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Description of  The Devil's Birthday: The Bridges to Arnhem, 1944. Geoffrey Powell

The Devil's Birthday, one of the most celebrated accounts by a British writer to tell the full story of the Operation Market Garden, the Allied attempt in 1944 to seize three major river crossings - including the road bridge at Arnhem, the famous 'bridge too far' - and thus secure a back door into Germany. It has achieved the status of a classic it is now republished with corrections, additions and amendments by the author, who himself fought at Arnhem.Arnhem was the heaviest Allied defeat of 1944. Casualties, especially British, were appalling the brave and enduring Dutch people suffered catastrophically in the aftermath German morale was strengthened at a time of ebbing fortunes The British 1st Airborne Division - more than 10,000 strong, of which less than one quarter got back to safety - was virtually destroyed the war in Europe went on for another eight months.If there is such a thing as a glorious defeat, then the Battle for Arnhem must be one of the finest examples. What is especially tragic, though, is that two important victories have been largely forgotten: the triumphs of the American airborne divisions involved and the manner in which 1st Airborne's morale was sustained, and even strengthened, during the final battles in and around the devastated perimeters.This new edition, besides being a superb history, is above all a record of quite extraordinary courage - of commanders, ordinary soldiers, pilots and aircrew Dutch civilians of hard-pressed German troops, fighting to save their country from invasion and most of all, of the British, Americans and Poles who made up the Airborne Forces. The Devil's Birthday is unlikely to be superseded as the standard work on a bold, gallant, yet doomed, undertaking. Read more