Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle, 17-26 September (Penguin History) [Paperback]

Martin Middlebrook (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0140143424 | ISBN-13: 978-0140143423 | Publication Date: June 1999

It wasn't until many months later that ground forces captured Arnhem in conventional fighting. It had literally been "a bridge too far". This book consists of interviews, research of British and Polish airborne forces involved in Arnhem, German forces and Dutch civilians caught up in the battle. The book attempts to cover the wider scene of the American airborne landings and the attempt by ground forces to reach Arnhem.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The subject of Middlebrook's thirteenth outstanding book is the same battle Cornelius Ryan treated more broadly in his best-seller A Bridge Too Far. Middlebrook's focus is tighter, though--almost entirely on the British airborne troops who landed at the far end of the Allied thrust and became mostly casualties but also on the Dutch who helped and then suffered with them. Within this framework, Middlebrook has done as well as ever, following his usual practice of weaving printed sources and a mass of interviews into a seamless narrative in which both vivid personal experiences and the technicalities of the background are brought out so as to be accessible to just about any level of readership. Middlebrook says this invaluable companion to Ryan's Bridge may be his last book; any serious lover of military history will hope otherwise. Roland Green --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Penguin UK (June 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140143424
• ISBN-13: 978-0140143423
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,834,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to Destroy an Airborne Division, January 31, 2001

By 

R. A Forczyk (MD, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle, 17-26 September (Hardcover)

This book represents another great effort by Martin Middlebrook. At first, one might ask why another book on Operation Market-Garden is necessary. The answer is that Middlebrook focus just on the actions of the units at Arnhem, ignoring the US airborne divisions further south and the advance of 30th Corps. The result is an account that presents far more detail than most accounts of the Arnhem fighting, which tend to focus mainly on Lieutenant Colonel Frost's battalion at Arnhem bridge.

Middlebrook begins his account with an in-depth description of the British 1st Airborne Division that covers every battalion and subordinate unit in detail. Readers will learn what every key unit, including the oft-neglected support units, could contribute to the battle. I was surprised to learn for example, just how many anti-tank guns that the British took to Arnhem: 52 six-pounders (57mm) and 16 seventeen-pounders (76mm). Most accounts of the battle do not mention the seventeen pounders, which gave the British a decent anti-tank weapon against even the heavier German tanks in the vicinity.

Arnhem was a very controversial operation and Middlebrook does not sidestep the controversy, but he does not become mired in it. The planning errors and false assumptions of Field Marshal Montgomery and the General Browning are duly noted. Yet despite the deep flaws in the plan, Middlebrook likes to flirt with the notion of what might have been achieved with a little better luck and speed. The chapter entitled "The Vital Hours" covers the very successful initial airborne landings and then details how sluggish many units were in actually moving toward Arnhem and the bridges. Soldier load is an issue here that most writers ignore but not Middlebrook; one participant noted how the paratroopers were so weighted down with gear that they could only run a few yards and were then exhausted. The one unit that made it to the bridge, Frost's battalion, had far more contact with the enemy than most sources suggest (the film A Bridge Too Far gives the impression that Frost's battalion marched to the bridge without even seeing any Germans) and only made it through due to unorthodox means. Middlebrook notes that the British made the final stretch to the Arnhem bridge when, "Frost led most of the battalion into a garden and then through the back door of a house and out the front door into another street...".

A key question usually asked about Arnhem is why couldn't the British 1st Airborne Division break through to reinforce Frost? Answering this question is probably the greatest value of this book. First the 1st Parachute Brigade, then the 4th Parachute Brigade tried to break through in piece-meal fashion and with minimal support. This section, which covers about 100 pages, offers a great deal of information about how the British destroyed their own division in a series of futile attacks. Both the parachute brigades were destroyed in two days fighting, which fatally undermined the ability of the British to hold onto their vital drop zones for resupply. The story of Frost and the bridge defense is also well-told but I find the story of the two parachute brigades far more compelling. In essence, the British made the fatal mistake of not dropping closer to their objective and then ruined the bulk of their division trying to fight their way through to that objective. Middlebrook uses these chapters to hammer home the reality that airborne units are configured for defense after rapid seizure, not sustained offensive operations and that this was the real crux of the disaster. Had a more or less intact British airborne division with defensible drop zones established itself north of the Lower Rhine, then Montgomery might at least have gained a foothold north of the river.

The battle of the Osterbeek perimeter and the subsequent withdrawal across the Rhine are covered in detail, but not as effectively as the earlier chapters. The sketch maps supporting the text could have been better. Nor is the treatment of the Polish Brigade's performance as in-depth as the earlier chapters, although the Middlebrook admits that the relief of General Sosabowski by the British was a shameful act. There is a full chapter on the resupply flights, which are barely covered in other sources. The aerial resupply effort was a colossal failure: 66 aircraft were lost and 222 men killed in order to deliver less than 200 tons of supplies to the British 1st Airborne Division. This disaster occurred despite mild weather conditions and air superiority. Middlebrook's detailed post-mortem is very interesting. Although 21% of the division was evacuated losses among the infantry were catastrophic. Only 405 members of the two British parachute brigades returned from the 3,461 who dropped into Holland. Additionally, two experienced brigade commanders, eight battalion commanders and 26 company commanders were lost. The division was essentially destroyed and the remnants were soon disbanded or attached to other units.

Middlebrook concludes that there were numerous errors that contributed to this debacle but that the two most important were (a) the flawed air movement plan (which Middlebrook mostly blames on the Americans) and (b) the failure of the US Airborne Division to capture the Nijmegen bridge sooner and thereby facilitate the ground link-up with the British troops at Arnhem. Although there is plenty of blame for the British commanders in this volume I feel that Middlebrook is too quick to point fingers at the Americans. Market-Garden was after all, Montgomery's show. Middlebrook might have been able to use this book as an interesting examination of British operational methods in the mid-20th Century. The British army throughout the Second World War, was at its best in a well-planned set-piece battle and at it's worst in a highly-fluid chaotic battle. The inflexibility of the British commanders is readily evident here and the reader must sympathize with the Polish General Sosabowski who was frustrated by their willingness to continue with a plan no matter how flawed.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Market Garden: the other side, July 11, 2002

By 

J. Van Limpt "Enigma" (Paris, France) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle, 17-26 September (Penguin History) (Paperback)

This is an excellent account of the German reaction on the massive Allied air landings in Holland in September 1944, during operation Market Garden. It especially concentrates on the countermeasures of the battered German army which, barely escaped from the ordeals of the hell of Normandy, immediately launched counterattacks, often with astonishing weak and improvised units, suffering appaling losses. The legend that the elite 1st British Airborne division landed on top of two complete SS Panzer divisions is analysed by Middlebrook and he proves that both divisions hardly had the strength left of a weakened regiment. At the time of the landings some of their last remaining tanks stood ready for transport to Germany! Of course this doesn't change anything on the fact that the British fought extremely well, having the most difficult tasks in the entire operation. I enjoyed this book very much. Objective war books like this are rare. I posses hundreds of books and know what I'm talking about. Professional comments, good maps, interesting photos, some of German news reels, gripping personal accounts. I hope to see more of this author. A very well deserved five stars. This is the way history should be handled.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read to Complete Trilogy of Master Works, February 3, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Wilmington, DE) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle, 17-26 September (Hardcover)

Here's the order of battle: Read "A Bridge Too Far", then "It Never Snows in September", and finally close with "Arnhem 1944". This is the abbreviated approach to better understanding the logistical and human impact of the battle from the Allied and Axis Perspective. Take it a step further: Obtain Cornelius Bauer's "The Battle of Arnhem", Geoffrey Powell's "The Devil's Birthday, and John Frost's "A Drop Too Many". This delves into a series of varying perspectives albeit divisional. Next: The unit Histories of the 43rd Wessex, 50th Inf., and Guards Armour, and James Huston's "Out of the Blue". There appears to be a plethora of well documented works available.