H D-Day caused awe even to Stalin. He wrote to Churchill that "such an undertaking has never been undertaken in the history of war". All those who participated, soldiers, sailors or airmen, would never forget it.

Never before had such a large-scale operation been repeated with such thorough planning, yet although the beachheads were secured, it soon became clear that in the next stage the difficulties would exceed all expectations. The natural barriers of Normandy with its dense vegetation provided ideal cover for the defender, and the Germans, especially the Waffen-SS divisions, fought cleverly, fiercely, and desperately. British, Canadian, and American forces engaged in battles, the brutality of which often matched that of the Eastern Front. As losses increased rapidly, so did the tension between the main commanders of the two sides. French civilians suffered terrible hardships. Even at the time of Liberation, their joy was overshadowed by bad experiences. The war in Northern France marked not only a generation of people, but the entire post-war world, deeply affecting the relationship between America and Europe.

"D-DAY" is the most vivid and documented historical account of the battle of Normandy, as it includes unused and new material from more than thirty archives of six countries and offers a new and significant narrative of these events. As in the books "Stalingrad" and "Berlin-The Fall of 1945", through Antony Beevor's captivating narration, the entire era of war is relived.