Longest Day: The Classic Epic of D Day

The Longest Day, by Cornelius Ryan, is a riveting and multidimensional account of one of the most important days in WWII. Ryan presents the accounts in dramatic form that lack proper academic scrutiny. However, he is able to transcend these obvious flaws with in-depth personal accounts that place the reader on the sands of Normandy during the D-Day Invasions.

Ryan begins the book with offering some background on both the German and Allied forces. He uses a series of personal accounts to explain

The Longest Day, by Cornelius Ryan, is a riveting and multidimensional account of one of the most important days in WWII. Ryan presents the accounts in dramatic form that lack proper academic scrutiny. However, he is able to transcend these obvious flaws with in-depth personal accounts that place the reader on the sands of Normandy during the D-Day Invasions.

Ryan begins the book with offering some background on both the German and Allied forces. He uses a series of personal accounts to explain the tension on both sides before the D-Day invasion. German pre-invasion tension is shown in the account of Lieutenant Colonel Hellmuth Meyer, who was the Fifteenth Army’s intelligence officer. The account illustrates the immense pressure that was building along the Atlantic Wall in France, because the Germans knew that it was just a matter of time before the Allies would strike. Ryan explains how Meyer worked franticly without sleep with some of the most talented men within the German intelligence community; furthermore, these men used some the most sophisticated equipment available at the time for their mammoth task of predicting when and where the Allies would land. The account of Private Dutch Schultz exemplifies the fatalistic tone among many of the Allied soldiers prior to the invasion, which was worsened by the delays due to bad weather. Private Schultz supposedly had won a massive amount of money while on the ship waiting to land on the Normandy beaches; however, he thought it as a bad omen so he decided to lose it all on purpose. Ryan used the story of a chaplain, who voluntarily dropped with the American airborne forces in order to make sure they stayed in good spirits, as an example of the kind of heroism and selfless service that was the norm during the D-Day invasions. Ryan highlighted the brutality and desperation of the invasion when he wrote about the landing crafts that were passing drowning soldiers and offering no assistance, because of the crucial nature of their mission to be at the beaches by a certain time. The book also explained the knowing sacrifice that many Germans made for a cause they already knew was hopeless. The account of the German fighter ace, Wing Commander Josef “Pips” Priller, and his only pilot, Sergeant Heinze Wodarczyk, offers some insight into the level of desperation that many German leaders felt. He and his only pilot were the only two German planes to be scrambled against the massive Allied air and sea armada. Needless to say, they both died.

Ryan was able to create a very realistic picture in the reader’s mind of the trials and hardships that both Allied and German men endured during the D-Day invasion of Normandy. The book is not a very well documented scholarly work, but it offers a plethora of perspectives ranging from an American private to a German field marshal to a French underground member to a British sailor to many more. The genius of the book is in the subtle attention that Ryan pays to the human condition and the toll that war takes on all those who are affected by it. He spends a lot of his effort in the book on the humanizing of both the Germans and the Allies. Ryan conveys that even though the invasion was such a massive undertaking it was still accomplished by otherwise average men. This is why I believe the book is such a valuable work in understanding what happened at D-Day aside from the battles, dates, and people.