Saturday, August 29, 2009

D-Day Ships The Allied Invasion Fleet June 1944

D-Day Ships The Allied Invasion Fleet June 1944

By Yves Buffetaut
164 pages; $39.95
ISBN 1557501521

Published to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of the landings at Normandy, this reprint of a classic work offers a superb appraisal of the Allies’ naval contribution to the largest amphibious operation in history. The author examines the ships, strategic and tactical planning, the channel voyage, landings on both American and British beaches, the Mulberry harbors, the great storm, and looks at the invasion from the perspective of amphibious operations throughout World War II. With the huge range of craft detailed and supporting plans and action photographs, this reprint claims to be the best available account of Operation Overlord. Unfortunately the author does a poor job of identifying ships and the books suffers because of it. For example an ARL repair ship is misidentified as an LST on page 12. 
The major fault of this book is the misnomer of the title. I thought it would be a compilation of the ships that actually took part in the D-Day landings. Instead, the book is a rehash of previously publishing information about the landings. 
One well known naval historian has described this book as "Some of the D-Day Ships," an apt metaphor for this disaster. Shame on Conway Maritime Press for publishing this rubbish. (DS)

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