The Fighting First: The Untold Story of the Big Red One on D-Day (review)

In this well written and researched volume, Flint Whitlock attempts to shed light on the role of the 1st Infantry Division in the Normandy Invasion. He does so from the premise that the Big Red One's role in the invasion has been downplayed in favor of other participating units, such as the 29th Infantry Division, the rangers, and the airborne divisions. His assumptions are valid, although one could argue that historians have suitably covered the contributions of the 1st Division in the Mediterranean and Northwest Europe.

Using a nice mixture of personal narratives and official sources, Whitlock follows the men of the 1st from their preinvasion training to the "sausage" holding areas in the days leading up to the invasion and then on D-day itself. Whitlock is a gifted writer and he does a fine job of drawing the reader into the story. He paints a vivid picture of the desperate, vicious fighting that took place in the 1st Division's sector on D-day. The use of numerous dramatic, well placed photographs only adds to the overall portrait. In describing the bloody American victory, he gives due credit to fine officers like Colonel George Taylor, commander of the 16th Infantry Regiment, and Brigadier General Willard Wyman, assistant division commander, but ultimately he gives appropriate laurels to those most responsible for victory—individual soldiers who battled for survival and, on their own initiative, fought their way off the beach. Whitlock made extensive use of the 1st Division archive at the McCormick Research Center in Chicago, in addition to the personal papers of many Big Red One soldiers at the United States Army Military History Institute. These sources give his D-day chapters a rich blend of narrative description, and the reader comes away with an excellent sense of the realities of combat that day, while never losing sight of the tactical situation. Whitlock has, in my view, provided us with the best combat account of the 1st Division on D-day.

There is only one problem with this book—its uneven scope. While the title indicates that Whitlock focuses exclusively on D-day, the book nonetheless attempts to cover the rest of the 1st Division's history in the post-D-day campaign in Northwest Europe. This is a real mistake because the considerable quality of the book suffers. For instance, the preinvasion and D-day chapters total some 214 pages and nine chapters of deftly researched, well crafted, in-depth text. In contrast, there are only four post-D-day chapters spanning some 134 pages. Considering that Whitlock is trying to cover nearly a year of intense combat with such inappropriate brevity, this is a poor balance. Accordingly the narrative suffers as does the historical quality of these latter chapters. The final four chapters are mostly a regurgitation of the official histories, sprinkled with some Medal of Honor citations, and a few first hand accounts. They do not have the depth or drama of the D-day passages. This is a real shame because it distracts the reader from what is, in general, a fine book. Whitlock might have been better served to limit The Fighting First to D-day alone (as the title erroneously indicates). He could then have devoted a follow up volume to the 1st Division's experiences from June 7 to VE-day.

In spite of this problem of scope, The Fighting First is an excellent book that significantly enhances our understanding of the D-day fighting at Omaha Beach. The book will be of serious interest to professional historians and general readers alike.