Arnhem : the battle for the bridges, 1944 / Antony Beevor.

"First published in Great Britain as Arnhem : the Battle for the Bridges, 1944" -- title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 433-439) and index.

"On September 17, 1944, General Kurt Student, the founder of Nazi Germany's parachute forces, heard the groaning roar of airplane engines. He went out onto his balcony above the flat landscape of southern Holland to watch the air armada of C-47 Skytrains and gliders, carrying the legendary American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions and the British 1st Airborne Division. Operation Market Garden, the plan to end the war by capturing the bridges leading to the Lower Rhine and beyond, was a bold concept, but could it have ever worked? The cost of failure was horrendous, above all for the Dutch who risked everything to help. German reprisals were pitiless and cruel, and lasted until the end of the war. Antony Beevor, using many overlooked and new sources from Dutch, American, British, Polish, and German archives, has reconstructed the terrible reality of the fighting, which General Student called "The Last German Victory." Yet this book, written in Beevor's inimitable and gripping narrative style, is about much more than a single dramatic battle--it looks into the very heart of war."--Provided by publisher.