THE SUNDAY TIMES #1 BESTSELLER The great airborne battle for the bridges in 1944 by Britain's Number One bestselling historian and author of the classic Stalingrad 'Our greatest chronicler of the Second World War' - Robert Fox, Evening Standard ______________ On 17 September 1944, General Kurt Student, the founder of Nazi Germany's parachute forces, heard the growing roar of aeroplane engines. He went out on to his balcony above the flat landscape of southern Holland to watch the air armada of Dakotas and gliders carrying the British 1st Airborne and the American 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions. He gazed up in envy at this massive demonstration of paratroop power. Operation Market Garden, the plan to end the war by capturing the bridges leading to the Lower Rhine and beyond, was a bold concept: the Americans thought it unusually bold for Field Marshal Montgomery. But could it ever have worked? The cost of failure was horrendous, above all for the Dutch, who risked everything to help. German reprisals were pitiless and cruel, and lasted until the end of the war. The British fascination with heroic failure has clouded the story of Arnhem in myths. Antony Beevor, using often overlooked sources from Dutch, British, American, Polish and German archives, has reconstructed the terrible reality of the fighting, which General Student himself called 'The Last German Victory'. Yet this book, written in Beevor's inimitable and gripping narrative style, is about much more than a single, dramatic battle. It looks into the very heart of war. ______________ 'In Beevor's hands, Arnhem becomes a study of national character' - Ben Macintyre, The Times 'Superb book, tirelessly researched and beautifully written' - Saul David, Daily Telegraph 'Complete mastery of both the story and the sources' - Keith Lowe, Literary Review

* Exciting overview of the World War II battle made famous by the classic movie and book A Bridge Too Far * Boots-on-the-ground story of British paratroopers fighting off Germans in Holland during Operation Market Garden * Masterly analysis of why the operation failed * Draws from the personal experiences of more than 500 participants * Written by an accomplished military historianMartin Middlebrook has written numerous works of military history, including the classic The First Day on the Somme (978-1-84415-465-4). He lives in England

Explore this gripping day-by-day combat narrative of the infamous battle for a bridgehead over the Rhine.

In September 1944, the Allies launched Operation Market Garden, with the intention to bypass the Siegfried Line and attack the Ruhr. Paratroopers were dropped in the Netherlands to secure bridges and towns along the Allied axis of advance. They landed at Arnhem to secure the Nederrijn. The British forces faced unexpected resistance from elements of the 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer Divisions. This is a detailed account of Operation Market Garden and its unexpected consequences in Arnhem.

"This battlefield guide deals almost exclusively with the battle fought by the British and Polish airborne soldiers in the Arnhem, Oosterbeek and Driel areas; but it cannot be too strongly emphasized that to the south around Nijmegen, Grave and Eindhoven the two American airborne divisions fought equally hard and also suffered heavy casualties, together with the men of the British 2nd Army, who battled their war up the long and often treacherous axis of advance towards Arnhem"--P. 10.

“Reveals much of what history has tended to gloss over . . . should be a must read for all who have an interest in this operation” (Airborne Quarterly). After Normandy, the most spectacular Allied offensive of World War II was Operation Market Garden, which planned to join three divisions of paratroopers dropped behind German lines with massive armored columns breaking through the front. The object was to seize a crossing over the Rhine to outflank the heartland of the Third Reich and force a quick end to the war. The operation utterly failed, of course, as the 1st British Airborne was practically wiped out, the American 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions became tied down in vicious combat for months, and the vaunted armored columns were foiled at every turn by improvisational German defenses. Some have called the battle “Hitler’s last victory.” In this work, many years in the making, David Bennett puts forward a balanced and comprehensive account of the British, American, Polish, Canadian, and German actions, as well as the strategic background of the operation, in a way not yet done. He shows, for example, that rather than a bridgehead over the Rhine, Montgomery’s ultimate aim was to flank the Ruhr industrial area from the north. The book also deals as never before with the key role of all three Corps of British Second Army, not just Brian Horrocks’ central XXX Corps. For the first time, we learn the dramatic untold story of how a single company of Canadian engineers achieved the evacuation of 1st Airborne’s survivors back across the Rhine when all other efforts had failed. Also revealed is the scandal of how Polish Gen. Sosabowski was treated by the British military authorities, and how the operation would have failed at the outset but for the brilliant soldiery of the two American airborne divisions. Respectfully nodding to A Bridge Too Far and other excellent works on Market Garden, the author has interviewed survivors, walked the ground, and performed prodigious archival research to increase our understanding of the battle, from the actions of the lowliest soldier to the highest commander, Allied and German.