The time was Fall, 1944. As Hitler’s armies were pushed back along both the Western and Eastern fronts, it appeared that all that might be required to bring the boys back home by Christmas was a major thrust by American and British forces across the Rhine and into the heartland of the Reich. But what would the attack look like, and who would lead it—George S. Patton’s U.S. Thrid Army heading for the Saar, or Bernard Law Montgomery’s British Forces in the Netherlands?
Ultimately, Montgomery won Eisenhower’s approval to conduct Operation Market-Garden, the largest airborne assault in history. His plan was to use airborne forces to capture eleven bridges intact in the Netherlands, ultimately leading to the capture of the critical bridge over the Rhine in Arnhem, while sending armored forces along a single road in an all-out attack to relieve the paratroops. The result was the last Allied defeat of the war, ensuring that the conflict would last unitl 1945.
Cornelius Ryan’s A Bridge Too Far captures all of the rich drama and tragedy of the Arnhem offensive. Like his first blockbuster hit about D-Day, The Longest Day, Ryan tells the story of Arnhem from the many different angles: officers, enlisted men, civilians, British, Germans, Americans, and Dutch. The heroic, but ultimately fruitless, stand of the Britsh 1st Airborne Division takes center stage as it becomes besieged at Arnhem.
A Bridge Too Far is a great read for anyone interested in World War II, or great nonfiction in general.
