My Dad, Donald Gurdison, a 5th Engineering Special Brigade soldier, landed with the 1st Divison on D-Day in the 5th wave. There are special monmuments for these two units on Omaha Beach just outside the side gate of the American Cemetery fence. This book filled in the gaps of the story after my visit. And I recognized many of the names from the exhibits. If you're heading to Normandie and you can, read this first. It's a wonderful account of some very brave people who saw the atrocities of war and served our country proudly

In the past, the 1st Division's role on D-Day has not been written about in as much detail as their fellow D-Day Omaha Beach invasion comrades the 29th. This book is therefore long overdue, however as another reviewer said the title of the book is misleading, D-Day is indeed the central basis of the book, but it also covers North Africa, Sicily and the campaign after D-Day in NW Europe. For me this book certainly explains the battles of the Big Red One in decent detail, but it lacks the "little bit extra" that some other D-Day books have. Indeed Balkoski's classic Beyond the Beachhead about the 29th is an absolute classic. Of course Flint Whitlock's book was written nearly 15 years later, a period of time that has taken a huge toll on the members of the Greatest Generation - there simply are not that many veterans left to interview!!

So I think Mr Whitlock has done a good job with the material available, sure it falls short of being a major classic, but I've spoken to a number of Big Red One veterans and they like the book - so if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

In the past, the 1st Division's role on D-Day has not been written about in as much detail as their fellow D-Day Omaha Beach invasion comrades the 29th. This book is therefore long overdue, however as another reviewer said the title of the book is misleading, D-Day is indeed the central basis of the book, but it also covers North Africa, Sicily and the campaign after D-Day in NW Europe. For me this book certainly explains the battles of the Big Red One in decent detail, but it lacks the "little bit extra" that some other D-Day books have. Indeed Balkoski's classic Beyond the Beachhead about the 29th is an absolute classic. Of course Flint Whitlock's book was written nearly 15 years later, a period of time that has taken a huge toll on the members of the Greatest Generation - there simply are not that many veterans left to interview!!

So I think Mr Whitlock has done a good job with the material available, sure it falls short of being a major classic, but I've spoken to a number of Big Red One veterans and they like the book - so if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

Wow! This is a fantastic story about one of the most important days in the history of the world. The amphibious assult on the beaches of Normandy, truly inspriational and abolutely worth reading. If you see a WWII Vet, shake their hand and thank them!

The author says THE FIGHTING FIRST is supposed to be the untold story of THe Big Red One on D-Day. That would have been very interesting; too bad that's not the book the author wrote.

Instead, THE FIGHTING FIRST is a very rough history of the 1st Infantry Division during World War II, emphasizing June 6th, 1944. We have to go through North Africa and Sicily first, and the first soldier doesn't even hit Omaha Beach until page 144. Less than a hundred pages later, D-Day is over, and we go on until the end of the war.

Furthermore, much of the time the focus isn't even on The Big Red One -- we get higher level planning, the enemy point of view, British civilians. There are long, long quotes from very familiar secondary sources -- Ryan, Ike, Bradley, Pyle, Butcher -- that only tangentially relate to the 1st ID.

The research was limited. The author did 18 interviews, and looked at monographs on file at the Center for Military History. Then the aforementioned secondary sources. The index, even on a very quick check (TR, Jr., for examples), contains errors.

Then there's the writing. Yes, the fighting on D-Day was confusing, and we tend to become emotional when we consider the sacrifices the young men hitting the beaches that day made. But that doesn't mean you have to write about it in a confusing, overwrought manner. Whitlock does not produce a coherent narrative; for all his verbage, many other authors have written much better about what the Big Red One Did on D-Day.

And after that, it just gets worse. The final third of the book, from June 7th to V-E Day, is little more than a collection of personal remenisces and Medal of Honor citations, with little sense about what the division was actually doing. The "Where Are They Now" Epilogue is very poorly written -- the interviewees deserved better.

Here's the problem when you run across poor writing and limited research -- they raise questions. In one spot, Whitlock gives us the story of a 1st Division soldier who was at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii on December 7th, 1941. It has his telling about shooting a cal. .50 at Japanese planes, and watching the battleships at Pearl Harbor get hit. But you can't see Pearl from Schofield! So we have three options: (1) Whitlock doesn't know enough geography and history to know this isn't right, or (2)Whitlock let inaccuracy stand because it made for a good story, or (3)Whitlock is a poor writer who mixes up the soldier's narrative. All three are unaccpetable, and with a book like THE FIGHTING FIRST, it is impossible to tell which (or maybe all) is the case.

"The Fighting First: The Untold Story of the Big Red One on D-Day" is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in World War II. It is a well-written and readable tribute to the sacrifices made by the Big Red One on that fateful day in June 1944.

This book, however, will not offer any additional insights into D-Day. In the spirit of Cornelius Ryan's "The Longest Day" and Stephen Ambrose's "D-Day: June 6, 1944," this work is based primarily on firsthand accounts of the battle. "The Fighting First" is much more narrowly focused than either of the other two books, telling only the D-Day story of the assault on Omaha Beach. It does not have the breadth of research and interviews that Ryan's or Ambrose's works have, and, although this is certainly a product of the slow dying out of the Greatest Generation, the story seems to revolve around only a handful of soldiers. Anyone who has read "The Longest Day" or "D-Day: June 6, 1944" will not find any new insights or experiences in the pages of this book.

There were a few omissions that would have strengthened this book. The author tells the personal story of the initial assault onto Omaha Beach well, but he fails to give a good operational overview of the attacking companies and battalions. This is one detail that most D-Day books lack, even Adrian Lewis' excellent "Omaha Beach: A Flawed Victory." The author never gives an overall accounting of the total number of casualties suffered on D-Day or during the Normandy campaign, a basic fact that is needed to tell the story. The book also has a few factual inaccuracies and questionable assertions. (For example, he says that the tide was rising one foot every 8 minutes, when the tidal range on Omaha on D-Day was 18 feet. There is also an unexamined claim by a veteran that the Germans were using wooden bullets.) These should have been corrected or explained better by the author.

Additionally, although the book is billed as the "Untold Story of the Big Red One on D-Day," only about 100 pages of the book's 350 pages tell the story of D-Day. Another 80 or so pages describe the Big Red One's training for and SHAEF's planning for Operation Overlord. The rest of the book tells of the Big Red One's fighting in North Africa, its post-D-Day pursuit across France, the terrible fighting around Aachen and in the Hürtgen Forest, the fighting at the northern shoulder of the Bulge, and the finals days of the war in the spring of 1945. It is this short history of the Big Red One, more than the telling of the D-Day story, that sets this book apart: the story of the Big Red One in World War Two, which fought in North Africa, Sicily, France, Belgium, Germany, and even Czechoslovakia, is hard to find. Fortunately, it can be found in this book.

The bottom line, though, is that the book is well written and tells its story very well. It includes plenty of maps (no military history book can have too many maps, although unfortunately most have too few) and photographs of many of the soldiers, including photographs and descriptions of every Medal of Honor winner. I would recommend it to any World War II buff.

THE FIGHTING FIRST is an excellent book. There are many, many details of the 1st's actions in WWII. From the perspective of the soldier on the ground, you gain a true understanding of what they experienced during their campaigns. The D-Day section, in particular, contains many stories from the men on the beaches and in the hedgerows.

A must read for anyone desiring to understand the bravery of those who served to protect our freedom.