The war diary of General Courtney Hicks Hodges begins on June 2, 1944, as Hodges and the U.S. First Army prepare for Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of France. Hodges' aides, Major William C. Sylvan and Captain Francis G. Smith Jr., recorded daily entries, which Hodges reviewed and approved. The diary chronicles Hodges's ascent to Commanding General in August 1944, as well as his viewpoints on strategy and the enemy, and follows Hodges and the First Army through savage European combat until the German surrender in May 1945. Edited and extensively annotated by John T. Greenwood, Normandy to Victory makes a classic military document widely available to the general public for the first time.