Sign-In
Cart
Borne to Win: On Foot from Utah Beach to Bastogne with the Third Army
Paperback
Series: World War II France, Book 4
Armed ForcesFranceWorld War II
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9781918786781
Publisher: D&h Publishing International
Published: May 26 2026
Pages: 162
Weight: 0.45
Height: 0.41 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
In 1947, the French government planted 1,147 stone markers along the route that General George S. Patton's US Third Army took from the Normandy beaches to the relief of Bastogne in the Belgian Ardennes. Each borne carries a carved flame rising from Atlantic waves, forty-eight stars for the forty-eight states of 1944, and the letter A for the army that fought its way across France in the summer and autumn and winter of that year. They stand one every kilometre, from Utah Beach to the Mardasson Memorial, the longest continuous war memorial on the European continent. The route is called the Voie de la Liberté, the Liberty Road.
Nobody has written a walking guide to it. There are books about Patton. There are books about D-Day. There are campaign histories covering every phase of the fighting from the beaches to the Bulge. But there is no book that treats these 1,147 stones as what they plainly are: a walkable route, marked at every kilometre, connecting one end of the liberation of western Europe to the other, waiting for someone to follow it on foot and write down what is there.
David G. Oldham, a British writer living in France and a Guardian of the British Normandy Memorial at Ver-sur-Mer, follows the bornes east from Borne 0 outside the town hall at Sainte-Mère-Église, where the 82nd Airborne dropped on a lit square on the night before D-Day, to Borne 1147 at the Mardasson Memorial above Bastogne, where the 101st Airborne held a freezing crossroads town and answered the German surrender demand with a single word.
Every chapter follows the same pattern. First, what happened on the ground in 1944: the men, the units, the battles, the cost. Then, what is there to see today: the bornes, the memorials, the cemeteries, the museums, the villages that have gone back to being villages. Then, the practical information the modern walker needs: where to sleep, where to eat, how far to walk, which season to come, and what to read before setting out.
Along the way, the book covers ground that most popular histories pass over. The colonel who climbed the bell tower of Chartres Cathedral under fire to confirm the Germans were not using it as an observation post, saved the cathedral from destruction, and was killed the same afternoon. The African American truck drivers of the Red Ball Express who kept the Third Army supplied across the width of France, driving through the night without headlights, in a segregated army that would trust them with a steering wheel but not a rifle. The Polish soldiers of the 1st Armoured Division who held a hilltop above the Falaise Pocket for three days while two German armies tried to climb over them, and whose cemetery between Caen and Falaise is one of the quietest and most moving places on the route. The schoolroom in Reims, still kept as it was, where the German unconditional surrender was signed at 2:41 in the morning on 7 May 1945. The three-month siege of Metz, the hardest and costliest fight of the whole campaign, that the legend of the dash across France prefers not to remember. And the moment at Verdun, two thirds of the way along the route, where the Liberty Road meets its own ancestor: the Voie sacrée, the Sacred Way, the supply road of the 1916 battle, which had been marked with its own kilometre stones, each topped with a soldier's helmet. The two sets of bornes stand together on the same road, the helmet and the flame, and the walker who reaches them will understand why this book was written.
The book is honest about Patton: brilliant in pursuit, indefensible in a hospital tent, and the reader is not asked to choose. It is honest about the road: built backwards, numbered from a disputed zero, marked by stones that are mostly no longer the originals. And it is honest about its own limits: the Normandy section is walked and field-researched by the author; the rest is written from the best sources and will be walked and verified for a second edition.
Also from
Oldham, Helen
Acid House: Le Second Été de l'Amour - L'Histoire de la Culture Rave Britannique 1987-1991: D'Ibiza au Haçienda: Comment la House Music a Changé à Jam
Oldham, David
Oldham, Helen
Collinge, Mitch
Paperback
Also in
World War II
Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World
Wallace, Chris
Hardcover
Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest
Ambrose, Stephen E.
Paperback
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich
Metaxas, Eric
Paperback
Carrier Clash: The Invasion of Guadalcanal and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons August 1942 (Revised)
Eric M Hammel
Paperback
The Allies: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II
Groom, Winston
Paperback
Ghosts of Sicily: The True Story of the Naval Intelligence Agents Who Courted the Mob to Fight Nazis in America and the Battlefields of Italy
Harmon, Mark
Carroll, Leon
Hardcover
The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII
El-Hai, Jack
Paperback
Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II
Graham, Elyse
Paperback
The Last Full Measure: An American Family and How the United States Brought Home the Dead of World War II
Clarke, Kim
Hardcover
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
Larson, Erik
Paperback
The Boys in the Light: An Extraordinary World War II Story of Survival, Faith, and Brotherhood
Willner, Nina
Hardcover
The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto: The True Story of Five Courageous Young Women Who Sparked an Uprising
Hyman, Elizabeth R.
Paperback
The Wanderers: A Story of Exile, Survival, and Unexpected Love in the Shadow of World War II
Gerson, Daniela
Hardcover
The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram: The Man Who Stared Down World War II in the Name of Love
Whitmire, Ethelene
Hardcover
They Shall Not See the Dawn: The Manhunt for the Third Reich's Most Wanted
Lachman, Charles
Hardcover
Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest
Ambrose, Stephen E.
Paperback
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
Browning, Christopher R.
Paperback
The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany
Strauss, Gwen
Paperback
The Visionaries: Bretton Woods, the Marshall Plan, and the Making of the Post-World War II Order
Holland, James
Hardcover
A Librarian's War: The Man Who Fought World War II with Books and Brought the Joy of Reading to Millions
Manning, Molly Guptill
Hardcover
Operation Sparrow: The Incredible True Story of the Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War
Bell, Jason
Hardcover
The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb
Graff, Garrett M.
Hardcover
Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue
Purnell, Sonia
Paperback
The Navigator's Letter: The True Story of Two WWII Airmen, a Doomed Mission, and the Woman Who Bound Them Together
Dondi, Jan Cress
Hardcover
Spitfires: The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II
Aikman, Becky
Paperback
The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II
Freeman, Gregory A.
Paperback
Spitfires: The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II
Aikman, Becky
Hardcover
Defeat Into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942-1945
Slim, Field-Marshal Viscount William
Paperback
The Winter Army: The World War II Odyssey of the 10th Mountain Division, America's Elite Alpine Warriors
Isserman, Maurice
Paperback
The Nuremberg Women: The Untold Story of the Eight Women Who Brought the Nazis to Justice
Livingstone, Natalie
Hardcover
Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History
Dugard, Martin
O'Reilly, Bill
Paperback
Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America
Jacobsen, Annie
Paperback
He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith
Flaherty, Daniel L., S. J.
Ciszek, Walter J., S. J.
Paperback
Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941
Olson, Lynne
Paperback
Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory
MacIntyre, Ben
Paperback
The Distance Between Our Names: The Untold History of America's War on Japanese Immigrants
Richter, Paul
Hardcover
A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II
Makos, Adam
Alexander, Larry
Paperback
Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II
Mundy, Liza
Paperback
The War They Won: The Story of World War II, as told by Those Who Were There
K. Kistler, Lt Hobart
Hardcover
The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town, 1922-1945, Revised Edition
Allen, William Sheridan
Paperback
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
Kiernan, Denise
Paperback
A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II
Makos, Adam
Alexander, Larry
Hardcover
The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis
Letts, Elizabeth
Paperback
The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II
Keene, Anne R.
Paperback
The History of World War II: A Graphic Novel Retelling of the 20th Century's Defining War
de la Croix, Arnaud
Hardcover
Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure
Kladstrup, Donald
Kladstrup, Petie
Paperback
Shot Down: The true story of pilot Howard Snyder and the crew of the B-17 Susan Ruth
Snyder, Steve
Paperback
Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany
Miller, Donald L.
Paperback
Taking Midway: Naval Warfare, Secret Codes, and the Battle That Turned the Tide of World War II
Dugard, Martin
Hardcover
Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest
Ambrose, Stephen E.
Hardcover
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
Larson, Erik
Hardcover
Every Man a Hero: A Memoir of D-Day, the First Wave at Omaha Beach, and a World at War
DeFelice, Jim
Lambert, Ray
Paperback
Countdown Battle of the Bulge: The 40 Days of World War II That Crushed Hitler's Last Hope
Wallace, Chris
Hardcover
Facing the Mountain: An Inspiring Story of Japanese American Patriots in World War II
Brown, Daniel James
Paperback
Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II
Graham, Elyse
Hardcover
The Last Stand of Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour
Hornfischer, Estate Of James D.
Hardcover
Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man
Vincent, Lynn
Vladic, Sara
Paperback
The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück: How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler's All-Female Concentration Camp
Olson, Lynne
Hardcover
The Devil's Castle: Nazi Eugenics, Euthanasia, and How Psychiatry's Troubled History Reverberates Today
Antonetta, Susanne Paola
Hardcover
Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel
Minear, Richard H.
Seuss
Paperback
Reich of the Black Sun: Nazi Secret Weapons & the Cold War Allied Legend
Farrell, Joseph P.
Paperback
Моя Борьба - Майн Кампф: Mein Kampf
Гитлер, Ад&#
Hitler, Adolf
Paperback
The Forbidden Garden: The Botanists of Besieged Leningrad and Their Impossible Choice
Parkin, Simon
Paperback
Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison
MacIntyre, Ben
Paperback
W.E. Fairbairn's Complete Compendium of Lethal, Unarmed, Hand-to-Hand Combat Methods and Fighting
Fairbairn, W. E.
Hardcover
Allies at War: How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World
Bouverie, Tim
Hardcover
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour
Hornfischer, James D.
Paperback
The Bulge and Beyond: The Things Our Fathers Saw-The Untold Stories of the World War II Generation-Volume VI
Rozell, Matthew
Hardcover
The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb (Large Print Edition)
Graff, Garrett M.
Hardcover
Into the Storm: Inspired by the true story of the Half Moon and her only survivor
Palmer, Jamie Kay
Paperback
Japan's Infamous Unit 731: First-Hand Accounts of Japan's Wartime Human Experimentation Program
Gold, Hal
Paperback
Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961
Reynolds, Nicholas
Paperback
Fighting Fifteen: The Navy's Top Ace and the Deadliest Hellcat Squadron of the Pacific War
Moore, Stephen L.
Hardcover
The War Correspondents: The Incredible Stories of the Brave Men and Women Who Covered the Fight Against Hitler's Germany
Lloyd, Keith Warren
Hardcover
Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America
Jacobsen, Annie
Hardcover
The World War 2 Trivia Book: Interesting Stories and Random Facts from the Second World War
Walker, Dwayne
O'Neill, Bill
Paperback
Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich
Webster, David
Paperback
Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a Japanese Jewish Family in an American Concentration Camp
Slater, Tracy
Hardcover
World War II Generation Speaks: The Things Our Fathers Saw Series, Vols. 1-3
Rozell, Matthew
Hardcover