Sword

Sword narrows Max Hastings’s D-Day history to the British troops who landed on and around Sword Beach on 6 June 1944. It follows 3rd Infantry Division, commandos and the nearby airborne forces from months of preparation in Britain into the confusion of the assault, the fighting around coastal strongpoints and the advance inland.

Rather than repeating the broad campaign structure of Overlord, Hastings concentrates on individual soldiers and small units while revisiting the failure to capture Caen on the first day. Lord Lovat and other commanders appear beside men whose ambitions were simply to survive and return home. The book is nonfiction military history.