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A review by ehays84
The Longest Day: June 6th, 1944 by Cornelius Ryan
5.0
I first watched the movie version when I was probably in middle school. I am almost sure I came across it just while flipping channels (remember those days?) and it was on the classic movie channel. I was immediately hooked. I have probably seen the movie all the way through 4 or 5 times, and I have shown it to students for WWII units (it’s easier to do since it’s only rated PG).
I of course knew about D-Day long before watching the movie for the first time. There was even a family legend (which has been verified as not true) that my great uncle was killed on D-Day in a confusing mix up after a glider plane landing. He was killed in WWII (info at http://davidhays.net/dsagehays/dsagehays.html) but not at D-Day.
So I feel rather foolish for not having looked up the book that the movie was based on until fairly recently. It was just as good or even better than the movie. Of course, in a movie, there is a unique quality of actors bringing characters to life, but the book does such a great job of portraying D-Day from every side that you might want to hear it from that it is even better. And of course the fact that the book was completed about 15 years after the original events means that many of those involved were still alive and could be interviewed. Thus, the primary source lens very much shines through in this book. And a really fascinating part of it for me, as someone who studies history, was the author’s discussion of contradictory accounts between soldiers, officers, civilians, official war diaries, etc. I am sure that since this time, other historians have corrected certain elements of this version of the story of D-Day (I read Stephen Ambrose’s version back in college, but can’t remember enough about it to really know the differences), but that does not take away from the power of this book.
I guess I would sum it up that if there were a list of the top 50 books someone would need to read to understand the 20th century, this one would be on it. Don’t miss it.
I of course knew about D-Day long before watching the movie for the first time. There was even a family legend (which has been verified as not true) that my great uncle was killed on D-Day in a confusing mix up after a glider plane landing. He was killed in WWII (info at http://davidhays.net/dsagehays/dsagehays.html) but not at D-Day.
So I feel rather foolish for not having looked up the book that the movie was based on until fairly recently. It was just as good or even better than the movie. Of course, in a movie, there is a unique quality of actors bringing characters to life, but the book does such a great job of portraying D-Day from every side that you might want to hear it from that it is even better. And of course the fact that the book was completed about 15 years after the original events means that many of those involved were still alive and could be interviewed. Thus, the primary source lens very much shines through in this book. And a really fascinating part of it for me, as someone who studies history, was the author’s discussion of contradictory accounts between soldiers, officers, civilians, official war diaries, etc. I am sure that since this time, other historians have corrected certain elements of this version of the story of D-Day (I read Stephen Ambrose’s version back in college, but can’t remember enough about it to really know the differences), but that does not take away from the power of this book.
I guess I would sum it up that if there were a list of the top 50 books someone would need to read to understand the 20th century, this one would be on it. Don’t miss it.