A well-researched manuscript on tough battles during those months of 1944, uniquely from the angle of the defenders. in 21 chapters, it looks at German responses, deployment, manoeuvres, resistance, and defeat, and then resistance further on. Major commanders and players with relevance, of both sides, are described, and some common myths critically explained. Word count is 260,000, of 477 pages, in single space.
This book, by a seasoned historian Dr. Linong Zhou, is noticeably dissimilar to standard writings on battles of the west, in that the central theme goes through military aspects of the Germans’ responses to the Normandy invasion. It attempts a novel review, taking chiefly the angle of the Germans in their unpromising drive to counter the invasion and breakout. The book has absorbed relevant, disseminated information of various German experiences, from numerous published works and war annuals in English. It labours to present a more comprehensive picture of how did the Germans really fight in those fatal months. The focus is on the Germans’ reactions, deployment, manoeuvres, resistance, and retreat, up to late 1944. It attempts to illustrate how the Germans were up against overwhelming odds, confronting the Allies’ bottomless pits of manpower and firepower. Dr. Zhou in this extensive book also intends to describe numerous commanders and players, of both sides, of their varied actions, to create a sense of real battle, not entirely conforming to conventional depicting in past works.
The Germans failed on D-Day, then they held up the narrow corner of Cotentin for about two months. Tough resistance raged over hedgerows, creeks, stone cottages, and valleys, causing thousands of tanks destroyed and more thousands of casualties. They finally buckled under the weight of up to two million Allied troops, giving way to an American breakout. Golloping Allied formations raced to reach German borders, rounding up scattered, dispirited German soldiers. Then, it came to a second standstill, when assorted German units under Model stopped panic running and thwarted further Allies’ advances, in particular halting the Market Garden offensive and causing bloodbath in the Hurtgen forests. The line remained roughly the same until early 1945. This book is to examine the resistance, retreat, and regrouping of German formations in ferocious battles, much more than an Allies’ smooth ride from the beaches to the Rhine.
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