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Title: Neptune

Subtitle: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings

Author: Craig L. Symonds

Narrator: Craig L. Symonds

Format: Unabridged

Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-25-14

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 174 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

Seventy years ago, more than 6000 Allied ships carried more than a million soldiers across the English Channel to a 50-mile-wide strip of the Normandy coast in German-occupied France. It was the greatest sea-borne assault in human history. The code names given to the beaches where the ships landed the soldiers have become immortal: Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah, and especially Omaha, the scene of almost unimaginable human tragedy. The sea of crosses in the cemetery sitting today atop a bluff overlooking the beaches recalls to us its cost. Most accounts of this epic story begin with the landings on the morning of June 6, 1944. In fact, however, D-Day was the culmination of months and years of planning and intense debate. In the dark days after the evacuation of Dunkirk in the summer of 1940, British officials and, soon enough, their American counterparts, began to consider how, and, where, and especially when, they could re-enter the European Continent in force. The Americans, led by U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, wanted to invade as soon as possible; the British, personified by their redoubtable prime minister, Winston Churchill, were convinced that a premature landing would be disastrous. The often-sharp negotiations between the English-speaking allies led them first to North Africa, then into Sicily, then Italy. Only in the spring of 1943, did the Combined Chiefs of Staff commit themselves to an invasion of northern France. The code name for this invasion was Overlord, but everything that came before, including the landings themselves and the supply system that made it possible for the invaders to stay there, was code-named Neptune. Craig L. Symonds now offers the complete story of this Olympian effort, involving transports, escorts, gunfire support ships, and landing craft of every possible size and function. The obstacles to success were many.

Members Reviews:

The Whys of D-Day

This is not another book on the D-Day landings or on the war in Western Europe. Instead it is largely a book on the planning that went into the D-Day landings. Neptune was the part of the concerted effort that included making sure the effort could deliver the troops to the beaches while Overlord was the part of the effort involved once the troops were ashore and this book spends the majority of its time discussing how the plans were drawn up, why specific decisions were made and how the plans expected the effort to be made. As such it covers a part of the war in Western Europe that I have never seen covered in any real detail in any other book.

Mr Symonds has written a fascinating account of what happened during this planning and covered material that is generally not even mentioned in other books. For example in this book you will find out about how competition for raw materials had an impact on decisions that were made concerning what was to be built, in what order and in what quantities, the source of the friction between the British and US army soldiers stationed in the UK during the troop buildup, some hardly ever seen information about the African-American soldiers station in the UK, a detailed explanation on landing craft and why they were the determining factor in when and how the landings were made, information on the mine sweeping operations preceding the invasion, an explanation of what went wrong with the Mulberry Harbors and much else rarely covered.