The Longest Day; June 6, 1944

288 pages. Wraps. Illustrations. A Note on Casualties. Bibliography. Index. Text slightly darkened. Cover has some wear and soiling. Cornelius Ryan (5 June 1920 - 23 November 1974) was an Irish journalist and author mainly known for his writings on popular military history, especially his World War II books: The Longest Day: 6 June 1944 D-Day (1959), The Last Battle (1966), and A Bridge Too Far (1974). On a trip to Normandy in 1949 Ryan became interested in telling a more complete story of Operation Overlord than had been produced to date. He began compiling information and conducting over 1000 interviews as he gathered stories from both the Allies and the Germans, as well as the French civilians. In 1956 he began to write down his World War II notes for The Longest Day: 6 June 1944 D-Day, which tells the story of the D-Day Invasion of Normandy, published three years later in 1959. It was an instant success. His next work was The Last Battle (1966), about the Battle of Berlin. The book contains detailed accounts from all perspectives: civilian, American, British, Russian and German. It deals with the fraught military and political situation in the spring of 1945, when the forces of the western allies and the Soviet Union contended for the chance to liberate Berlin and to carve up the remains of Germany. This work was followed by A Bridge Too Far (1974), which tells the story of Operation Market Garden, the ill-fated assault by allied airborne forces on the Netherlands culminating in the Battle of Arnhem. This work was made into a major 1977 film of the same name. The Longest Day is a book by Cornelius Ryan published in 1959, telling the story of D-Day, the first day of the World War II invasion of Normandy. It includes details of Operation Deadstick, the coup de main operation by gliderborne troops to capture both Pegasus Bridge and Horsa Bridge before the main assault on the Normandy beaches. It sold tens of millions of copies in eighteen different languages. The book is not a dry military history, but rather a story about people, and reads at times like a novel. It is based on interviews with a cross-section of participants, including U.S., Canadian, British, French and German officers and civilians. The book begins and ends in the village of La Roche-Guyon. The book refers to the village as being the most occupied village in occupied France and states that for each of the 543 inhabitants of La Roche-Guyon there were more than 3 German soldiers in the village and surrounding area. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel commander-in-chief of Army Group B had his headquarters in the castle of the village which was the seat of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld. Ryan's book is divided into three parts: the first part is titled The Wait, the second part is named The Night and the third part is named The Day. The book includes a section on the casualties of D-Day and also lists the contributors including their service details on the day of the invasion and their occupations at the time the book was first published. Researchers spent almost three years locating survivors of D-Day and over 3000 interviews were undertaken in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France and Germany. 383 accounts of D Day were used in the text of the book. Senior Allied officers who assisted the author included General Maxwell D. Taylor, Lieutenant General James M. Gavin, Lieutenant General Sir Frederick E. Morgan and General Sir Richard Nelson Gale. German officers who assisted with the book included Generaloberst Franz Halder, Hauptmann Hellmuth Lang and General der Infanterie Günther Blumentritt. The author also used Allied and German post action reports, War diaries, histories and official records. The book takes its name from a comment made by Erwin Rommel to his aide Hauptmann Helmuth Lang on 22 April 1944: ".the first 24 hours of the invasion will be decisive.the fate of Germany depends on the outcome.for the Allies, as well as Germany, it will be the longest.…