D-DAY LANDINGS | Bradt travel guide

TRAVEL GUIDE

Published to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the military mission that changed World War II, D-Day Landings: a Travel Guide to Normandy’s Beaches and Battlegrounds is Bradt’s new guidebook to visiting beaches, memorials, museums, battlefields and other sites associated with D-Day and the Battle of Normandy (Operation Overlord). A simple-to-follow, portable guide for independent travellers, it will help visitors to explore World War II history.

Written by two experienced travel writers with expertise in France and military history, D-Day Landings is designed for visitors who want to see all or part of Normandy. Covering the ground from the D-Day landing beaches (Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah) up to the Falaise Gap and Cherbourg, it encompasses both every major site and a host of smaller, less well-known locations – venturing well beyond the coast to include sites associated with the capture of Cherbourg (D+20) and the closing of the Falaise Gap (D+76), which marked the end of the Overlord campaign.

The book is organised geographically in a lawnmower pattern along the landing beaches and then back again through the inland battlefield locations, encouraging readers to explore the less well-known but critically important Battle of Normandy sites. D-Day Landings also uncovers unexpected features such as a ‘concrete panzer’ pillbox topped by a tank turret around which Utah Beach Museum was constructed.

Quirky snippets and human stories abound; learn how Lord Lovat’s Commando Piper Bill saw himself as a ballerina or how the Utah Beach landings were accidentally more successful than planned.

The guidebook has a comprehensive index of the military units mentioned, so that families of veterans, and those with an interest, can quickly and easily find locations that are relevant to them.

Bradt’s D-Day Landings will be an essential tool for planning trips to Normandy, and a companion on the journey itself, for military history enthusiasts, people with family who fought in Normandy and holidaymakers keen to make the most of Northern France.