Book Description

 “Do you realize 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  From the world’s greatest collection of his personal papers comes the genesis, execution, and aftermath of D-Day through the eyes of Winston Churchill himself. In Churchill’s D-Day, Allen Packwood, one of the world’s foremost Churchill experts, and Richard Dannatt, former leader of the entire British Army, narrate and analyze Sir Winston Churchill’s emotional turmoil and epic decision-making before, during, and after the world-defining action of D-Day. Culled from the official Churchill Papers at the Churchill Archives Centre, the book features historical documents, photographs, letters, and more, for a documentary, hour-by-hour, Churchillian experience of D-Day leadership, military strategy, and humanity.   As dawn breaks on June 6th, 1944, the landings from the greatest armada of ships ever assembled begins at 0630hrs. Overnight paratroopers from the British 6th Airborne Division secure the eastern flank of the landing zone with the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Division securing the western flank to reduce the risk of German counter attacks.  The Allied battle, codenamed Operation Overlord, has begun to take shape.  When Great Britain awakes to the news of the landings on their radios, the expectation to make a formal statement to the House of Commons lands on the shoulders of their Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. While Churchill is aware of the huge responsibility he bears for the British soldiers and French civilians, and while he knows his political opponents will question his leadership, no one else in the world is aware of the conversations, innermost thoughts, deliberations, and decisions he’s been making and will continue to make on this day. Everything hangs in the balance. Churchill’s D-Day provides exactly that living history, an unprecedented opportunity for readers to experience the Invasion of Normandy as the British Bulldog experienced it himself.