This novel consists of the (presumably revised somewhat) reissue of three short novels from the 1980's who are linked by some of the characters and present a WW 2 storyline from an American perspective with the Holt family (one son bomber pilot, one son genius physicist recruited for Los Alamos and a daughter working for the Red Cross in NYC whose husband is an infantryman on the western front), an English titled family (a general, three daughters working in various capacities for the British army, his wife who is secretly a radio operator/spy handler for missions behind German lines and two sons in law presenting aspects of the war in Burma and the bombing campaign from the British pov) and a French set of characters (a famous novelist, a cafe owner and his daughter all from the Resistance, one of the radio operators from the previous storyline and the navy/army son and brother of the cafe owner who both choose to continue the fight under De Gaulle).
While the three novels are chronological and all ending in 1945, so the first one spoils some events from the second, the storylines are cleverly designed with new revelations in each of the following books completing what came before.
There are two more storylines that present the war from the Japanese and German point of views that tie with these stories to some extent and are as awesome as them, those being part of Volume 2 which I will also review soon
Each of the storylines is fairly complete and brims with energy, lots and lots of things happening in a fairly short book of its respective storyline (each is about 250 pages or so for a total of some 750 pages in the first volume) and they are really hard to put down.
Great characters, events that tie in the main phases of the war at least from the Western and later German and Japanese perspective - the only glaring omission is a Russian/Soviet one but considering that the books were originally written in the early 80's that is understandable at least to some extent given that was a period when the Cold war seemed to heat up again.
Highly, highly recommended for an epic multi-family, multinational tale of war, suffering, sacrifices but also love, heroism, and fulfillment