Soldier, Sailor, Frogman, Spy, Airman, Gangster, Kill or Die: How the Allies Won on D-Day
Written and Narrated By: Giles Milton
Length: 15 hrs and 48 mins
D-Day: The Bad, the Ugly… the Oh Sooo Good!!!
Okay so… M’ dearest Pop was a HUGE Military History Buff, as in: ALL THINGS WWII! So: D-Day? Of COURSE I heard all about it. And then when I was in History class as a Freshman in high/junior high school, that pic of a soldier splashing through the surf, storming a Normandy beach? Oh how Old Hat it was to me. Of COURSE I knew about the bravery, the valor, etc. etc. et Man! wasn’t it glorious cetera.
Uhm, here’s the thing tho. Pop inspired a love of Military History in me as well. And so, I continued to read, study, listen, learn about various aspects of various wars, you know, on m’ own. And I discovered?
Well, lemme first put m’ dad’s enthusiasm in context: He was TEN YEARS OLD! when WWII ended, so he has/had the pie in the sky it’s all heroics kinda thing going. Everything was glory, all were heroes, and it was all valor, but rarely was the… oh… extreeeeeme SACRIFICE extolled upon. Dude! those guys DIED, horrible, horrible, terror-filled, agonizing deaths, and the survivors carried what they saw with them for the rest of their lives. That pic in Freshman History class? Sanitized, and oh sooooo much much much later than the First Wave.
Which brings me to this stunning work and achievement by one of My FAVE Authors: Giles Milton. Too long a title to quote here, cuz I’m lazy like that, but this is one staggering feat. D-Day comes alive, and it puts you the Listener in the muck and mire, struggling through shrapnel, watching your best buddies as they cradle their intestines in their arms before falling down dead, as they feel overwhelmed by fear but then Do It Anyway—Get The Job(s) Done.
Big Sis and I listened to this one together, and I admit it: I KNOW she quite simply is NOT Into History, what with its dates, places, details. But the thing about Milton? He’s all those things yeh yeh yeh, but he’s The People mostly. Where Sis at first found it trying to keep track of who was doing what at what part of the day, she soon found the horrific flow and felt like she was having the sensation of being in the sludge with the individuals. Dare I say it? What people find off-putting about this book is that there are sooo many, toooo many people to keep track of, that maybe it was impossible to actually feel for ANY of the guys cuz there were just SO MANY of the guys, fighting, freezing, killing, dying.
That’s the book’s strength, I posit. You throw that many men into a meat grinder, and the losses are so staggering, the shock of brutal and sudden death is so profound, I’m fairly certain none would’ve gotten through the experience if they’d had the time to witness, sit, contemplate, grieve. They had a job to do, an overriding imperative. And they did it. Even as they sloshed through bloody foamy waters, as they tripped over the heads and torsos of the mowed down, as they hunkered desperately by the sea walls, dazed to still be alive.
Soldier, Sailor… is a chronological account of 24-hours of intense planning, high hopes, crisscrossing messages, secret codes over the airwaves, sabotage, all as they were carried out throughout the course of that full day. So the people you meet early on, hear their riveting stories, their meeting of challenges head-on, the exhilaration of action as opposed to the tense waiting…? Well, prepare for all that, then do understand, as consequences start flowing, it’ll eventually lead to: Oops! That’s it for now, onto the Next Few Hours and all the PEOPLE in the Next Few Hours. Things go along tra lala lala, hit a stupefying point, and wham: CLIFFHANGER! and we don’t pick their story up again until later in the Day.
I’ve gotta tell ya: There’s little of the trademark Giles-Milton-LOL Humor here. This is NOT a funny subject. But through his Damn The Torpedoes And Take No Prisoners shotgun style of narration, through a tongue that sometimes winds up planted in cheek, through the dark oh so dark humor of individuals caught up in tides of euphoria/catastrophe, I DID smile and laugh at times. Dry wit? Check? That Dark Humor that saw so very many men through various horror shows? Check, indeed.
And some characters known now as part of the history of that Day? HiLARious! When a swaggering leader demands a bagpiper to not only go with his men, but to pipe some tunes as bullets whiz and fly as all struggle to stay alive? Who should remain alive but the bagpiper, marching and strutting for all he’s worth, not shot down but spared… cuz the Enemy is pretty sure he’s not a threat but is just simply, plainly, soft in the head.
Or one more? Climbing Impossible To Climb Bluffs, so terrified the bowels have turned to mush, thereby necessitating a mighty evacuation of the bowels. Second man coming over the bluff is astounded, not only to still be alive, but to be looking straight into the bare bum of a mate as he squats. No time to be wasted, just laugh and off to live or die.
This was aaaaalmooooost a DNF for Big Sis, which I woulda been understanding about cuz, like I said: ‘Tain’t her cup o’ tea. But she came back to it, stuck with it, was very glad she did. (HUZZAH!)
There’s a reason I wish to work with Veterans. Soldier, Sailor… is but the tip of one huuuuge iceberg, of individuals who’ve done so much, very little questioning, very much sacrificed. For whatever reasons they had, they went in where not many of us do, during times when precious little is asked of the rest of us.
Giles Milton makes it clear, as only he can: We owe the world to our Veterans.
We really do…
And for WWII Veterans, those who faced off against the Third Reich? We seriously, SERIOUSLY Owe Our Very WORLD to them. It’d be a far different world otherwise…
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