Arnhem 1944

A detailed history of the World War II battle, featuring experiences from over 500 participants, by the author of The First Day on the Somme.

The Battle of Arnhem was a turning point in the war, a gamble by Montgomery, using three airborne divisions to capture a series of bridges spanning the wide rivers of Holland and unleash the Allied armies into the plains of northern Germany. If the bridges had been captured and held, and the ground forces had been able to relieve the airborne forces, then there would have been a good chance of ending the war before Christmas, 1944.

It all went wrong. Although the bridges taken by the Americans were relieved by ground troops, these troops could not reach Arnhem quickly enough. In the meantime, only a small part of the 1st British Airborne Division had reached the Arnhem Bridge. Most of the remainder of the airborne force was held up on the outskirts of the town by German units that turned out to be far stronger than expected—a major intelligence failure. After nine days of fighting, the survivors of the division were withdrawn across the Rhine, and it was not until many months later that ground forces captured Arnhem.

Using the technique he has perfected over twenty-five years of military study, blending meticulous research based on original documents with the personal experiences of more than 500 participants, Martin Middlebrook describes the Battle of Arnhem from start to finish, from one end of that complicated battlefield to the other. He offers a masterly summary of what went wrong in the last major defeat in battle suffered by the British Army.