Customer Reviews

Arnhem: Operation "Market Garden", September 1944

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Lloyd Clark's "Arnhem: Operation Market Garden, September 1944" represents a solid addition to the relatively short list of books centered on the infamous nine day-long combined Allied airborne and ground forces operation in The Netherlands. Clark does an admirable job presenting the events leading up to Montgomery's planning of Operation Comet, which in turn lead to the more ambitious Operation Market-Garden, as well as execution and conclusion (unhappy as it was) of the operation, within a 200 pg book. Not much new here but an honest job well done. Any lack of new material or revelation is made up for (almost completely) by the GREAT photographs (both vintage and recent author shots of battle locations and monuments) and very nice maps presented. In total there ~160 such supplements! Clark also boosts the impact of "Arnhem" with his brief (17 pgs with illustrations) Conclusions and Afterward chapter in which he tries to place Operation Market Garden in a larger perspective of the Second World War. Unfortunately this last chapter could have probably gone farther and had more impact if expanded. In the final analysis, "Arnhem: Operation Market Garden, September 1944" is a solid 3-3.5 star effort worth the money and time for more serious students of WWII or just interested in this particular period of action on the Western front of the ETO.

So many books about this operation are complicated and over long. This is a superb account of a complex battle which is so insightful that it has made me reassess my own views on how and why it was fought. The maps and photographs are superb. I hope that this guy goes on to write many more books - I'm already looki' out for them!