‘Do you realise that by the time you wake up in the morning twenty thousand men may have been killed?’ Winston Churchill to Clementine Churchill, 5 June 1944. 2024 marks both the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy , and the 150th anniversary of the birth of Churchill himself. This book brings together General Lord Dannatt, one of Britain’s most respected contemporary military leaders, and former head of the British Army, with Allen Packwood, one of the world’s foremost Churchill experts, the archivist responsible for the holdings at the landmark Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge. Together they take us through the decision-making for the planning and execution of D-Day . Reproducing key documents and letters from the Churchill Papers and other collections, this book plunges us back in time and lets us witness events unfolding. It tells the inside story of the conception, planning and execution of the D-Day landings in a unique but authoritative way. Operation Overlord, the liberation of France, which brought the Second World War to its final stages, began just after dawn on 6 June 1944. At the time, it was the largest amphibious operation ever staged, and the road to victory led directly from the beaches to Berlin. Churchill was instrumental in its planning and execution. This book reveals Churchill’s thinking and places his decisions in the wider historical context, showing he was instrumental in securing the success of D-Day, by making sure it occurred in the right way and at the right time. Original, illuminating and gripping, CHURCHILL’S D-DAY is narrative history at its best.
