Without question, this has been the greatest challenge of my book. When I set out to write Brothers of the Great Crusade, I knew this day would come. I knew I’d have to face the monumental task of describing D-Day.
How could I possibly bring to life the destructive horrors of that day on a blank page? More than 175,000 Allied troops, 50,000 various vehicles of war, 11,000 airplanes, and 5,000 ships - Operation Overlord was the largest amphibious invasion history had ever seen. More than 9,000 Americans gave their lives to gain a foothold in France, to give their brothers-in-arms a chance to liberate Europe from the Nazi stranglehold. It was now my job to tell their stories.
I knew one of my main characters had been there to see the worst of it. I wanted my readers to feel the emotional roller coaster of that day - the excitement, the fear, the heartbreak, and the determination. I wanted them to know what it was really like to storm those beaches.
As a reader and a writer, I prefer my historical fiction to be heavy on historical facts. Thus, I spent a solid month studying D-Day. I needed to do my due diligence. So after reading four books and watching countless hours of videos retelling eyewitness accounts, I finally felt prepared to tell the story of the invasion at Omaha Beach.
Everything that happens to my characters on that deadly strip of sand really happened to one of our servicemen on D-Day. In doing my research, I realized that the horrors these men lived through were much more terrifying than any fiction I could create. So, in sticking with my decision to make this book not about three brothers - but of our Greatest Generation - I wrote my D-Day chapter in the accounts of those men who lived through it.
I don’t know a better way to honor those who bravely faced that beach of death and somehow managed to overtake our enemy. I don’t know a better way to honor those who gave their lives for a greater good. 75 years later, it’s easy to forget. It’s easy for us to lose sight of the price paid to kick Hitler’s ass, to free the world from Nazi tyranny. But I strongly believe there is a real danger in forgetting the true evils of such hatred, racism, and blinding nationalism these men risked their lives to defeat. No one wants history to repeat itself. But if we aren’t careful, we could easily end up right back there. If we aren’t careful, the next time, we may find ourselves on the wrong side of history.
Thus, I felt a great responsibility to make my readers understand just how terrible war truly is to live through. The best way I could figure to do that was to really let the men who lived it - tell it. After all those weeks of research, all I had to do was weave their accounts together. Easily said, diligently done.
In the end, this great challenge turned out to be my favorite chapter in the entire book.