D-Day: The Battle for Normandy

CMH Center of Military History, Washington, DC

CRHQ Centre de Recherche d’Histoire Quantitative, University of Caen

CWM/MCG Canadian War Memorial/ Memorial Canadien de la Guerre

DDEL Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas

DTbA Deutsches Tagebucharchiv, Emmendingen

DWS Department of War Studies, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

ETHINT European Theater Historical Interrogations, 1945, USAMHI

FMS Foreign Military Studies, USAMHI

HP Harris Papers, RAF Museum, Hendon

IfZ Archiv des Instituts fur Zeitgeschichte, Munich

IHTP-CNRS Reports from the German Military Commander in France and the synthesis of the reports from the French prefects 1940-44, edited by the German Historical Institute Paris and the Institut d’Histoire du Temps Present, revised by Regina Delacor, Jurgen Finger, Peter Lieb, Vincent Viet and Florent Brayard

IMT International Military Tribunal

IWM Imperial War Museum archives, London

LHCMA Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, London

LofC Library of Congress, The Veterans’ History Project, Washington, DC

MdC Memorial de Caen archives, Normandy

MHSA Montana Historical Society Archives

NA II National Archives II, College Park, Maryland

NAC/ANC National Archives of Canada/Archives Nationales du Canada

NWWIIM-EC National World War II Museum, Eisenhower Center archive, New Orleans

OCMH-FPP Office of the Chief of Military History, Forrest Pogue Papers, Forrest C. Pogue’s interview notes for Supreme Command, Washington, 1954, now with USAMHI

PDDE The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Vol. III, The War Years, edited by Alfred D. Chandler, Baltimore, MD, 1970

PP Portal Papers, Christ Church Library, Oxford

ROHA Rutgers Oral History Archive

SHD-DAT Service Historique de la Defense, Departement de l’Armee de Terre, Vincennes

SODP Senior Officers’ Debriefing Program, US Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

SWWEC Second World War Experience Centre archive, Horsforth, Leeds

TNA The National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office), Kew

USAMHI United States Army Military History Institute, US Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

WLHUM Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, London

WWII VS World War II Veterans’ Survey, USAMHI

In addition the private diaries of the following people have been used:

Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Christopherson, Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry

Lieutenant William Helm, 210 Field Ambulance, 177th Brigade, 59th Infantry Division

Captain Myles Hildyard, intelligence officer with 7th Armoured Division

Lieutenant T. T. Ritson, RHA

1. THE DECISION

p. 2 ‘For heaven’s sake, Stagg’, J. M. Stagg, Forecast for Overlord, London, 1971, p. 69

‘pre-D-Day jitters’, Harry C. Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower, London, 1946, p. 479

p. 3 Plan Fortitude, TNA WO 219/5187

p. 4 ‘Garbo’, TNA KV 2/39-2/42 and 2/63-2/71

Ironside, TNA KV 2/2098

‘Bronx’, TNA KV 2/2098

destruction of airfields, Luftgau West France, TNA HW 1/2927

Bletchley watch system, TNA HW 8/86 p. 5 ‘Latest evidence suggests…’, TNA HW 40/6

‘my circus wagon’, Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower , New York, 2002, p. 518

‘to establish a belt…’, TNA WO 205/ 12

‘There is no doubt…’, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries 1939-1945, London, 2001, p. 575

p. 6 ‘Nice chap, no soldier’, Cornelius Ryan interview, Ohio University Library Department of Archives and Special Collections

‘national spectacles pervert…’, Alanbrooke, p. 575

‘My hat is worth…’, Duff Hart-Davis (ed.), King’s Counsellor, London, 2006, p. 196 -7

‘Monty is perhaps…’, LHCMA Liddell Hart 11/1944/11

‘The bloody Durhams…’, Harry Moses, The Faithful Sixth, Durham, 1995, p. 270. I am most grateful to Miles d’Arcy-Irvine, Major Philip Windsor-Aubrey, Major C. Lawton, Harry Moses and Richard Atkinson for their help on this incident

p. 7 ‘unsatisfactory’, NA II 407/427/24132

‘hayseed expression… pragmatic…’, Martin Blumenson, The Battle of the Generals, New York, 1993, p. 35

p. 8 ‘made everyone angry’, Major General Kenner, chief medical officer, SHAEF, OCMH-FPP

‘The landings in…’, quoted in Butcher, p. 525

Omaha reconnaissance, Major General L. Scott-Bowden, SWWEC T2236

p. 9 ‘When we left…’, Robert A. Wilkins, 149th Combat Engineers, NWWIIM-EC

‘As we passed through…’, Arthur Reddish, A Tank Soldier’s Story, privately published, undated, p. 21

p. 10 ‘I’ve been fattened up…’, quoted in Stuart Hills, By Tank into Normandy, London, 2002, p. 64

‘All are tense…’, LofC

‘The women who have come…’, Mollie Panter-Downes, London War Notes, London, 1971, p. 324

‘One night…,’ Ernest A. Hilberg, 18th Infantry, 1st Division, NWWIIM-EC

p. 11 ‘Had it not been fraught…’, Stagg, p. 86

‘If I answered that…’, ibid., p. 88

p. 12 ‘Good luck, Stagg…’, ibid., p. 91

‘Gentlemen… The fears…’, ibid., pp. 97-8

‘Eisenhower’s forces are landing…’, Butcher, p. 481

‘the sky was almost clear…’, Stagg, p. 99

2. BEARING THE CROSS OF LORRAINE

p. 14 ‘an empty feeling…’, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries 1939-1945, London, 2001, pp. 553-4 (5 June)

‘The British had a much…’, Colonel C. H. Bonesteel III, G-3 Plans, 12th Army Group, OCMH-FPP

p. 15 ‘display some form of “reverse Dunkirk”…’, TNA HW 1/12309