This is a definitive, and redefining, book: On the 50th anniversary of the single greatest combined land-sea-air operation of World War II, American GIs, British Tommies, soldiers, sailors, paratroopers, Rangers, and Commandos who breached Fortress Europe tell what really happened as they braved a firestorm of Nazi shot and shell. The June 6, 1944, cross-channel assault mustered 120,000 Allied soldiers, a fleet of 5,000 vessels, and an aerial armada of 1,000 bombers for a precisely orchestrated, devastating blow at the enemy. But the action failed to follow the script, as inadequate intelligence, human error, and nature conspired to nearly wreck in a few hours the elaborate plans that had been kept secret from Hitler for many months. Here, the men who were there tell what they felt before they dropped from the sky or splashed ashore, what went wrong and why, and how they pressed through the fearsome resistance that claimed so many of their comrades. Their more than seventy accounts, brilliantly interwoven and abundantly documented with photographs, present the savagery of combat at its fiercest. In the tradition of John Keegan's The Face of Battle, World War II veteran Gerald Astor has written a book that radically revises our understanding of "The Longest Day" in an unmediated, unforgettable way that is, finally, the most fitting tribute to the valor of those who endured it.