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5.0 out of 5 stars
"A Bridge Too Far" Indeed, October 5, 2005
This review is from: The Devil's Birthday: The Bridges to Arnhem 1944 (Hardcover)
I originally obtained a copy of Geoffrey Powell's "Devil's Birthday" on a visit to London 20 years ago. Unlike most works on the Arnhem battle, Powell, who was a company commander in the British "Red Beret" paratroopers who fought there, gives the reader the full scope of the campaign - not just the battle for Arnhem bridge.
He chronciles the bitter strife between the Allied commanders involved - not only Montgomery versus Eisenhower but within First Allied Airborne Army, between the American Air Force General, Lewis Brereton, an "odd choice" to command this Airborne Army, capable but with the shadow of the destruction of his command in the Phillipines at the beginning of the war hanging over him, and with his deputy, the brilliant but irascible British General Frederick "Boy" Browning, who as a genius in Airborne warfare had never actually fought in an Airborne engagement! Pressured by the quick Allied advance into France and the Low Countries after D-Day, Brereton and Browning kept planning airborne operations that were stopped at the last minute by Allied successes on the ground, Brereton and Browning clashed bitterly, and at one point the high-strung Browning (husband of "Rebecca" novelist Daphne DuMaurier)submitted his resignation - but chose to stay on.
Then Montgomery came up with his plan to secure the Rhine Bridges in Holland and open the gates into Germany's Ruhr - Operation Market-Garden. Browning became an enthusiastic proponent of this, in no small part for finally unleashing his trained and beloved 1st British Airborne Division into battle. (its sister division, 6th Airborne, had already seen combat on D-Day as chronicled in Stephen Ambrose's "Pegasus Bridge") The normally cautious Browning failed to heed or take seriously all warnings including one from his chief intelligence officer, Major Brian Urquhart (later Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations) that the Germans, far from beaten, had brought tanks into the Arnhem area, Thus, as thousands of brave, enthusiastic British and American paratroopers prepared for battle, a tragedy was already in the works.
Powell surprisingly is not as critical of Browning as are other British participants, including the Arnhem field commander, the late John Frost are. Colonel Frost (later a Major General in the British Army) was wounded and captured along with the majority of his command trapped alongside the Arnhem bridge by German tanks and infantry. His only criticisms of Browning is for taking his battalion-sized headquarters into Holland at the Groesebeek Heights outside the town of Nijmegen, where the American 82nd Airborne had landed and were more successful than the British were, however suffering extremely heavy casualties. Powell felt that Browning, desirious to see combat, should have stayed in Britain and directed the battle from there, including further drops by Polish paratroopers and the subsequent relief effort. Being "on the ground" in the midst of it all could not and did not give Browning an overall sense of the fight. Otherwise Powell's criticisms of Browning are mild compared to other Airborne personnel - including Frost who bitterly writes how Browning told airborne commanders - Arnhem Bridge - take that, and then went on to say to the Americans - and seize Groesebeek Heights.
General John "Shan" Hackett, a great British Military Historian who was also one of the 1st Airborne Battalion commanders, was wounded and narrowly evaded capture in the confusing, swirling battles that marked the aftermath of the failure to take Arnhem Bridge has rightfully credited Powell with writing a full book about the full campaign, including the splendid contributions of the American paratroopers of Jim Gavin's 82nd Airborne and Max Taylor's 101st, who did achieve their objectives albeit with heavy casualties; and of the efforts of the Polish Airborne, who tried to relieve their British comrades - wishing though that they had been deployed over Warsaw instead of the Dutch countryside. The Polish commander, a very experienced officer who had fought the Nazis in the battle of Warsaw and had escaped via the underground to France, had constantly warned Browning about "the Germans, General, the Germans" and had been rewarded with being dismissed from command following the debacle.
If not the best book written on the scope of the Arnhem campaign, Powell's book is indeed the best one written by an active "Red Beret" participant of "The Bridge Too Far".
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