Arnhem

Operation 'Market Garden' remains one of the most spectacular and controversial battles of the Second World War. It was a bold plan, aimed at shortening the course of the war dramatically. Key bridges in Holland seized in advance by a daring airborne coup de main would be the means of surprise thrust into the German industrial heartland. The facts of the subsequent operations are well known. Of ten thousand elite airborne troops parachuted into 'The Cauldron' - as the Germans called the First Airborne Division's battle area; barely two thousand returned to Allied lines with the official closing of the offensive ten days later. Peter Harclerode has pieced together an important new view of what was a considerable failure. Existing accounts direct most of the blame to XXX Corps, and two divisions in particular, for failing to push the ground offensive forward. This work sets out to provide a realistic and objective appraisal of why things went wrong - and who in truth should have borne the responsibility.