SOURCE: A review of D-Day, June 6, 1944, in American Historical Review, Vol. 100, No. 3, June, 1995, pp. 872-73.

In the following review, Wilt offers positive evaluation of D-Day, June 6, 1944, though finds shortcomings in Ambrose's overstated comparison of Eisenhower and Erwin Rommel, his generalizations about the Atlantic Wall debacle, and his predominant focus on the American role in the battle.

Stephen E. Ambrose's book on D-Day [D-Day, June 6, 1944] has scaled the heights: a selection of the Book-of-the-Month and History Book clubs, nine weeks on the best-seller list, the most heralded of the works commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of that fateful day. A well-known historian in his own right, Ambrose acknowledges his many debts in writing the book, from Forrest Pogue, the noted American military historian, who was actually interviewing wounded men offshore on June 6, 1944, to Cornelius Ryan, whose The Longest Day (1959) became a classic in the use of first-hand accounts to depict...