, and I’m confident that it will not be surpassed in that regard. However, this book is only an average military history. I say that because there is little to no analysis, no maps, and while the reliance on first-hand accounts makes for entertaining reading, it doesn’t make for extremely clear understanding of the events. Because it is not a traditional military history, I suspect that The Longest Day will appeal to a very wide audience. For those uninterested in the minutiae of tactics, organization, and other military details, but who want to learn the story of D-Day, I think this book is a perfect choice. And for those who, like me, are interested in the small details, Ryan’s excellent writing and storytelling makes this book well worth a read.
Ryan begins with The Wait; that is, he spends a little time describing the build-up to the invasion. He brings us to the German headquarters, where the discord is rather shocking; to the Allied headquarters, where the vagaries of the weather are preying on Eisenhower’s mind; to the French citizens of Normandy, living their daily routine under the yoke of occupation; to the Allied soldiers in England, whittling away the hours by gambling, praying, writing letters to family, and more.
On midnight, June 6th, Ryan begins the tale of D-Day in earnest. He skillfully weaves the story of the preparatory airborne operations by drawing on the experiences of French resistance fighters, paratroopers, and Germans alike. The confusion and chaos (on all sides) is almost tangible. It seems ludicrous to me that the German higher command were so slow on the uptake that these raids were the preliminary steps of the long-awaited invasion.
The narrative then changes gear to focus on the beach landings—arguably the most drama episode of D-Day. There isn’t much for me to say here, except that Ryan’s writing is an excellent tribute to the men who stormed the Normandy beaches on June 6th, 1944.
As mentioned above, Ryan’s eloquent use of first-hand accounts is what makes this book special. In the acknowledgments, Ryan states that he crafted the narrative from the knowledge gained by conducting interviews with over one thousand D-Day survivors, from all sides. 383 of these interviews were used in the text. I really enjoyed how balanced the narrative is, as Ryan would switch back and forth between American, British, French, and German perspectives.
Ultimately, The Longest Day is the premier human history of D-Day, and I’m confident that it will not be surpassed in that regard. However, this book is only an average military history. I say that because there is little to no analysis, no maps, and while the reliance on first-hand accounts makes for entertaining reading, it doesn’t make for extremely clear understanding of the events. Because it is not a traditional military history, I suspect that The Longest Day will appeal to a very wide audience. For those uninterested in the minutiae of tactics, organization, and other military details, but who want to learn the story of D-Day, I think this book is a perfect choice. And for those who, like me, are interested in the small details, Ryan’s excellent writing and storytelling makes this book well worth a read.
January 13, 2024
A book which MUST be written, a classical for most of us, who want to know the truth about these days following the Allied invasion of France in WWII.
Many mistakes were made by the Allied side, too many lives were lost, but who are we, to judge what happened, a lot of decades after?
Many mistakes were made by the Allied side, too many lives were lost, but who are we, to judge what happened, a lot of decades after?
May 14, 2019
Five stars! The Longest Day is a fascinating and informative examination of one of the most important days in recent world history.
Let me start by saying that before this book, I knew NOTHING about D-Day. I knew allied troops landed, many people died, and it turned the tide on the war - and that is it. I honestly just started this book because a good group of people on the Nonfiction Book Club were doing a Buddy Read on it.
I am SO GLAD I read it! Ryan is a fantastic author because I never felt confused despite my lack of previous knowledge. I hate war movies as a general rule and thought I would be either bored or overwhelmed by gruesome descriptions. Could not have been more wrong. The descriptions of the preparations, first landings by the paratroopers, and the invasion from the sea were fascinating. I was even interested by the summaries of the communications that occurred between military leaders. I had no idea that miscommunication between German leaders and their assumption that Normandy was not the "real invasion" played such a role. Interviews and sources from both sides were integrated very well into the narrative.
I was struck over and over by the courage and sacrifice demonstrated by these men. I know that should be obvious to everyone but sometimes it takes a book like this to really make you appreciate it.
Let me start by saying that before this book, I knew NOTHING about D-Day. I knew allied troops landed, many people died, and it turned the tide on the war - and that is it. I honestly just started this book because a good group of people on the Nonfiction Book Club were doing a Buddy Read on it.
I am SO GLAD I read it! Ryan is a fantastic author because I never felt confused despite my lack of previous knowledge. I hate war movies as a general rule and thought I would be either bored or overwhelmed by gruesome descriptions. Could not have been more wrong. The descriptions of the preparations, first landings by the paratroopers, and the invasion from the sea were fascinating. I was even interested by the summaries of the communications that occurred between military leaders. I had no idea that miscommunication between German leaders and their assumption that Normandy was not the "real invasion" played such a role. Interviews and sources from both sides were integrated very well into the narrative.
I was struck over and over by the courage and sacrifice demonstrated by these men. I know that should be obvious to everyone but sometimes it takes a book like this to really make you appreciate it.
February 4, 2023
I want to take a minute to talk about my dad. He served in the US Army and was stationed in Korea in 1960, during the relatively calm period between America's involvement in the Korean War and Vietnam. My dad's always been a big war buff and I grew up with war movies on constant rerun. It's thanks to him and my brother, who served in the Army in the 1980s, that I owe my patriotism and ongoing interest in historical accounts of war, both fictional and non-fictional.
Which brings me to The Longest Day. This one's been on my radar to read for a long time, having seen the old John Wayne movie many times (it had a bunch of other famous actors too, but I always think of John Wayne). The book came first, written by Irish war correspondent Cornelius Ryan. What I like about the book is that it's packed with recollections from Allied and German soldiers who were there, as well as regular citizens, written in a mildly journalistic style.
Ryan talks about the runup to June 6th, including a story I've always been fascinated with regarding a daily crossword puzzle that contained top secret codes used by Allied forces. An amazing number of paratroopers were deployed over France to prepare for the naval landing, in hopes they would take out enemy guns, but so many were lost - they landed off course, were drowned, or got hung up on buildings and trees. Of course, Ryan goes into great detail about the storming of Normandy and includes accounts of troops who landed on the wrong beach, and those who never even made it out of the water much less got past beach. So many men were sent overseas to fight and lost their lives before they even got the chance. With the paratrooper deployment being largely unsuccessful, the Allied strategy switched to trying to take the beach by sheer, overwhelming numbers, even though a significant number of casualties would be likely.
Thinking about the allied invasion at Normandy, it's almost impossible to imagine the sheer chaos and horror. I hope a battle of that scale (and with those odds of success) is never seen again.
This book was exactly what I expected it to be. For my money, if you're interested, the most authentic version I have ever seen of D-Day was in Saving Private Ryan. My family and I got to see it in a movie theater, and with the volume and vibrations the setting afforded, I will never forget the experience.
Which brings me to The Longest Day. This one's been on my radar to read for a long time, having seen the old John Wayne movie many times (it had a bunch of other famous actors too, but I always think of John Wayne). The book came first, written by Irish war correspondent Cornelius Ryan. What I like about the book is that it's packed with recollections from Allied and German soldiers who were there, as well as regular citizens, written in a mildly journalistic style.
Ryan talks about the runup to June 6th, including a story I've always been fascinated with regarding a daily crossword puzzle that contained top secret codes used by Allied forces. An amazing number of paratroopers were deployed over France to prepare for the naval landing, in hopes they would take out enemy guns, but so many were lost - they landed off course, were drowned, or got hung up on buildings and trees. Of course, Ryan goes into great detail about the storming of Normandy and includes accounts of troops who landed on the wrong beach, and those who never even made it out of the water much less got past beach. So many men were sent overseas to fight and lost their lives before they even got the chance. With the paratrooper deployment being largely unsuccessful, the Allied strategy switched to trying to take the beach by sheer, overwhelming numbers, even though a significant number of casualties would be likely.
Thinking about the allied invasion at Normandy, it's almost impossible to imagine the sheer chaos and horror. I hope a battle of that scale (and with those odds of success) is never seen again.
This book was exactly what I expected it to be. For my money, if you're interested, the most authentic version I have ever seen of D-Day was in Saving Private Ryan. My family and I got to see it in a movie theater, and with the volume and vibrations the setting afforded, I will never forget the experience.
October 9, 2017
Impressive on many levels, The Longest Day captures history via basic reporting.
Ryan shifts back and forth with quick. zoomed-in views of what happened on both sides.
Unfortunately, I lost perspective at times, getting buried in the details and losing the big picture. This was my fault because, much like the combatants themselves, I got caught up in the whirlwind action.
Some of the battlefield accounts are chilling - just a gruesome reality. What surprised me was how many mistakes occurred on both sides. The Allies planned this operation for months, and took major losses because they could not navigate expected obstacles and knock out known defensive positions. The Germans, in large measure, were asleep, including Hitler. And many of those who were awake were slow moving and/or out of position.
I read elsewhere that Ryan wanted to know "everything" about D-Day and his book suggests he tried for that goal as heroically as the men who stormed the beaches on June 6, 1944, determined to end WWII. This is a relatively quick, intense and informative read.
Ryan shifts back and forth with quick. zoomed-in views of what happened on both sides.
Unfortunately, I lost perspective at times, getting buried in the details and losing the big picture. This was my fault because, much like the combatants themselves, I got caught up in the whirlwind action.
Some of the battlefield accounts are chilling - just a gruesome reality. What surprised me was how many mistakes occurred on both sides. The Allies planned this operation for months, and took major losses because they could not navigate expected obstacles and knock out known defensive positions. The Germans, in large measure, were asleep, including Hitler. And many of those who were awake were slow moving and/or out of position.
I read elsewhere that Ryan wanted to know "everything" about D-Day and his book suggests he tried for that goal as heroically as the men who stormed the beaches on June 6, 1944, determined to end WWII. This is a relatively quick, intense and informative read.
March 17, 2018
What a fucking excellent book that was! This book really did live up to its hype..
It is such a detailed and researched book, that surprisingly delivered a brilliant novel-like storytelling narrative in under 400 pages.
Excellent writing. Excellent storytelling. Excellent detailing. Excellent narratives by all sides involved on the D-day invasion, which includes the American, British, French, Canadian, polish and other allied soldiers, the Germans as well as the normal Normandy civilians who were trapped in a war that was beyond their control.
Throughout the book I felt like I was transported back to that historic day. Into the stressful and agitating hours before the invasion, into the thick of the fighting during it and the chaotic hours after the invasion.
Simply told, this one took a place at the top of my best loved books list. ❤️❤️
It is such a detailed and researched book, that surprisingly delivered a brilliant novel-like storytelling narrative in under 400 pages.
Excellent writing. Excellent storytelling. Excellent detailing. Excellent narratives by all sides involved on the D-day invasion, which includes the American, British, French, Canadian, polish and other allied soldiers, the Germans as well as the normal Normandy civilians who were trapped in a war that was beyond their control.
Throughout the book I felt like I was transported back to that historic day. Into the stressful and agitating hours before the invasion, into the thick of the fighting during it and the chaotic hours after the invasion.
Simply told, this one took a place at the top of my best loved books list. ❤️❤️
May 16, 2019
In less than one month, we are going to celebrate the 75th year of D-day. Or, in Field Marshall Rommel's own words: The Longest Day.
I am lucky that my reread of this book is the 70th anniversary collector's edition. The additional materials, war diaries, photos and interviews are truly fascinating. Go get this version if you can. You could even get used to the small fonts as the materials are so engrossing.
My original review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I am lucky that my reread of this book is the 70th anniversary collector's edition. The additional materials, war diaries, photos and interviews are truly fascinating. Go get this version if you can. You could even get used to the small fonts as the materials are so engrossing.
My original review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
August 31, 2019
Masterful. A surprisingly easy read and very cinematic (indeed, a movie was made of it that I hope to see one day). The Longest Day provides a bird's eye view of June 6th, flitting from viewpoint to viewpoint, from general to private, allied to enemy. This is an excellent introduction to D-Day and doesn't get bogged down in the nitty gritty of this unit fighting that unit at exactly such and such minute, but for the first time I am realizing just what a massive undertaking D-Day was. I am in awe and 75 years later am filled with gratitude to these men. Despite being a work of history, this book was ENJOYABLE and one of the best I've read in a while. Don't hesitate to pick it up.
April 20, 2018
This is the first book of Cornelius Ryan's World War II trilogy and, having now read them all, it turns out I saved the best for last. His method of storytelling served this turning point of history well and gave a sense of tension and suspense that was remarkable especially since the ultimate outcome was already well known. If you are interested in an exciting and captivating telling of one of the most momentous events of the 20th century look no further - this it. A true classic.
September 5, 2021
Cornelius Ryan's book "The Longest Day" is a classic book that recreates the battle that changed World War II-the Allied invasion of Normandy. Many historians considered this the definite account of D-Day when it was published in 1959. Anyone familiar with D-Day research understands that the most powerful and reliable and first person observations were generated in 1944 only weeks or months after D-Day. Ryan began collecting D-Day reminiscences in the 1950's and his eyewitness accounts of over 1,000 individuals who took part in the action on that day as he he weaves their personal experiences together seamlessly leaving the reader thoroughly engrossed in this book. He does not bore the reader with countless pages of technical and military jargon but focuses on the people that were at D-Day. Unlike some authors more recently, Ryan does not become enmeshed in regurgitation of numbers. To him the most important objective was to get this story across in the words of those people who really understood what happened that day. A novel that has stood the test of time as it explores the people who will never be forgotten for what they sacrificed to keep us free as long as people read books such as this.
August 5, 2017
كنت عايز اضيف الى معلوماتي عن الحرب العالمية الثانية ....الحمد الله معلوماتي قلت بعد قراءة الكتاب ده
المفروض أنه بيحكي عن يوم مهم جدا وهو بداية تحرير الحلفاء لأوروبا وموقعة نورماندي..لكن الكتاب سئ الصراحة كانه بيحكي فيلم.
حاسس انه بيحشي الكتاب بأى كلام ومفيش أى مصادر للمعلومات اللى فى الكتاب ... وتفاصيل ملهاش لازمة ...رغي كتير عن كل حاجة...عن النزول بالمظلات ...والجسور والسفن...وكل قائد ألماني كان فين ساعة الغزو ورومل فى الحمام .. وكان واحد فيهم تقريبا فى حفلة في عيد ميلاد تقريباً .
وقاعد بيحكي مواقف طريفة....وبيحكي ان ظابط فى سفينة حربية كتب جواب لمراته ولا حبيبته والكاتب عارف اتكتب ايه... يعني الكاتب لو جوز خالته مكنش بردو الظابط هيحكي ليه قال ايه فى الجواب..و كل شوية يقولك اصل المكالمة الساعة اربعة وخمسة القائد مش عارف مين كلم مين لو الكاتب هناك والله ما هيفتكر الساعة بدقة ده..
وقاعد يرغي فى كام صفحة اشمعنا الحلفاء وايزنهاور اختار يوم ستة يونيو وليه مش خمسة طب ممكن يوم عشرين...يا عم عرفنا ان ايزنهاور قرد وعفريت انجز بقا..
كتاب سئ نجمة يادوب عليه..ده لو بيحكي عن خناقة فى بلبيس كان الكتاب يطلع احسن من كدا
February 21, 2021
I have been obsessed about WWII since I watched Band of Brothers - the HBO series about the Easy Company who were part of the 101st Airborne. They were paratroopers who landed behind the beaches on D Day. Brilliant series. Since then I have been watching every single documentary about WWII I could find.
Then I researched best WWII books and this one by Cornelius Ryan came up. Wow, what a great book. It's only focused on D Day but it's so well written. I love the mixture of perspectives you get, from farmers and schoolteachers in the small villages in Normandy to the top dog German generals and loads of different soldiers who were part of this surreal day. The sheer scale of Operation Overlord is mind blowing!
I don't think nowadays people appreciate everyone who fought and died in the great wars anymore, everyone should read books like this and get some perspective and appreciation.
Then I researched best WWII books and this one by Cornelius Ryan came up. Wow, what a great book. It's only focused on D Day but it's so well written. I love the mixture of perspectives you get, from farmers and schoolteachers in the small villages in Normandy to the top dog German generals and loads of different soldiers who were part of this surreal day. The sheer scale of Operation Overlord is mind blowing!
I don't think nowadays people appreciate everyone who fought and died in the great wars anymore, everyone should read books like this and get some perspective and appreciation.
March 26, 2022
Cornelius Ryan werkte als oorlogsverslaggever voor The Daily Telegraph. Hij vloog met bommenwerpers van de U.S. Air Force naar het vasteland van Europa waarna hij generaal Patton begeleide en verslag deed van diens activiteiten tot het einde van de oorlog in Europa.
Met het boek The Longest Day beschreef hij de landing in Normandië.
Juni, 6, 1944, D-day. Het verhaal van de geallieerden die landen op de stranden van Normandië, in de hoop een einde te maken aan de tweede wereldoorlog.
Ryan schrijft in dit boek een waargebeurd verhaal neer met respect voor de geschiedenis. Hij slaagt erin om het boek propvol te stoppen met informatie zonder dat het verhaal daardoor vertraagd wordt. Voor de echt geïnteresseerde is dit subliem maar zou het zeker niet aanraden als eerste boek om te lezen over dit onderwerp.
Het is een verhaal waaruit moet blijken hoe moeilijk de landing wel niet was. Het geluk van de verwarring bij de Duitsers maar ook de moeilijkheden om de landing uit te voeren zoals het voorzien was. Een verhaal van ongeluk, geluk en geluk bij een ongeluk.
Om deze versie van het boek te lezen moet je wel redelijk bekend zijn met de Engelse taal. Anders wordt het door sommige woordkeuzes moeilijk om te begrijpen.
De gedetailleerdheid van dit boek stopt niet enkel bij de omgeving maar is ook overvloedig aanwezig als het over de soldaten zelf gaat. Ryan slaagt erin om hen neer te zetten in alle menselijkheid die ze bezitten. Hun gemoedstoestand wordt minutieus omschreven. Zo wordt er bijvoorbeeld een soldaat omschreven die na zijn landing met zijn rug naar de Duitsers zit en steentjes in het water gooit.
Maar de Duitsers worden ook niet vergeten. Hun besluitloosheid komt naar boven. Denk maar aan Hitler wakker maken of niet? Of de vraag of het nu effectief de verwachtte landing was of niet?
Conclusie
Een maximaal geslaagde poging om de landing van Normandië op papier te plaatsen. Zeer gedetailleerd zonder als saai over te komen. Ryan zijn achtergrond als oorlogsverslaggever kwam zeker van pas om dit boek te schrijven. Een aanrader voor iedereen die graag leest over de Wereldoorlogen.
Engels
Cornelius Ryan worked as a war reporter for The Daily Telegraph. He flew U.S. bombers. Air Force to mainland Europe after which he accompanied General Patton and reported on his activities until the end of the war in Europe.
With the book The Longest Day he described the landing in Normandy.
June, 6, 1944, D-day. The story of the Allies landing on the beaches of Normandy, hoping to end World War II.
Ryan writes in this book a true story with respect for history. He manages to stuff the book with information without slowing down the story. For the really interested this is sublime but would certainly not recommend it as the first book to read on this subject.
It is a story that should show how difficult the landing was. The happiness of the confusion of the Germans but also the difficulties in carrying out the landing as planned. A story of misfortune, luck and luck in an accident.
To read this version of the book you need to be reasonably familiar with the English language. Otherwise, some word choices make it difficult to understand.
The detail of this book does not only stop with the environment but is also abundant when it comes to the soldiers themselves. Ryan manages to put them down in all the humanity they possess. Their state of mind is meticulously described. For example, a soldier is described who, after landing, sits with his back to the Germans and throws stones into the water.
But the Germans are not forgotten either. Their indecision emerges. Just think about waking up Hitler or not? Whether it was actually the expected landing or not?
Conclusion
A maximum successful attempt to put the landing of Normandy on paper. Very detailed without coming across as boring. Ryan's background as a war reporter certainly came in handy to write this book. A must for anyone who likes to read about the World Wars.
Met het boek The Longest Day beschreef hij de landing in Normandië.
Juni, 6, 1944, D-day. Het verhaal van de geallieerden die landen op de stranden van Normandië, in de hoop een einde te maken aan de tweede wereldoorlog.
Ryan schrijft in dit boek een waargebeurd verhaal neer met respect voor de geschiedenis. Hij slaagt erin om het boek propvol te stoppen met informatie zonder dat het verhaal daardoor vertraagd wordt. Voor de echt geïnteresseerde is dit subliem maar zou het zeker niet aanraden als eerste boek om te lezen over dit onderwerp.
Het is een verhaal waaruit moet blijken hoe moeilijk de landing wel niet was. Het geluk van de verwarring bij de Duitsers maar ook de moeilijkheden om de landing uit te voeren zoals het voorzien was. Een verhaal van ongeluk, geluk en geluk bij een ongeluk.
Om deze versie van het boek te lezen moet je wel redelijk bekend zijn met de Engelse taal. Anders wordt het door sommige woordkeuzes moeilijk om te begrijpen.
De gedetailleerdheid van dit boek stopt niet enkel bij de omgeving maar is ook overvloedig aanwezig als het over de soldaten zelf gaat. Ryan slaagt erin om hen neer te zetten in alle menselijkheid die ze bezitten. Hun gemoedstoestand wordt minutieus omschreven. Zo wordt er bijvoorbeeld een soldaat omschreven die na zijn landing met zijn rug naar de Duitsers zit en steentjes in het water gooit.
Maar de Duitsers worden ook niet vergeten. Hun besluitloosheid komt naar boven. Denk maar aan Hitler wakker maken of niet? Of de vraag of het nu effectief de verwachtte landing was of niet?
Conclusie
Een maximaal geslaagde poging om de landing van Normandië op papier te plaatsen. Zeer gedetailleerd zonder als saai over te komen. Ryan zijn achtergrond als oorlogsverslaggever kwam zeker van pas om dit boek te schrijven. Een aanrader voor iedereen die graag leest over de Wereldoorlogen.
Engels
Cornelius Ryan worked as a war reporter for The Daily Telegraph. He flew U.S. bombers. Air Force to mainland Europe after which he accompanied General Patton and reported on his activities until the end of the war in Europe.
With the book The Longest Day he described the landing in Normandy.
June, 6, 1944, D-day. The story of the Allies landing on the beaches of Normandy, hoping to end World War II.
Ryan writes in this book a true story with respect for history. He manages to stuff the book with information without slowing down the story. For the really interested this is sublime but would certainly not recommend it as the first book to read on this subject.
It is a story that should show how difficult the landing was. The happiness of the confusion of the Germans but also the difficulties in carrying out the landing as planned. A story of misfortune, luck and luck in an accident.
To read this version of the book you need to be reasonably familiar with the English language. Otherwise, some word choices make it difficult to understand.
The detail of this book does not only stop with the environment but is also abundant when it comes to the soldiers themselves. Ryan manages to put them down in all the humanity they possess. Their state of mind is meticulously described. For example, a soldier is described who, after landing, sits with his back to the Germans and throws stones into the water.
But the Germans are not forgotten either. Their indecision emerges. Just think about waking up Hitler or not? Whether it was actually the expected landing or not?
Conclusion
A maximum successful attempt to put the landing of Normandy on paper. Very detailed without coming across as boring. Ryan's background as a war reporter certainly came in handy to write this book. A must for anyone who likes to read about the World Wars.
June 16, 2021
Βαθμολογία: 9/10
Πριν λίγες μέρες έτυχε να δω την ταινία "Οι νικητές" του Καρλ Φόρμαν, ένα εν πολλοίς άγνωστο αντιπολεμικό διαμαντάκι της δεκαετίας του '60 που πραγματικά με ξετρέλανε, και η αλήθεια είναι ότι μου άνοιξε η όρεξη για κάτι που να έχει σχέση με τον Β' Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο στην Ευρώπη, και ειδικότερα κάτι που να μην είναι μυθιστόρημα ή συλλογή διηγημάτων. Έτσι, έπιασα το "Η πιο μεγάλη μέρα", που το καημένο το είχα στο περίμενε για πολύ καιρό.
Λοιπόν, πρόκειται σαφώς για ένα εξαιρετικά γλαφυρό και συναρπαστικό χρονικό της D-DAY, της τρομερής Απόβασης στη Νορμανδία, στις 6 Ιουνίου του 1944. Ο Κορνέλιους Ράιαν καταφέρνει με περισσή ευκολία να μεταφέρει τον αναγνώστη πίσω, σε εκείνες τις τρομερές μέρες, και να αναδείξει την ένταση, την αγωνία, τον φόβο, το πάθος, τον ηρωισμό όλων εκείνων των ανθρώπων που συμμετείχαν στην κομβικής σημασίας επιχείρηση της Απόβασης στη Νορμανδία. Το βιβλίο είναι γεμάτο περιγραφές από τις διάφορες κινήσεις των στρατιωτικών μονάδων και ομάδων, αλλά και γεμάτο από μικρές ιστορίες διαφόρων αξιωματικών και απλών στρατιωτών, που σίγουρα έζησαν ορισμένες από τις πιο τρομακτικές μα συνάμα συναρπαστικές στιγμές της ζωής τους (φυσικά για πολλούς στρατιώτες οι στιγμές αυτές ήταν, δυστυχώς, και οι τελευταίες). Ο συγγραφέας έψαξε πολλές πηγές, πήρε πολλές συνεντεύξεις, γνώρισε πολλούς ανθρώπους που είχαν τον έναν ή τον άλλο ρόλο στο συγκεκριμένο ιστορικό γεγονός, τόσο από τη μια όσο και από την άλλη πλευρά.
Με τις περιγραφές του Ράιαν ένιωσα όλη την παράνοια, την τρέλα και τον χαμό του πολέμου, ενώ πρέπει να πω ότι δεν ήταν καθόλου λίγες οι παραλείψεις και καθόλου λίγα τα λάθη, τόσο εκ μέρους των Συμμάχων, όσο και εκ μέρους των Γερμανών. Τέλος, οφείλω να πω ότι σε μερικά σημεία έχασα λίγο την μπάλα -και ίσως ακόμα και το ενδιαφέρον- με όλες αυτές τις μεραρχίες και τις στρατιές και τις μπερδεμένες κινήσεις τους (φυσικά έτσι συνειδητοποίησα το χάος που επικρατεί σε μια μεγάλου μεγέθους στρατιωτική επιχείρηση), από την άλλη όμως θαύμασα σε μεγάλο βαθμό το ταλέντο του συγγραφέα στο να αποτυπώσει στο χαρτί ένα τόσο φοβερό ιστορικό γεγονός. Οπότε, έστω και την τελευταία στιγμή, θα τσιμπήσει το πέμπτο αστεράκι!
Υ.Γ. Λίαν συντόμως θα δω και την ομότιτλη ταινία του 1962, που θεωρείται ως μια από τις κορυφαίες πολεμικές ταινίες όλων των εποχών.
Πριν λίγες μέρες έτυχε να δω την ταινία "Οι νικητές" του Καρλ Φόρμαν, ένα εν πολλοίς άγνωστο αντιπολεμικό διαμαντάκι της δεκαετίας του '60 που πραγματικά με ξετρέλανε, και η αλήθεια είναι ότι μου άνοιξε η όρεξη για κάτι που να έχει σχέση με τον Β' Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο στην Ευρώπη, και ειδικότερα κάτι που να μην είναι μυθιστόρημα ή συλλογή διηγημάτων. Έτσι, έπιασα το "Η πιο μεγάλη μέρα", που το καημένο το είχα στο περίμενε για πολύ καιρό.
Λοιπόν, πρόκειται σαφώς για ένα εξαιρετικά γλαφυρό και συναρπαστικό χρονικό της D-DAY, της τρομερής Απόβασης στη Νορμανδία, στις 6 Ιουνίου του 1944. Ο Κορνέλιους Ράιαν καταφέρνει με περισσή ευκολία να μεταφέρει τον αναγνώστη πίσω, σε εκείνες τις τρομερές μέρες, και να αναδείξει την ένταση, την αγωνία, τον φόβο, το πάθος, τον ηρωισμό όλων εκείνων των ανθρώπων που συμμετείχαν στην κομβικής σημασίας επιχείρηση της Απόβασης στη Νορμανδία. Το βιβλίο είναι γεμάτο περιγραφές από τις διάφορες κινήσεις των στρατιωτικών μονάδων και ομάδων, αλλά και γεμάτο από μικρές ιστορίες διαφόρων αξιωματικών και απλών στρατιωτών, που σίγουρα έζησαν ορισμένες από τις πιο τρομακτικές μα συνάμα συναρπαστικές στιγμές της ζωής τους (φυσικά για πολλούς στρατιώτες οι στιγμές αυτές ήταν, δυστυχώς, και οι τελευταίες). Ο συγγραφέας έψαξε πολλές πηγές, πήρε πολλές συνεντεύξεις, γνώρισε πολλούς ανθρώπους που είχαν τον έναν ή τον άλλο ρόλο στο συγκεκριμένο ιστορικό γεγονός, τόσο από τη μια όσο και από την άλλη πλευρά.
Με τις περιγραφές του Ράιαν ένιωσα όλη την παράνοια, την τρέλα και τον χαμό του πολέμου, ενώ πρέπει να πω ότι δεν ήταν καθόλου λίγες οι παραλείψεις και καθόλου λίγα τα λάθη, τόσο εκ μέρους των Συμμάχων, όσο και εκ μέρους των Γερμανών. Τέλος, οφείλω να πω ότι σε μερικά σημεία έχασα λίγο την μπάλα -και ίσως ακόμα και το ενδιαφέρον- με όλες αυτές τις μεραρχίες και τις στρατιές και τις μπερδεμένες κινήσεις τους (φυσικά έτσι συνειδητοποίησα το χάος που επικρατεί σε μια μεγάλου μεγέθους στρατιωτική επιχείρηση), από την άλλη όμως θαύμασα σε μεγάλο βαθμό το ταλέντο του συγγραφέα στο να αποτυπώσει στο χαρτί ένα τόσο φοβερό ιστορικό γεγονός. Οπότε, έστω και την τελευταία στιγμή, θα τσιμπήσει το πέμπτο αστεράκι!
Υ.Γ. Λίαν συντόμως θα δω και την ομότιτλη ταινία του 1962, που θεωρείται ως μια από τις κορυφαίες πολεμικές ταινίες όλων των εποχών.
November 12, 2020
Why do we keep turning back to Ryan? The fresh voices behind? The journalistic charm underneath?
Because he conveys the contemporary anxiety. It had to work. In the name of freedom.
Because he conveys the contemporary anxiety. It had to work. In the name of freedom.
April 4, 2022
There’s no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.
If we don’t end war, war will end us.
commander of all allied forces on 6th June this the longest day, General then US president Dwight D Einsenhower
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
Cornelius Ryan in 1940, a fresh 20 year old Irish reporter for the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph. He flew along on 14 US bombing missions and followed and reported on Pattons 3rd army until the end of the war in Europe, then left to report on the Pacific War so he had incredible first hand encounters and access with many soldiers, from all levels. Which reflects in his story telling so a real treasure that he has shared with the rest of us, thats it I think.
Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.
If we don’t end war, war will end us.
commander of all allied forces on 6th June this the longest day, General then US president Dwight D Einsenhower
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
Cornelius Ryan in 1940, a fresh 20 year old Irish reporter for the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph. He flew along on 14 US bombing missions and followed and reported on Pattons 3rd army until the end of the war in Europe, then left to report on the Pacific War so he had incredible first hand encounters and access with many soldiers, from all levels. Which reflects in his story telling so a real treasure that he has shared with the rest of us, thats it I think.
February 19, 2013
The title is taken from a quote of Field Marshall Edwin Rommel, who commanded the German forces defending the Atlantic Wall against invasion, "...the first 24 hours of the invasion will be decisive...the fate of Germany depends on the outcome...for the Allies, as well as Germany, it will be the longest day." That day came on June 6, 1944, and Ryan gives an account not just of that day, but the lead up. The book, in fact, is split into 3 parts--"The Wait," "The Night" and "The Day." It has a strong narrative akin to a novel, but is based on thousands of interviews and never drifts over the line into evident fiction. It tells the story from generals to privates, and from both the Allied and German sides. It also tells the story from the side of the French Resistance and French civilians in Normandy who had undergone a brutal occupation for the last four years. (One detail that struck me was how one resident was going to have his home pulled down simply because the Germans coveted building materials.)
One thing I appreciated about the book was both the epic sweep and the intimacy. Ryan made you appreciate the huge scale of the operation. An allied fleet of five thousand ships carried 250,000 men. The Allied causalities numbered at least ten thousand and the German casualties as many as nine thousand. At the same time, Ryan doesn't stint on the stories of individuals in ways that made the account of the battle come alive, from the American paratrooper caught on the church steeple to the British commandos going to battle to the sound of bagpipes. Ryan himself was a war correspondent who reported on D-Day, and his account here has an immediacy I doubt other books detailing the events of that day could match.
One thing I appreciated about the book was both the epic sweep and the intimacy. Ryan made you appreciate the huge scale of the operation. An allied fleet of five thousand ships carried 250,000 men. The Allied causalities numbered at least ten thousand and the German casualties as many as nine thousand. At the same time, Ryan doesn't stint on the stories of individuals in ways that made the account of the battle come alive, from the American paratrooper caught on the church steeple to the British commandos going to battle to the sound of bagpipes. Ryan himself was a war correspondent who reported on D-Day, and his account here has an immediacy I doubt other books detailing the events of that day could match.
October 17, 2015
إننا عندما نضع على أجسامنا الرداء العسكرى لا نهتم بالمعارك إلا عندما نخوضها .
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كتاب أطول يوم فى التاريخ
الكاتب كورنليس ريان
ترجمة محمد مرسى ابو الليل .
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اليوم المقصود هو يوم 6 يونية 1944
وسبب التسمية مقولة اطلقها رومل الألمانى خلال الحرب العالمية الثانية وهو اليوم الذى سمى من قبل الحلفاء بيوم الغزو وبداية تحرير أوروبا من قبضة هتلر وقد تحقق ذلك بعد سنة من تاريخ هذا اليوم .
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ملاحظاتى :
- الكتاب يدور فى اطار درامى وكأنه فيلم سينمائى
- رؤيته للأحداث واضحة انها من جانب الحلفاء
- تم تصوير الامر وكأنه معركة خاصة بين ايزنهاور وروميل
- المبالغة فى العواطف و " الافورة " فى المواقف سائدة فى هذا الكتاب .
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كتاب لايعتد به كمرجع فى الحرب ولا كتعريف بها فى رأيى وذلك بسبب المصادر التى استند إليها والتى ذكرها فى البداية :
- 1- معلومات : لم يذكر مصدر المعلومات
2- قصص: لم يذكر من روى له تلك القصص
3- أخبار : هل هى أخبار صحفية أم عسكرية لم يتم توضيح اى شىء.
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فى النهاية أقتبس :
" براعة المرء فى التصرف هى مقياس البقاء على قيد الحياة " .
.....................................................
كتاب أطول يوم فى التاريخ
الكاتب كورنليس ريان
ترجمة محمد مرسى ابو الليل .
........................................................
اليوم المقصود هو يوم 6 يونية 1944
وسبب التسمية مقولة اطلقها رومل الألمانى خلال الحرب العالمية الثانية وهو اليوم الذى سمى من قبل الحلفاء بيوم الغزو وبداية تحرير أوروبا من قبضة هتلر وقد تحقق ذلك بعد سنة من تاريخ هذا اليوم .
.............................................................
ملاحظاتى :
- الكتاب يدور فى اطار درامى وكأنه فيلم سينمائى
- رؤيته للأحداث واضحة انها من جانب الحلفاء
- تم تصوير الامر وكأنه معركة خاصة بين ايزنهاور وروميل
- المبالغة فى العواطف و " الافورة " فى المواقف سائدة فى هذا الكتاب .
.......................................................
كتاب لايعتد به كمرجع فى الحرب ولا كتعريف بها فى رأيى وذلك بسبب المصادر التى استند إليها والتى ذكرها فى البداية :
- 1- معلومات : لم يذكر مصدر المعلومات
2- قصص: لم يذكر من روى له تلك القصص
3- أخبار : هل هى أخبار صحفية أم عسكرية لم يتم توضيح اى شىء.
...................................................................
فى النهاية أقتبس :
" براعة المرء فى التصرف هى مقياس البقاء على قيد الحياة " .
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