How D-Day Almost Became a Disaster

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Early on the morning of June 6, 1944, a cluster of ships huddled 5,000 yards off the inviting stretch of French coastline between Vierville-sur-Mer and Ste.-Honorine-des-Pertes, which for the purposes of that day had been rechristened Omaha Beach. On board were two companies from the 741st Tank Battalion of the U.S. Army. They were facing the uninviting task of driving their tanks to the shore.

The tanks were DD (for duplex-drive) Shermans, improbable vehicles specially rigged with flotation devices and propellers. They looked as weird as their descriptions sound. They floated, barely, but the sea that morning was heavier than it had been during training, and 5,000 yards turned out to be too far. Twenty-seven of the 32 DD Shermans sank. (You can hear Tom Hanks yelling about this in the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan: "We got no DD tanks on the beach!") Of the five tanks that survived, three made it because their launching mechanisms had jammed and they were dropped directly onshore. In all, 33 men drowned. (See pictures of World War II movies.)

The Allied commanders knew Omaha would be the hardest beach to take on D-day. Its gentle curve and imposing bluffs made it a natural killing ground. But even so, the lack of foresight seems breathtaking. Bombers were supposed to have softened up the German defenses, but they released their payloads too late — they were worried about hitting the landing parties — and missed the bunkers completely. Rockets were supposed to pound the beach from offshore, but they fell short. The German defenses were practically untouched. "All it's done is wake them up!" one officer remarked. That the assault on Omaha succeeded is due partly to shelling from nearby destroyers but mostly to the courage and determination of the infantry. That's one of the lessons of Antony Beevor's glorious, horrifying D-Day (Viking; 592 pages): the purpose of valor is usually to make up for somebody else's stupidity. (See TIME's photo-essay "Faces of D-Day.")

D-Day is the first comprehensive account of this vast operation in 20 years. It's an imposing volume: Beevor, author of The Fall of Berlin 1945 and Stalingrad, deftly marshals vast tranches of information with his customary unflappability. Just crossing the English Channel involved assembling almost 5,000 vessels, the largest fleet in history. Although Beevor had access to a great deal of new material, there are no major revelations in D-Day. But it contains some surprises.

Most of the new sources are letters and journals written by soldiers, and they yield hundreds of shockingly vivid vignettes from the beaches and trenches. You won't soon forget the account of Bill Millin, bagpiper for the 1st Special Service Brigade of the British Army, who had to march out of the surf onto Sword Beach under rifle and mortar fire playing "Highland Laddie." And Beevor focuses on things other writers have neglected. For example, he doesn't gloss over the hideous costs paid by French civilians. The Allies, before liberating them, bombed them relentlessly in an attempt to paralyze the German army. Three thousand French civilians died during the first 24 hours of D-day. That's twice the number of American soldiers who died.

Beevor also gives considerable weight — two-thirds of the book — to the bloody fighting that took place in the weeks following D-day. Bad as the beach landings were, there was even worse to come.

Watch TIME's ideo "Voices of Truth from D-Day."

See the top 10 D-Day resources online.