Major & Mrs Holt's Definitive Battlefield Guide

The 100th Anniversary of the most publically aware battle of WW1 - the battle of the Somme, will be on 1 July 2016 and every media form will be covering it from January onwards. The book has taken 20 years to mature from its first edition to this new 'Definitive' edition, the Seventh, each time being updated and expanded. It is a legacy that should be on every bookshelf. The book is based upon over 30 years of traveling and writing about battlefields by two people - Major and Mrs. Holt - who are credited with having started the modern era of battlefield tours - and were awarded the Somme Centenary Medal for their work in 'opening the doors to the battlefields' with their books. This is not merely a guide book, nor a history book, but it is brimming with human interest stories of veterans' experiences, tales of bravery, comradeship, natural terror, literary illusions to poets who experienced the battles (such a Owen & Sassoon, Seeger and Sorley) ...If you buy just one book about the Battle of the Somme, this is the one that you should have, written by those who know the area and the battlefield better even than the French themselves, and who tell its story from both humanistic and military standpoints

Already the best-selling English-language guide to the area, universally known as THE BIBLE, this is the sixth, completely revised, up-to-date, much expanded edition of the DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO THE D-DAY NORMANDY LANDING BEACHES. The third in the Holts' important series of Battlefield Guides (following the Somme and the Ypres Salient) it employs the same, highly acclaimed formula. Once again, the cold facts are interlaced with anecdotes of bravery, humor, sadness and humanity. This new edition now contains: All the landing Beaches: JUNO, SWORD, GOLD, OMAHA, UTAH All the Airborne Operations: British and American Two Approach Routes; Six timed and measured Itineraries 21 in-text Itinerary maps, Battle maps & Diagrams Approximately 400 recommended sites within the D-Day planned area of advance, all with photos, each with Latitude & Longitude references (New for this Edition) Over 400 colored pictures, 352 pages Memorials / Museums / Batteries / Bunkers / Landing fields Allied and German War Cemeteries Historical background to the landings The Plans and what actually happened Information about Allied and German War Graves Associations Veterans and other commemorative associations Normandy tourist information: Where to stay / where to eat Cameos about personalities - VCs / MOHs / Poets / Photographers etc. Packaged with the Battle Map of the Normandy Landing Beaches showing the sea Assault formations for UTAH, OMAHA, GOLD, JUNO and SWORD Beaches and the air Assault Formations round Ste Mere Eglise and Pegasus Bridge; the D-Day Objectives and the Ground Gained on D-Day.