D-Day in History and Memory

Over the past seventy years, the Allied invasion of Northwestern France in June 1944, known as D-Day, has come to stand as something more than a major battle. The assault itself formed a vital component of Allied victory in the Second World War. D-Day developed into a sign and symbol; as a word it carries with it a series of ideas and associations that have come to symbolize different things to different people and nations. As such, the commemorative activities linked to the battle offer a window for viewing the various belligerents in their postwar years. This book examines the commonalities and differences in national collective memories of D-Day. Chapters cover the main forces on the day of battle, including the United States, Great Britain, Canada, France, and Germany. In addition, a chapter on Russian memory of the invasion explores other views of the battle. The overall thrust of the book shows that memories of the past vary over time, link to present-day needs, and also still have a clear national and cultural specificity. These memories arise in a multitude of locations such as film, books, monuments, anniversary celebrations, and news media representations.

"This collection takes readers into how an 'event' becomes many events: central to the canonical American narrative about 'The Great Crusade, ' engaged with mixed feelings by the French, and almost completely written out of the Russian narrative of the war, for example. The research is first rate; chapters are articulate, revelatory, and the whole is most impressive."--Edward T. Linenthal, author of Sacred Ground: Americans and Their Battlefields and co-editor of History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past "This is a superb volume. Collectively this work underscores the divergent national interpretations given to D-Day and the shifting memories of this conflict over time. The impressive introduction and conclusion tie these essays together, all of which are well-crafted--analytical while still accessible to a general reader and undergraduate student."--G. Kurt Piehler, author of Remembering War the American Way and co-editor of Major Problems in American Military History "This collection of essays brings together entirely new, and vitally important, perspectives on D-Day. The Normandy landings are a much mythologized event which this collection analyzes and deconstructs excellently. Multiple national viewpoints are brought together showing the complexity of the popular memory of D-Day. The editors and contributors are to be congratulated for providing a collection which both deconstructs and challenges fundamentally the dominant Anglophone narrative of D-Day."--Mark Connelly, University of Kent, author of We Can Take It! Britain and the Memory of the Second World War, "D-Day in History and Memory brilliantly describes the competing and overlapping narratives that have developed within and among nations directly and tangentially involved in the events of June 6, 1944. . . . Meeting at the transatlantic intersection of comparative and military history and memory studies, this superb book offers incisive analyses of commemoration and memorialization carefully foregrounded by theoretical clarification. The authors evaluate private and public commemorations in monuments, films, books, and anniversary celebrations to describe and juxtapose common themes of sacrifice, redemption, and liberation with resentment and localized, individualized grief. . . . No discussion of World War II's contemporary relevance (and frequent deployment) will be complete without reference to this magnificently crafted compilation."--Journal of American History, "Military and political historians have produced a rich literature on the Normandy Invasion, carefully studying and explicating almost all its aspects, from grand strategy to the personal stories of individual soldiers. In a series of highly perceptive and well reasoned essays, D-Day in History and Memory nonetheless opens new avenues of historical inquiry into national interpretations of the Normandy campaign. It also constitutes a most useful model for future studies of the memory and commemoration of other World War II battles and campaigns."--Michigan War Studies Review

Michael Dolski is a historian with the US Joint Prisoner of War—Missing in Action Accounting Command’s Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii. Sam Edwards is a lecturer in American History at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. John Buckley is a professor of military history at the University of Wolverhampton, UK.