Rating: 
Summary: Division of note
Review: A solid work. Balkoski's marketing of this edition benefits from the overused Ambrose cache. Otherwise, the writing style is workmanlike, instead of inspiring or greatly illuminating. "Beachhead" reads like the late-assembled memoirs of a veteran, many years after the events. The story is worth telling, but the story drags at times.
The maps are appreciated and generally good, a real plus given the details. Too many works of this genre leave geography to the imagination.
Rating: 
Summary: From Maryland and Virginia to Normandy and St.Lo
Review: Activated National Guard Units, the 29 Div., landed on Omaha Beach along with the 1st Div. on D-Day. There they faced 120-foot high cliffs directly beyond the murderous beach. The quickest way off the beach was through the Verville and Les Moulins draws. Those familiar with "The Longest Day" or "Private Ryan" know what happened on that beachhead and on those draws. To read about it is particularly chilling. The 29th was not stopped that day. They clawed their way up those bluffs into Verville-sur-Mer and St. Laurent, on inland to the Aure River and, after 43 days of continuous combat, they took St. Lo. Balkoski provides a vivid account of the fighting beyond the beachhead, in the hedgerow country. I read this book after visiting the beaches at Normandy. I should have read it before that visit. The maps of Omaha Beach are excellent and the action is told in an interesting and fast moving style.
Rating:
Summary: I know Joe; I've read his book; I walked the beach with him.
Review: I am an officer of the Maryland Army National Guard--a 29er--who has had the privilege of knowing Joe Balkoski and of walking the staging areas of Britain and the beaches of Normandy with him. Joe's book tells a story which is detailed, accurate and engaging. For me and for those who serve alongside me today in the Blue and Gray Division, it is a story with particular relevance. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to understand soldiers; for anyone who wants to understand the National Guard; and especially for those members of the 29th Division who want to know where we've been and what we're made of.
Rating:
Summary: TWENTY NINE LET'S GO!
Review: In the past few years several works have emerged about the 29th Infantry division and several memoirs of its veterans have also emerged. (Bedford Boys, No Greater Sacrifice- No Greater Love,Fragments of My Life) For those who don't know two regiments of the 29th, the 115th & 116th landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. (The 116th suffered over one thousand casualties on June 6th). The 29th then fought for St. Lo, one of the bloodiest battles of the ETO. This book should be the starting point for those who want to know the story. The Author who just published a new book titled Omaha Beach, really knows his stuff. This kind of military history fills an important niche for those who want more than Ambrose and Cornelius Ryan but who are not quite up to official Army history ('The Green Books'). My Thanks to the author.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent attention to detail, Highly reccomended
Review: Joseph Balkoski has done an excellent job in compiling an account of the history of the 29th Division in WWII. Focused mostly on the 115th and 116th infantry regiments, he gives an in depth, personal view of the 29ers in Normandy. If you enjoy the writing of Stephen Ambrose, you will be very pleased to read Beyond The Beachhead. Balkoski has a similar writing style, personal accounts, specific details of important events, and even of not so important ones. Overall the book is very easy to read, and enjoyable. I am a 29er myself, (Maryland Army National Guard, 115th Infantry 29th Div.) and this book is a must for all 29ers past and present. 29 LET'S GO!
Rating:
Summary: A good division mishandled by the Army.
Review: Joseph Balkoski does an admirable job of telling the story of the "29ers" of the "Blue & Gray" division. The shock of first combat upon green American troops and how they learned to fight is vividly told by the author. It shows how American troops waded ashore at "Bloody Omaha" then attempted to adapt to the unique Norman environment (the bocage) while fighting an extremely effective and professional German army. The book is well written, has decent maps, and good photos showing the bocage country most of the battles were fought in.It is also the story of the biases of the regular army toward the National Guard: Guard officers passed over for higher rank, refusal to elevate Guardsmen to higher command when company and battalion commanders are killed or wounded, and the attitude of the division's regular army commander. Unfortunately, this attitude lasts even today. One notices a complete absence of expressions of fondness or admiration for Gen. Gerhardt by men of the 29th division while at the same time the reader comes to the obvious conclusion that he was a martinet who simply wanted to be feared by his subordinates. To his credit, Joseph Boskoski reveals Maj. Gen. Charles Gerhardt honestly. One quickly notices that Gen. Gerhardt never talked to his subordinates - he screamed at them, he berated them, he cursed them, and he growled at them. If one reads carefully, one may detect another story that the author does not intentionally bring to light: the intellectual poverty of American military leadership (especially at higher levels) who, all too often, could think of nothing else but repeated, costly frontal assaults even when it became all too clear that the result would be heavy casualties without any appreciable gains. Gerhardt is often qouted angrily screaming "Let's keep pushing", "We're going to get to that objective or else", "Keep pushing them", "The best defense I know of is to attack", and "Expend the whole battalion if necessary, but it's got to get there" even after units take as high as 60% casualties. The story of American arms in Normandy (not just the 29ers) is one of grinding combat units down in attrition warfare where we finally win because the Allies have more cannon fodder to expend than do the Germans. The battle of the Hurtgen Forest later in the war shows that American commanders didn't learn from the carnage in Normandy. My only disappointment in the book is the author's defense of an American replacement system by proclaiming it "...superior to the German model in many ways." It is if one accepts the premise that Allied strategy was the best way to defeat Germany: "This strategy was based on the premise that applying continuous and overwhelming military force against the enemy's major ground forces was the surest and quickest path to victory." It is purely attritional warfare when it is acceptable if the enemy kills more of your young men than you do his because you can mobilize more to lose than he can. I don't consider treating your own country's young men like cannon fodder a very good strategy. After reading this book, one is left with a deep respect for the young Americans in the rifle squads who went forward each day, killing and being killed, knowing their chances of survival were low. That the American army performed as well as it did in WWII is a tribute to the courage and tenacity of the guys at the "sharp end of the stick."
Rating: 
Summary: Clinically written from Journals
Review: Look, I know I'm going to catch some flack for not rating this book higher but let me tell you why I feel I'm justified. This book describes the 29th Division from their long stay in England to the difficult capture of St.Lo about a month after D-Day. It's an excellent history with some of the best detail describing the trip from England to the beach. Also, there is extreme detail of the American theory of attack vs. the German's which is quite interesting. There is quite a difference, particularly in the use of firepower and movement of troops. But where the book fails vs. a Stephon Ambrose type book is the lack of personal attachment to the individuals. Where a Stephan Ambrose book clearly takes most of the information from detailed soldier interviews, this books seemed to take all it's information from military journals of the war. It read so clinically I wondered if soldiers were interviewed to get the human side of the story. Reading the bibliography, it claims there were interviews. I am so intrigued by the sacrifice made by our WWII veterans. I just don't feel this did justice to these men. It might be better read by someone studying the war in college from a tactical standpoint. I'd recommend Band of Brothers or Ghost Soldiers for stories of WWII that better let you feel the emotion of the fight. Not a bad book. Just didn't totally attach the reader to the soldiers who sacrificed so much.
Rating:
Summary: Clinically written from Journals
Review: Look, I know I'm going to catch some flack for not rating this book higher but let me tell you why I feel I'm justified. This book describes the 29th Division from their long stay in England to the difficult capture of St.Lo about a month after D-Day. It's an excellent history with some of the best detail describing the trip from England to the beach. Also, there is extreme detail of the American theory of attack vs. the German's which is quite interesting. There is quite a difference, particularly in the use of firepower and movement of troops. But where the book fails vs. a Stephon Ambrose type book is the lack of personal attachment to the individuals. Where a Stephan Ambrose book clearly takes most of the information from detailed soldier interviews, this books seemed to take all it's information from military journals of the war. It read so clinically I wondered if soldiers were interviewed to get the human side of the story. Reading the bibliography, it claims there were interviews. I am so intrigued by the sacrifice made by our WWII veterans. I just don't feel this did justice to these men. It might be better read by someone studying the war in college from a tactical standpoint. I'd recommend Band of Brothers or Ghost Soldiers for stories of WWII that better let you feel the emotion of the fight. Not a bad book. Just didn't totally attach the reader to the soldiers who sacrificed so much.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific unit history of the Normandy Campaign
Review: Of the scores of WWII histories I have read, this book has got to be in the top 3 (with Burgetts '7 roads' and Macdonalds 'Company Commander'). It traces the history of the 29th Division (including the Stonewallers of Civil War fame) from training, across the bullet infested beaches of Omaha, to the horrors of the Norman Bocage. It gives a day by day account of the drive for St.Lo that shows WWII combat at its worst. For once I have even found a book that has good maps! But there is much more than combat recorded here. Like 'The Deadly Brotherhood', this book takes time to describe some of the elementary parts of warfare such as equipment comparisons with the Germans, communication techniques, and infantry tactics unique to Normandy. And it describes these in an extremely interesting manner. So interesting that, despite being very busy I finished it in under a week. Overall, for a great history of the Normandy campaign and a grisly picture of WWII combat, this book can't be beat!
Rating:
Summary: IN THE TOP 3!
Review: Of the scores of WWII histories I have read, this book has got to be in the top 3 (with Burgetts '7 roads' and Macdonalds 'Company Commander'). It traces the history of the 29th Division (including the Stonewallers of Civil War fame) from training, across the bullet infested beaches of Omaha, to the horrors of the Norman Bocage. It gives a day by day account of the drive for St.Lo that shows WWII combat at its worst. For once I have even found a book that has good maps! But there is much more than combat recorded here. Like 'The Deadly Brotherhood', this book takes time to describe some of the elementary parts of warfare such as equipment comparisons with the Germans, communication techniques, and infantry tactics unique to Normandy. And it describes these in an extremely interesting manner. So interesting that, despite being very busy I finished it in under a week. Overall, for a great history of the Normandy campaign and a grisly picture of WWII combat, this book can't be beat!
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