If anyone is interested this is a very very good book.
What I especially liked was his comparison of troops say German paratroopers versus USA V Britain etc. Also weapons etc right up to how the allies ran there armies V Germans and Russia.
So follows the run up to the invasion right the way through to there break out of the hedges.
Where I live here in Berkshire England most of the airborne trained and left from here. There are old airfields all around.
Theres a farm where I get my firewood from. Every so occasionally when burning it you get a very intense glow. The wood is from a ridge line which the US troops used as Machine gun practice. The glows are the bullet heads melting.
Worked on a barn conversion (family made the old farm barn into a house) the owner was telling me how a few years after he had done it one late May Day 3 old guys with medals on came and knocked on there door.
They said that they had been billeted there. Asked if they could get up in the loft as they had carved their names on the rafters. So up they all climbed.
They all chatting away and the guy asks. Hey what’s up with the dates?
These here are all RIP 1943? Oh says the vets that’s when we started parachute training, we used this place as a morgue.
Coming from NZ my family has fought in both World wars and Vietnam.
It still gets me when coming across the commonwealth war graves. France has many. But I only need to walk around the local church yards here where many of the services men and women where buried having been killed or died of there wounds. If I do see one of there head stones I always make an effort to visit.
