Saturday, August 21, 2010

Operation Market Garden

It is difficult to describe in short the whole humongous war machine and the excellent men that came together in the fight for survival of humanity on one side, with glory of one nation out to conquer civilisation on the other. Cornelius Ryan has attempted that in his several excellent books on various parts including A Bridge Too Far about Operation Market Garden to control bridges across Rhine and especially the one at Arnhem.

The entire plan was ambitious and not impossible but only practical with some guaranteed miracles, and much of men were lost in the process. Was it all for the glory of one prima donna, is not clear.

This is what they did, this is how they fought and died so we can live as free men and women, and it is worth a look or more, several looks, reads.
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NIJMEGEN: U.S. 82nd Airborne Division - 1944 (Battleground Europe: Market Garden) ; by Tim Saunders.

This book by Tim Saunders is about the part of that operation that was the attempt to control the bridge across the Rhine at Nijmegen.
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A magnificent disaster : the failure of Market Garden, the Arnhem Operation, September 1944
by David Bennett

This book by David Bennet is about Operation Market Garden, with more research work about various parts of the action - British, Canadian, Polish, U.S., German.
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