Rating: 
Summary: Simply Outstanding...
Review: What an awesome book this is. In just a little over 300 pages, Mr. Ryan caught the epic drama and sweep of the Normandy invasion. But the reader should be reminded that while D-Day is the focus, the book starts on June 4, then follows both the Allied and German sides. What really struck me is that Mr. Ryan wrote it so soon after the war (first published in 1959) and yet there isn't a note of triumphalism in the whole thing or a note of bragging as victors are sometimes wont to do. He is wonderfully objective and whatever biases he may have had, he subordinates to the story. He also never engages in what each side should have done as many historians do. While this was written and published prior to the revelation of Ultra and the Enigma codes, it fails to diminish the book's power and readability. If you want a good primer on D-Day what it felt like, then this is the best book to start.
Rating:
Summary: Simply the Best
Review: For anyone curious about the invasion of Normandy you should start here. This book is easy to read. It's entertaining. It's got the big picture as well as many memorable little pictures. It doesn't overwhelm you with mind-numbing details.
In short, Mr. Ryan was a master historian & a master storyteller. A certain Professor S.A. couldn't hold a candle to Mr. Ryan's narration.
Rating:
Summary: Real persons, real Heroes
Review: Only those who were involved in armed conflict can understand and explain the horror, fear and hatred that builds in normal human beings who fight in a war. In this masterpiece, Mr. Ryan introduce us to the real men that fought on the beaches of Normandy (and also on the sea and inland like the airborne divisions)not only from the allies point of view, but also the germans who were also very brave soldiers and (this is very easy to forget) human beings (lots of them didnÂ't even like the nazi party, they were fighting for their country and families). This book is the work of a man that isn't satisfied with anything short of perfection. He wanted the truth, and in my humble opinion...I think he got it. If you want some audio visual reference, don't miss "saving Private Ryan" and the classical "The longest day".
Rating:
Summary: HEARTBREAKING
Review: This book should be on the required reading list of everyone who is lucky enough to call America home. The raw courage of the men (American, Brits, Canadians, and French) who fought on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day is inspiring and heroic...as I was crying my eyes out at some of Ryan's passages, I didn't even feel that I had the right to shed tears for these men, since compared to what they went through, my time on earth has shown me little pain...If you know a WWII veteran, PLEASE PLEASE thank him.
Rating:
Summary: A ground floor look at a historical turning point
Review: This book personalizes the herculean efforts of the Allied forces to retake Europe. The view from many vantage points through the eyes if many individuals makes this a fascinating book. We all know the ending, but Mr. Ryan spins an exciting tale. I found myself staying up into the wee hours to read the "next page."
Rating:
Summary: Third Front!
Review: The invasion of Normandy on D-Day June 6, 1944 marked a significance date led to the fall of Germany! In the East, the Germans were busy defending their line from the Russians and to the South, Kessering was busy defending Italy! The invasion of Normandy would cause the Germans to fight on a third front less than 800 miles from the German border. This would later marked the end of Hitler's Germany less than a year! It was a surprise for the Germans as they thought the Allies would not try to have an invasion due to rough seas but they predict it would happen in mid-June instead of Normandy but in Calias as it is nearer to Germany! Since early 1944, Rommel believe the Allies were preparing for an invasion but he did not know when but he prepared a fortified Normandy with obstacles, mines, bunkers, pillboxes, man made swamps and walls! In the early morning on June 6, Allies paratroopers landed and cause a lot of confusion within the German Army! Some of the commanders refused to believe there is an invasion! Some beaches were defended by Russians and other European nation troops who refused to fight the Allies and munitions that can last less than a day! The German Lufwaffe have only 2 planes in Normandy to attack the invasion force while the rest of their wings were transfered out before the invasion! Although Spindel warned there would be an invasion at 4am to Jodl in OKW, he refused to wake up hitler as he though it is is not important instead they activated the 1st and 12 SS Panzer Divisions at 9am! Not until 10.30am, Rommel get to know the invasion as it was too late to counter-attack the Allies as they have established bridgeheads pouring thousand of tonnes of equipments and troops and strong Allied air cover! This is a well researched book and I really enjoy reading it from the beginning (planning) to the landing accomplishment on June 6, 1944 in Normandy! Ryan mentioned not just the Allies accounts but to the German Army and the French civilians! It is well recommended to readers and students who wants to read in depth of World War 2! It was the longest days for the Germans!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent narrative
Review: This book is an excellent narrative of 'The Longest Day' - D-Day, June 6th, 1944. This gets my full recommendation, especially if you are a fan of the historian Stephen Ambrose - rather than a dry retelling of history or a historical examination, it is a narrative, from the point of view of the men who were there. Probably the best introduction for the ameteur historian to D-Day. A must have for any WWII history buff.
Rating:
Summary: The Day for which the World Waited Four Years
Review: This is a classic account of D-Day, June 6, 1944, the day on which the Allies invaded Hitler's Europe at Normandy on the northern coast of France, over four years after the French had ignominiously surrendered to Germany during the first year of World War II. With the benefit of over 50 years' hindsight, the successful D-Day invasion may now appear to be anticlimactic. Although, as Ryan observes, the Germans had to anticipate the possibility that the long-awaited invasion could occur at nearly any point along 800 miles of coast of the Netherlands and France and at virtually any time that the always-unpredictable weather over the English Channel permitted, a German intelligence source had corrected predicted that the invasion would take place at Normandy on June 6. But the Germans had convinced themselves that the Allies would wait for perfect weather conditions. Ryan succinctly reports General Dwight Eisenhower's decision on the night of June 5 to take a chance that there would be a short break in the weather. The order to proceed with the invasion was given, and, because by June 1944 the Allies had virtually total naval and air superiority in and over the Channel, the Germans were unaware of the massing of the invasion forces on that night. I found Ryan's terse, understated description of a German coastal observer's reaction when the 5000-ship invasion fleet appeared off the Norman coast early in the morning of June 6 to be gloriously exciting; when the German officer calls headquarters to report that the invasion has begun and is asked "what way are [the] ships heading?", he replies, "Right at me." This is simply one of the greatest battle stories of all time! As Ryan ably demonstrates, the Allies' success on D-Day was, in fact, the result of thousands of acts of individual achievement and heroism. Like the glider-borne troops who landed behind enemy lines during the night and seized key roads and bridges to prevent German reinforcements from reaching the five invasion beaches; the paratroopers whose radios, bazookas, mortars, and ammunition landed in marshes and had to be retrieved by diving into the chilly water before they could proceed to their objectives; and the 120 underwater demolition experts who landed on the beaches first to clear paths through minefields and obstacles for the waves of assault troops who followed. There are many moments of life-and-death struggle. At the end of the book, Ryan includes a short "Note on Casualties," in which he writes that American casualties during the 24-hour period of the assault totaled 6,603 killed, wounded, missing, and captured, which seems remarkably low considering the vast size of the invasion. Nevertheless, each death was a personal tragedy. According to Ryan, the Germans "had organized a bloody welcome for the Allied troops." The overnight airborne operation, which involved 13,000 American paratroopers, was successful but at considerable cost. Many paratroopers landed far from their drop zones. The lucky ones just had a long walk to get where they were supposed to be. But Ryan reports that the Germans had flooded large expanses of low-lying farmland and countryside surrounding the coast, and a number of unlucky paratroopers landed in the water and drowned. The landings on the beaches were equally perilous. Ryan writes: "Seasick men, already exhausted by the long hours spent on the transports and in the assault boats, found themselves fighting for their lives in water which was often over their heads." In one company landing on Omaha Beach, "[l]ess than a third of the men survived the bloody walk from the boats to the edge pf the beach." In one force of Rangers assigned to assault a 100-foot-high cliff, only 90 of the original 225 were still able to bear arms at the end of the day. Ryan's approach is essentially journalistic, but the events he records occasionally inspire him to wax poetic. About the British Second Army, Ryan writes: "They were assaulting not just beaches but bitter memories - memories of Munich and Dunkirk, of one hateful and humiliating retreat after another, of countless devastating bombing raids, of dark days when they had stood alone. With them were the Canadians with a score of their own to settle for the bloody losses at Dieppe. And with them, too, were the French, fierce and eager on this homecoming morning." But, sometimes, all Ryan needs to do is report the facts. At the end of the day, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the commander of the German defenses, is asked: "Sir, do you think we can drive them back?" and he responds, "I hope we can. I've always succeeded up to now." In fact, Ryan writes: "From this day on the Third Reich had less than one year to live." In some respects, this book is a curious account of a massive, unprecedented battle whose success depended largely upon organization and planning at the command level. Ryan devotes only a few pages to the Allies' remarkable logistical preparations for the invasion by 200,000 men with massive amounts of equipment and to the Germans' equally-clever, if ultimately unsuccessful, efforts to prevent a successful landing. Indeed, most of Ryan's narrative takes the form of a series of relatively short vignettes of the experiences of individuals, officers and enlisted men, Allied and German, on this momentous day. Other books about D-Day, such as John Keegan's Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris and Stephen E. Ambrose's D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II are more comprehensive. But it is inconceivable that any student of World War II can have a full appreciation of what happened on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944 without reading Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day.
Rating:
Summary: Quick and easy, yet startlingly evocative...
Review: ...this book is a no-nonsense telling of the events that surrounded the June 6, 1944 invasion of Normandy. Having been born twenty-five years after the date, I have grown up with an interest in the D-Day landings. I first read this book as a child, and it brought tears to my eyes. If you have seen SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, you owe it to yourself to read this book. If you live in the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, or France, you owe it to yourself to read this account of the men who fought and died on the beaches of Normandy. Along with THE BATTLE FOR PUSAN (a Korean War narrative), this book is a must-read for any student of history or warfare.
Rating:
Summary: The greatest book written about this day
Review: Without a doubt Ryan's work on this subject is one of the greatest texts ever produced. The attention he gives to each individual and the way he combines it into the overall story is brillant. When I finished reading this book I was so intrigued by the people in it that I spent a good hour going through the back of it in which it lists where and what people did after the war. If you have an interest in WW II history you have to read this book, it is the best of its breed.
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