Friday 6 July 2012

Overlord Coastline by Stephen Chicken

Overlord Coastline:The Major D-Day Locations by Stephen Chicken was originally published in 1993 by Spellmount Publishers Ltd. He was a founder member of the RAF Wargames Association in 1987 and contributed to and edited the Associations newsletter for many years. This slender volume (just 176 pages) is packed with information, photographs, detailed plans and maps drawn from many visits to the D-Day battlefields. 

The book is divided into chapters which cover all of the major D-Day sites including; The St Marcouf Battery; US Airborne Landings and St Mere Eglise; UTAH Beach; Pointe du Hoc; OMAHA beach; Les Longues Battery; The Mulberry Harbours and Arromanches; GOLD Beach; JUNO Beach; Pegasus Bridge; and the Merville Battery. 

In each section the author gives a brief overview of the action that took place there and the forces aligned against each other. There are plenty of good quality diagrams and photo's to support and illustrate not only how the location looked on the 6th June 1944 but also how it looks now. Each chapter concludes with the authors own description of what remains to be seen at each site and a brief guide on how to get there.

Some of this information may now be a little out of date (the book was written 19 years ago so I'm sure plenty has changed) but is informative all the same. Given the nature of the huge fortifications being reviewed its unlikely that mush will have materially changed even if the local amenities, museums and memorials may have altered. With this in mind I'm sure the modern day wargamer or military enthusiast visiting the area would still get an enormous amount out of this informative guide.

2 comments:

  1. Got it myself Lee and have to agree with you, it's a great read.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds wonderful; another title added to the wish list!

    ReplyDelete

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