The U.S. forces that fought in Normandy during the summer of 1944 met a battle-hardened German enemy and a forbidding landscape of earthen hedgerows, sunken roads, and thick bushes and trees. American GIs lacked the combat experience of their opponents but made up for it with their ability to innovate, adapt, improvise, and experiment on the battlefield, finding ingenious ways to blow through hedgerows and slam the Germans with massive firepower. Their innovations helped with World War II and transformed the American way of war.

Prologue: a genius for war -- Wrong war, right war -- Day of the Doughboys -- The innovation revolution -- D-Day disasters -- Trial and error -- The air-ground miracle -- An imagining of armor -- The king of battle -- Warriors -- Epilogue: fantastic voyage.