I have seen better presentations of the D-Day story
582457
I have seen better presentations of the D-Day story. This one drags and the narrator is boring. The main problem is that it has all been said and seen before.
313107
The U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division, aka "The Big Red One", fought in some of the toughest European battles of World War II.  This book claims to be about the 1st during the D-Day invasion at Normandy, but that only takes up about half the book.  The first third of the book recounts some of the 1st's action in North Africa and Sicily and the narrative bounces back and forth between the 1st and the big picture of the pending invasion of France.  Personally, I think this part of the book could have been written better and in a more linear and fluid way.

However, once we actually get to D-Day the book takes off.  Using a plethora of personal recollections from members of the 1st and from other units, the assault on Omaha Beach is retold in graphic detail.  It's not hard to see why this was such a chaotic fight and how precarious the Allied foothold on Omaha was.  Hands down, the D-Day recollections are the best part of the book--truly outstanding oral history.

After the first few days of the Normandy invasion, the book starts to get into a more generalized account of the 1st Division's combat in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Czechoslovakia.  There are still several personal accounts, but nothing like the part on D-Day.

At the time this book was written, there might not have been many accounts from 1st Division soldiers about D-Day, so claiming this is the "untold story of the Big Red One on D-Day" probably has a ring of truth to it.  If the author had just chosen to focus on D-Day, I think this would have been a better book, but instead he spends quite a bit of time on background and planning, and then another fair chunk on a less-detailed narrative of post-D-Day action.  Even with this criticism, I still think this is an excellent book on D-Day and a fine tribute to the men of the Fighting First.
2911949
Driving directions were inadequate, overall planning was downplayed so it was hard to follow the action once the driver figured out where he/she was supposed to be at a particular time on the tape.  The personal stories of the combatants was nice, but of little help in locating the particular location and how each location fit into the overall battle developments.
4926738
My low rating of Brinkley's The Boys of Pointe du Hoc is not because it is poorly written. Brinkley style is easy to read and seems to be well researched. However, I was looking for and expecting good coverage of the Battle for Pointe du Hoc with a side of how this was translated many years later. But Brinkley's book is really about a speech and Reagan with the actual events of Pointe du Hoc as an afterthought. That's not completely fair. Brinkley does write about 80 pages of his book on the Rangers and the Battle for Pointe du Hoc near the beginning of the book. But, for me, this is way too limited.

So what is the book about? To summarize, it is about President Reagan's series of speeches commemorating the 40th anniversary of D-Day. Brinkley discusses Reagan's personal interest in WWII and his empathy for WWII veterans. Brinkley points out the importance of the timing in regard to the Cold War with Russia and the president's re-election campaign. He also highlights that the speeches in Normandy reawaken American patriotism and interest in WWII. Maybe it did (I'm was too young), but I remain skeptical. Brinkley gives the backstory of the speech creation and staging by the Reagan staff and the speechwriter Peggy Noonan. Brinkley also provides the backstory for the second speech that day at Omaha Beach and Lisa Zanatta Henn's story.

I'm sure The Boys of Pointe du Hoc will appeal to some readers especially if you are a fan of Reagan. However, while I did learn a few things about Reagan, I really wasn't interested. If you are a WWII enthusiast, you should probably stay away.
2789924
Standard WWII plot that is predictable.  I suspect this was an attempted take off on Fury which I haven't seen.  First thing I noted is that the Battle of the Bulge was fought in the Ardennes in December in bitter cold weather.  This movie showed it to be a much more pleasurable climate.  If you're looking for realistic WWII battle story I suspect this won't fit the bill - too much arguing with the commander which I don't believe would be tolerated in actual combat (at least I hope not?).  Special effects were different but interesting.  The entire presentation gave the impression of a documentary/recreation that was fairly well done, for a documentary.

After all is said and done I enjoyed the movie enough to watch it all the way through but I was not overly impressed.
4917501
Story was decent.  Sometimes got tied up in superfluous (and inaccurate) details about the horses or the vehicles.  Pictures where distracting.
4228952
May be more useful to the golf and resort visitor.  I go to Ireland a lot and I was looking for more in depth history and less bias.  An example would be the paragraph on Armagh's cathedrals.  I returned it.
1255456
Its more a history of Panzer tanks
Not specifically on Ww2 as I was expecting
Blah blah blah blah blah
4782775
I've read many accounts of the campaign and this one is rather disjointed to read. The facts are there, but the flow of the story is jerky and difficult to follow. Too much jumping around from unit to unit. Although it claims the story is told from the PFC point of view, it gets lost and rambles into strategy and tactics of senior officers. Read "Breakout" or "The Last Stand of Fox Company" if you want a better feel for the horrors of frigid weather and dying men.
1265990
Best representation of actual event as told to me by my uncle who was there from D-day until VE Day.
736388
This is the story on how France in 1994 was able to avoid their "9-11" tragedy. Unfortunately the lessons learned from this incident didn't prevent our 9-11 as some critics have claimed it should have done.  This story is told from 3 points of view. One is from the action on the plane itself in the runway in Algeria. The second is told from the story of Thierry (Vincent Elbaz) the French GIG (SWAT team) leader. The third and most important is the story of Carole (Mlanie Bernier) an assistant in the foreign minister's office. She was the one who realized this was really a suicide mission and there was no negotiating with the GIA terrorist group. She oversteps her authority and steps on a few toes in order to prevent a take off. I believe her role was a bit of a dramatization, but it made the film watchable as we end up with a woman, who is given no credit, saving Paris from burning.

The story was good paced drama-thriller. The voice overs were no better than 1960 Italian film voice overs and has been an on going problem for every French film I have seen in the past few year. I know there are people who can do better voice overs.

Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity.
2908970
This book is fair and has some good info on the background of some of the battles and monuments, also the directions to places would come in handy.  However, there were several typos such as on one page "airborne" was "airborn" and some words which should have been plural were singular.  One confusing point - the book was published in 2014 and the title reflects the 70th anniversary of D-Day, yet on page 5 it begins "In the 50 years since the end of WWII..."  Fifty years?  I realize pictures cost money and color ones likely cost more than black and white ones, but in a book of this type color would have sure been better.  I was surprised at the lack of photos of some of the monuments; no photo for the monument to Major Dick Winters of "Band of Brothers."  Finally, they did two reviews of two D-Day movies which I didn't completely agree with, but there were several others that could have been mentioned too.  Overall, a fair book, but if you are going to Normandy, don't depend on this one alone, get others and use this as a supplement to them.
2409708
First, I want to comment on a few of the recent documentaries which were screened on pay TV, as part of the 70th annivesary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Most of these documentaires were woeful. They gave a poor impression of what actually happened, and the re-creation footage was washed-out and aenemic. They criticized Hollywood in general for their innacuracies, without being specific about the particular movies. Obviously they thought they could get away with it, given the generally woeful historicity of Hollywood. But if they were casting aspersion on TORA TORA TORA, they picked the wrong movie.

Another really irritating thing about these specials was the way in which they tried to create the impression that it was their recent research (the documentaries') that unearthed the facts  concerning the Japanese declaration of war arriving too late. Give me a break - these particular facts have been known for DECADES!

Anyway, to the movie. Of course, the directors were lucky - the real story of the Pearl Harbour attack itself had all the elements of a good drama plot - the crafty, stealthy enemy, the superpower caught napping, the late transmission of the war declaration, etc. But they built the tension and drama up extremely well, with the continual switching between Hawaii and the diplomat's offices in the States.

The Japanese - both the diplomats and the attack personel (pilots, naval officers, etc) - were believable and human; they were not portrayed as the evil machine-like enemy, but as sympathetic people (the Japanese war attrocities notwithstanding)

The attack scenes were extremely well-done; realistic, yet not overdone (as they tend to be today)

The pay-TV channels would have been better off replaying TORA TORA TORA, instead of putting on their absurd rubbish.
3983068
It may be because of my involvement in this war as a Tactical Air Controller attached out to some of the infantry companies that are written about in this book, that I find it lacking in description of how the climate and terrain was as much damaging to us if not more so than the human enemy..  It reads very much like the Monthly Command Chronology reports for the individual companies.....
4441069
I was expecting a more technical narrative vs. a people story. I work on one of the flying B-17s and had hoped for maintenance insights. It was interesting to read though.
1029067
I think I have read better stories covering the period leading up to WW2 and the war. I thought the first book in the trilogy was bettr, and I am looking forward to the final book
2737803
Maybe I watched it many years too late...there are better stories on this subject.