This book is about the experiences of different people on D-Day. Don Jakeway and his experience as a paratrooper. A paratrooper is a person who jumps from planes into war zones. Quentin Aanenson as a fighter pilot and Bob Giguere who was one of 125,000 troops who invaded the coast, and moved inland. D-Day was when US troops invaded the beaches in Normandy, France in World War 2. It was supposed to be a surprise attack on the Germans. In one day the Allies would take out German defenses in the Normandy area, securing a base in Europe, so they could get Hitler out of France and take back Europe.
Don Jakeway, Quentin Aanenson and Bob Giguere were all very brave. I could never have done what they did. Don did not even know what a paratrooper was when he sent in his application for the Army. Paratroopers jump out of planes and are the first people to go behind enemy lines. They have to be calm in any situation. Out of every 2,500 men who signed up to be airborne, only 120 became paratroopers. He described them as hitting the ground like sacks of potatoes and that all the muscles in his body would hurt. On D-Day Don landed in a tree and he was in full view of the Germans. He pulled out his pocket knife and cut his way out. He said it felt like he was stuck in that tree for hours.
D-Day was Quentin's first time in combat. He had dreamed of being a fighter pilot his whole life. "It felt like it was all over in minutes" he said. Bob however probably felt much differently about timing when it came to his experience. He was 17 years old when he joined. He walked up the beaches of Normandy through steel rails, mines and barbed wire fences. He had to walk through all that and avoid being hit. The Germans had guns set up along 4 miles, manned by about 800 soldiers. All the guns were aiming at the Americans invading the beaches. Bob said he could feel the bleeding as he walked through the water.
I learned a lot about D-Day from this book. It wasn't hard to understand, like other books I have read about wars. I really liked how it was told by he people who were there. I knew that it was the turning point in the war but I wasn't aware of what exactly happened until now. It was very informative but didn't make me bored.
I determined the importance when I was reading this book, which was not hard to do at all. It was a major turning point in the war. If it didn't happen the world would not be like it is today and winning the war would have been much harder. A lot of people were lost, and a lot of things were gained. I learned that when we came out of the war we became richer than we were, because factories set up to make war supplies, such as planes and guns, started to produce kitchen supplies, TV's and cars. But at the cost of losing 400,000 people out of 13 million who served in the war.
Shelley Tanaka writes non-fiction books for children and teens. She has written books on the Titanic, Alamo, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Gettysburg. She is the author f the "I Was There" series and "The Day That Changed America" series.
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