The First Wave: The D-Day Warriors Who Led the Way to Victory in World War II

The First Wave follows the men who executed D-Day's most dangerous missions, beginning in the predawn hours of June 6, 1944. The account centers on specific soldiers: the first American paratrooper to land on Normandy soil, a glider pilot who crash-landed near Pegasus Bridge under antiaircraft fire, brothers who led troops onto Juno Beach, a French commando fighting on Sword Beach, Rangers who scaled Pointe du Hoc, and airborne soldiers who captured the Merville Gun Battery despite heavy counterattacks. Kershaw draws on close relationships with D-Day survivors and extensive knowledge of the Normandy battlefield to present an account of close combat and heroism. The narrative examines how these first soldiers to fight, when stakes and odds were highest, shaped the invasion's outcome and twentieth-century history.