A Bridge Too Far (Wordsworth Military Library)

by Cornelius Ryan (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1999

  $4.89

  On 17th September 1944, the people of southern England gaped as the mightiest airborne force in history thundered overhead en route for Arnhem. Arnhem was 64 miles behind the German lines in Holland, and Field-Marshal Montgomery's plan was to sieze the Rhine bridges at Arnhem and Nijmegen to allow an Allied thrust into the industrial heart of Nazi Germany. The Allied armies south of the Rhine were due to reinforce the airborne troops once the bridges had been captured. When Lt-General Boy Browning, the Deputy Commander of the First Allied Airborne Army, asked Montgomery how long it would take for the reinforcements to reach the bridges, he was told that it would be two days. Sir , replied Browning, I think we may be going a bridge too far . Cornelius Ryan's account of the tragic miscalculations at Arnhem and the valour of the troops on either side is a classic. Over 17,000 British, Polish and American troops became casualties - more than on D-Day - but Arnhem remains a beacon of heroism in the annals of miltiary endeavour.

• Used

  Paperback
  1995

  $6.86

  The classic account of one of the most dramatic battles of World War II. A Bridge Too Far is Cornelius Ryan's masterly chronicle of the Battle of Arnhem, which marshalled the greatest armada of troop-carrying aircraft ever assembled and cost the Allies nearly twice as many casualties as D-Day. In this compelling work of history, Ryan narrates the Allied effort to end the war in Europe in 1944 by dropping the combined airborne forces of the American and British armies behind German lines to capture the crucial bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem. Focusing on a vast cast of characters from Dutch civilians to British and American strategists to common soldiers and commanders Ryan brings to life one of the most daring and ill-fated operations of the war. A Bridge Too Far superbly recreates the terror and suspense, the heroism and tragedy of this epic operation, which ended in bitter defeat for the Allies.