Although earlier amphibious landings on enemy-defended beaches in Europe, Africa and Pacific islands resulted in high casualty rates, costly lessons were not learned and in some cases ignored by the Allies. During the final World War II landings at Normandy, German defenders manning Rommel's "Atlantic Wall" were allowed enough time after the naval shelling had stopped to get to their battle stations and kill 4414 men on the beaches. Bill Grayson applies his experience with tactical air forces and his military intelligence vision to rethink 1944 Operation OVERLORD planning to understand how a great many Allied lives could have been saved.