Stackpole’s Battle Briefings series offers accessible and insightful summaries of battles, commanders, and other military history topics. This inaugural installment features one of World War II’s most pivotal campaigns: D-Day and the battle for Normandy that followed. It begins with Allied plans for the beachhead assault and Rommel’s construction of German defenses, but the book’s heart is the fighting as seen from both sides, from the Rangers at Pointe du Hoc and the landing at Omaha Beach to hedgerow combat, the air war, and clashes of Shermans and panzers.