- het team journalisten Nichol-Rennell heeft met dit boek over Arnhem na 'Tail End Charlies', 'The Last escape', 'Home Run' en 'Medic' weer een indringend en goed gedocumenteerd boek afgeleverd.
- John Nichol is een vm. RAF flight-lieutenant , wiens Tornado bommenwerper boven Irak werd neergeschoten in 1991,waarna hij gevangen werd genomen. Zijn boek 'Tornado Down' werd een bestseller. Tony Rennell is auteur van 'Last days of Glory: the death of Queen Victoria'en co-auteur van 'When daddy came home' , een veelgeprezen boek over de demobilisatie in 1945.
- Recensie: This is a fascinating account of the Battle of Arnhem. It is the first foray into non aviation writing by John Nichol (ex RAF Tornado pilot shot down and tortured by the Iraqis in the First Gulf War) and Tony Rennell, an ex Sunday Times reporter. It is spellbinding.
It does not simply recite the facts of what happened in chronological order - it tells the human story of the Battle, through the lens of many participants. The story is not limited to that of the British paratroopers fighting to secure the road bridge at Arnhem. It looks through the lens of the Dutch civilians innocently caught up in brutal fighting, whose homes are destroyed and who were made to suffer enormously by the Germans after the battle finished. It looks through the lens of the Polish paratroopers, dropped late into the Battle, in a location where they could not really influence events (and not in their homeland where they wanted to fight), and whose Commander, Sosabowski, was made a “scapegoat” for the failure, as a result of his criticism of the gung ho planning which took place before the operation. It fittingly also has a chapter dedicated to the perspective and courage of the RAF resupply aircrews, flying to their deaths in many cases to drop resupplies to supply zones in German hands.
It is the story of the Battle told through the human perspective. That “brings to life” for the reader the stresses, demands and horrors faced by all sides during the Battle. I would thoroughly recommend it as an alternative to a factual analysis of the Battle and what went wrong. However, it does presuppose that the reader has knowledge of the Battle, it’s context and the broader operational objectives of Operation MARKET GARDEN.
- The book ends with an anecdote that really brings home the horrors and futility of war. Private Andy Milbourne lost both arms below the elbow and an eye at Arnhem. The final paragraphs portray his homecoming, his frustration about the fact he can’t hug his parents or his fiancée when he arrives home and his anger at his mothers attempts to help him eat all the food prepared for his homecoming. All things the vast majority of us take for granted today..