MBI, 1998, $19.95, ISBN 0-7603-0498-X, 160 pgs, trade paperback

You can't find many books about Operation Cobra. Bits and pieces in other books, but Cobra books are rare. So, I was quite pleased to find this one, although I should point out that this book starts with the landings, shifts to Cobra, and then finishes with the Lorraine campaign and advance to the Rhine. Cobra takes from page 37-114, so it's the bulk of the book.

This is a very well illustrated book with the bulk of the 198 black and white photos attributed to the Patton museum, Real War Photos, and the National Archives. Fortunately, these are mostly not ones I've seen before, and the captions are quite extensive.

This text is brief, staying at divisional level descriptions, though occasionally delving into battalion areas. Green does a good job describing the effects of the one-hour saturation bombing prior to H-Hour.

Two nits to pick: Layout and Maps. With so many photos and extensive captions, the text "jumps" too much, which interrupts the flow of the narrative. You'll read a half page, then the next will show a paragraph and the next offers up two paragraphs and so on. Meanwhile, captions hold extensive information that really should be blended into the text.

As for the 10 maps included, they are, to be polite, inadequate. My knowledge of French geography is sparse, so a good map of the area would really help--especially if it includes some terrain. There's one map that's passable and holds the major cities of the area, but too often I'll read about this strongpoint of German resistance, or that important objective, and be baffled about where it is. Admittedly, these are US Army maps, but surely there are better maps available of the Normandy-Brittany area.

Although it seems the WWII Western Front consisted of D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, and "something in between," that "something" included Cobra. And Cobra included a sweeping US Blitzkrieg, sharp German counterattacks at Avranches and Mortain (Falais), and numerous river crossings and city attacks. This book offers a good operational summary of Cobra with enough photos of terrain, people, and vehicles to create a vivid portrait of the attack.