The 5 3/4" x 8 1/2", 142-page hardbound book recounts the story of Operating Goodwood - the massive armored attack launched by General Montgomery to break out of the Normandy beachhead. The author, who received his doctorate in history from Kansas State University, has based his work on discussions with senior commanders and participation in the Goodwood battlefield tour conducted annually by the British Army Staff College. He makes much show of settling a supposed controversy regarding the failure of the British to breakout and Montgomery's conduct of the campaign. While I realize there was some griping and back-biting among the American commanders about Montgomery at the time and throughout the war, I was definitely under the impression that historians had already found in Montgomery's favor, as this author does also. Montgomery's purpose was to tie down most of the best German divisions, especially the panzers, in front of the British so that the Americans could then break out on the Allied right. Operation Goodwood was the climactic attack in this strategy, designed to take the commanding heights of Bourguebus Ridge and from there to threaten the vital Falaise area. Three of Britain's four armored divisions were squeezed through a small bridgehead against the cream of the German forces, including the 1st and 12th SS Panzer Divisions. I found the author's style a bit dry, but he presents an adequate narrative of a battle whose details are little known in this country. Seven maps are provided, plus fourteen pages of black and white photos. A bibliography and four appendices are provided, covering the Allied Chain of Command, Allied Formations, German Order of Battle and Weapon Comparison. If all of the author's research is of the quality reflected by this last appendix, then his entire book is suspect. The author knows so little about WWII weaponry as to believe, evidently, that the 75mm guns in the German Panzer IV and Panther tanks were identical, when in fact the latter had a far superior weapon. I'm afraid this rather small, mediocre book is overpriced at $12.95, unless you are desperate for information on Operation Goodwood. It is available directly from the publisher: Presidio Press, P.O. Box 3515, San Rafael, California 94902.

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