This is WWII history, as it happened. All the horror and excitement of eleven months that changed the world.

On D-Day (6 June 1944) a team of BBC reporters, trained and were embedded with British troops, achieved a first in war reporting: they landed side by side with soldiers, in gliders, by parachute, in assault-craft, talking into portable recording machines to 'tell it as it was'. For eleven months reporters such as Richard Dimbleby, Chester Wilmot and Frank Gillard were in the vanguard, filing over 1,500 dispatches covering the desperate exchanges on the D-Day beaches, the battle for Caen, the advance through Normandy, the liberation of Paris and, finally, the German surrender in 1945.

75 years after the invasion of Normandy, the dispatches of War Report collected here are as visceral and urgent as ever, and provide a remarkable account of Allied efforts to liberate Europe and end the war. With a foreword by John Simpson, War Report is a vital piece of modern history, direct from the front line.

On the 70th anniversary of D-Day, an unforgettable chronicle of the final year of World War II as told through the BBC War Report dispatches.

About the Author

Desmond Hawkins (1908-1999) was an author, editor, and radio personality, and a member of original War Report production team at the BBC. A passionate naturalist, he also started the BBC department that became the world-famous Natural History Unit.


John Simpson is the BBC's World Affairs editor. In a career spanning 50 years, he has reported on major world events from all corners of the globe, and was made a CBE in the Gulf War honours list in 1991. He has twice been the Royal Television Society's Journalist of the Year, and has won three BAFTAs and an Emmy for his reporting.

Book Information
ISBN 9781849907774
Author Desmond Hawkins
Format Paperback
Page Count 512
Imprint BBC Books
Publisher Ebury Publishing
Weight(grams) 343g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 126mm * 30mm