The remarkable photographs collected together for this book show in graphic detail the role armour played in the Allied struggle to exploit the D-Day landings and liberate occupied France - and the skill and tenacity of the German panzer units that confronted them. The struggle gave rise to a sequence of battles that were among the most intense, and critical, of any fought in the Second World War. Anthony Tucker-Jones traces the entire course of the armoured campaign through the photographs - the D-Day landings, the first clashes of the opposing tanks and anti-tank guns, then the Allied operations - Epsom, Charnwood, Goodwood, Cobra - that culminated in the Allied breakthrough and the destruction of the German 5th Panzer Army at Falaise. The images offer a fascinating inside view of the fighting itself - and of the widespread destruction and horrific casualties that went with it.
But they also record the routines of tank warfare, and give a vivid impression of the experience of the tank crews of the day and of the tanks they operated - the German Mk IVs, Panthers, Tigers and self-propelled guns, and the Allied Shermans, Churchills and specialized tanks - Hobart's Funnies - that confronted each other in the French countryside and towns.