Why Did The Battle Of Arnhem Fail
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A Magnificent Disaster
“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.
1942: Britain at the Brink
'Taylor Downing is a wonderful historian and a wonderful history communicator' Dan Snow, History Hit 'Vividly brings to life a terrible year' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'Sheds intriguing light on just how close Churchill was to losing his grip on power' Publishers Weekly In 1942, Britain stood at the brink of defeat. From the collapse in Malaya and the biggest surrender in British history at Singapore to the passing of three large German warships through the Straits of Dover in broad daylight and the longest ever retreat through Burma to the gates of India, a string of military disasters engulfed Britain in rapid succession. People began to claim that Churchill was not up to the job and his leadership was failing badly. Public morale reached a new low. In 1942: Britain at the Brink, Taylor Downing charts the frustration and despair that characterised this year. Most people think that Britain's worst moment of the war was in 1940 when the nation stood up against the threat of German invasion. Here, Downing describes in nail-biting detail what was really Britain's darkest hour.
It Never Snows in September
On the afternoon of 17 September 1944, Lieutenant Joseph Enthammer, a Wehrmacht artillery officer based in Arnhem, gazed up to the clear skies, hardly believing what he saw. White 'snowflakes' appeared to hang in the air. 'That cannot be' he thought. 'It never snows in September! They must be parachutists!' They were. He was witnessing the first wave of the British parachute assault on Arnhem. The war had reached the Reich. The blow moreover had come as a total surprise. The Allies had expected operation Market-Garden to bring the collapse of the Wehrmacht in the West and shorten World War II. But the Germans resolved to fight. This ground-breaking military study uniquely chronicles this period of the war through the eyes of the ordinary German soldier and analyses the reasons for the eventual outcome. A major work of military history, this new paperback edition is certain to stimulate renewed debate about one of the most controversial operations of World War II.