Defending Fortress Europe: The War Diary of the German 7th Army, 6 June-26 July 1944 - Softcover

Mark J. Reardon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0971765030 ISBN 13: 9780971765030

Publisher: Aberjona, 2012

Synopsis

Defending Fortress Europe provides readers with the first English-language account of what the Germans were saying in their own words during the Normandy campaign.

US Army historian Mark Reardon departs from familiar convention by combining a mixture of modern scholarship with primary source material written over 65 years ago. The primary source material consists of the record of daily activities, covering the period from 6 June to 26 July 1944, compiled by a staff officer from the 7th Army s operations and planning section. This record, known as the Kriestagebuch (Daily War Diary), served not only as a historical reference, but also as an aide-memoire for the commanding general and his staff. Material from Army Group B and OB-West opens each chapter, providing a context for the 7th Army war diary that follows.

Reardon adds introductory chapters to set the scene for the combat to begin on 6 June. In the concluding chapters he describes subsequent action and analyzes Normandy in a broader perspective.

About this title

About the Author

Retired Army Lt. Col. Mark J. Reardon is a senior historian at the US Army Center of Military History. Commissioned as an Armor officer in 1979 upon graduation from Loyola College of Baltimore, he served in the United States, Korea, Germany, Haiti, and Saudi Arabia. He was first assigned to the Center in 2002 as an active duty officer. Soon after retiring from the military in 2006, he rejoined the Center as a civilian historian, and he is now acting chief of the CMH Contemporary Studies Branch. Reardon is the author of Victory at Mortain: Stopping Hitler s Panzer Counteroffensive (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002); coauthor of American Iliad: A History of the 18th Infantry Regiment in World War II (Bedford, Pa.: Aberjona Press, 2004); and From Transformation to Combat: The First Stryker Brigade at War (Washington, D.C.: US Army Center of Military History, 2007). He contributed several chapters to two 2009 Center publications, A History of Innovation: U.S. Army Adaptation in War and Peace and Tip of the Spear: U.S. Army Small-Unit Actions in Iraq, 2004 2007.

Edition details

• Publisher: Aberjona
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0971765030
• ISBN 13: 9780971765030
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352