Operation 'Market Garden' - Eindhoven, Nijmegen, Arnhem, 17 September 1944. British and American parachutists and glider-borne troops land in German-occupied Holland; at the same time, XXX Corps tanks spearhead a sixty-mile dash along 'Hell's Highway' to link up with the lightly armed and heavily outnumbered airborne forces. The real prize is the last of the bridges over the major waterways that have to be captured - the bridge over the Neder Rijn at Arnhem that, taken intact, will provide the Allies with a back door into Germany; the famous 'bridge too far'.

For all the brilliance of its concept, and the gallantry of its execution, 'Market Garden' - Montgomery's attempt to bring the war in Western Europe to a swift end - was a disaster. The elite airborne forces that made up the Allied strategic reserve ceased to have any use as a vitally needed reserve; the Dutch people suffered catastrophically; German morale was strengthened; British 1st Airborne Division - more than 10,000 men - was all but destroyed.

This is the first book by a British writer to tell the full story of the complete operation. The author, who fought at Arnhem himself, gives full weight to the parts played by the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, by XXX Corps, by the Dutch, and by the German defenders themselves, as well as by the British 1st Airborne Division and the Polish Parachute Brigade. His book is based not only on wide research among military and political records, personal accounts, and photographic archives, but also upon first-hand experience and eye-witness testimony, including correspondence and interviews with many survivors, among them the British and American military chiefs who commanded during the operation. The failures which led to the Allied defeat and to the virtual annihilation of the 1st Airborne Division have often been cited; this book shows why they happened as they did.

If there is such a thing as a glorious defeat, then 'Market Garden' must surely be the finest example. But beyond being a superb new history of a fascinating, important and controversial operation, The Devil's Birthday is a story of quite extraordinary courage - of famous commanders, ordinary soldiers, pilots and aircrew; of Dutch civilians of desperate German troops, fighting to save their country from the victorious Allies; above all, of the British Americans and Poles who made up the Airborne Forces. It is an unhappy tale - over ambition, poor planning, stupidity, inefficiency and simple bad luck, all conspired to produce the heaviest and most costly Allied defeat of 1944.