Alastair Horne:

The Times 30 May 1994

He has followed the Cornelius Ryan technique of ‘orals’ interspersed with historical text. But it is particularly well done; as a para himself, he describes well the scattering and near failure of many of the airborne drops…

A fluent German speaker who has served with the Bundeswehr, Kershaw’s accounts from the German side are thorough and fair. Equally vivid are the descriptions of just what it would have been like to jump from a plane, or land on those murderous beaches on D-Day.

‘Kershaw indicates just how immense were the risks run by the Allied armada, the largest that ever put to sea’.