Bocage: The Battle for Normandy

Nonfiction book

The Project

For Bocage, my job was to craft a substantial military history manuscript into a polished book. The author had translated his original Norwegian text into English, and it required significant editing to achieve the voice of a native speaker. In the course of my work, I conducted extensive research and created documentation to standardize names, military terms, and locations. This was an immense undertaking, with the original manuscript totaling over 100,000 words.

About the Book

On June 6, 1944, Allied forces launched the greatest invasion in history against Nazi-occupied Europe. More than 150,000 troops landed on the coast of France as part of Operation Overlord, and for seven weeks they fought inland across fifteen miles of le bocage — the deadly maze of hedgerows, fields, and woodlands that comprises the Norman countryside. On July 25, they finally broke Germany’s defensive line with a decisive strike at Saint-Lô.

Bocage tells the story of the Normandy campaign from the point of view of the men who experienced it. Arve Robert Pisani spent years researching and collecting first-hand accounts from more than three hundred World War II veterans on both sides of the conflict. Through interviews, telephone conversations, personal correspondence, and primary documents he crafted an intimate narrative of their time in Normandy. Many of these stories, both unique and familiar, have never before been told. The account is enhanced by extensive research of primary sources — including after action reports, combat interviews, small unit studies, and unpublished documents — to add strategic depth and historical analysis. The result is an uncompromising account of the summer of 1944.