June 1944 and the 82nd Airborne!

Donovan, James.  Nothing But Courage: The 82nd Airborne's Daring D-Day Mission and Their 

        Heroic Charge Across the La Fiere Bridge.  New York: Caliber, 2025.  ISBN: 9780593184875 

D-Day 1944 France.  Before the soldiers landed on the Normandy beaches, soldiers of the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions and the British 6th Airborne Division dropped in from the skies.  Nothing But Courage covers the 82nd Airborne's fight during the first few days of the Normandy Campaign.  

James Donovan structured Nothing But Courage in four parts.  Part I: The Plan discusses the  original mission and the last-minute change that likely saved a number of paratrooper's lives. Part I also introduces the paratroopers and locations that were key to victory.  

 

Part II: The Drop looks at how the paratrooper's experience differed depending upon what drop they were in.  Some landed in swampland, some right on top of a target and only one group landed pretty much exactly where they had planned on.  Weather, speed, and pilot skills played a major role in the scattering of the troopers.  Mind you, this scattering really confused the Germans as shown by the slowness of their reaction.

 

Part III: The Battle concentrates on the different conflicts the 82nd Airborne were conducting.  There was the fight for Sainte-Mere-Eglise, the battle for Le Manoir La Fiere, the initial fight for the Cauquigny causeway and bridge, and the attempted rescue of various isolated paratroopers. 

Part IV: The Bridge and Beyond concentrated on the charge by various groups across the Cauquigny causeway that finally pushed the Germans back and allowed the forces from Utah Beach to stream out and cut off the Germans in the Cherbourg.

 

In Nothing But Courage, James Donovan brings the reader down into the action with the judicious use of first person perspective along with narrative that ties everything together.  He also provides limited insight from German first person accounts that provides perspectives.  If the reader is interested in small unit actions, D-Day, or airborne operations, they should pick up Nothing But Courage!