Books: Hedge by Hedge

OMAHA BEACHHEAD (175 pp.)—Historical Division—War Department ($ 1.50).

By the time assault troops of the U.S. V Corps had struggled up the bluffs of Normandy and spilled out into the hedge-rowed fields beyond, advance elements of the Army's Information and Historical Service were already ashore. Their findings, just published, are the seventh in the Army's projected 25-volume series, American Forces in Action.

Like the others, Omaha Beachhead is the bleak, official diary of a single, limited period of battle, written for the men who fought there, compiled from U.S. and enemy action reports and interviews. In language as unemotional as a tank tread,...