A Bridge Too Far: Cornelius Ryan's chronicle of the Arnhem debacle
On the morning of Sept. 17, 1944, taking off from 24 airfields in southeast England in what was "the greatest armada of troop-carrying aircraft ever assembled for a single battle," the leading elements of three Allied airborne divisions roared aloft and set a course for their designated drop zones in Nazi-occupied Holland. Aboard this first lift of a scheduled three, men from the veteran American 82nd and 101st Airborne and the British First Airborne Division -- which was making its first combat jump -- anxiously waited for the green lights to light up and to step out into the Dutch sky in a daring and unprecedented daylight parachute and glider landing. Their mission, to capture -- "with thunderclap surprise" -- a series of bridges that spanned the Albert Canal, the Waal River, and the last river between the advancing Allied forces and Germany: the mighty Rhine.
On the Belgian-Dutch border, the tankers, soldiers, artillerymen, engineers, and vehicle drivers of Gen. Brian Horrocks British XXX Corps were anxiously awaiting the appearance of the southern group of airborne "skytrains" and the scheduled H-Hour of 2:35 PM. At that time -- and one hour after the first airborne soldiers had landed -- a devastating artillery barrage would begin, heralding the start of an armored dash along a single highway leading from the Dutch border to the city of Arnhem on the Lower Rhine -- 64 miles behind enemy lines. The ground forces had one single objective -- to link up with the men of the airborne divisions and secure the bridges, thereby allowing the British Second Army to outflank the Germans' fixed defenses along the so-called West Wall and end the war before winter set in.
Surprisingly, this daring plan -- code-named Market-Garden (Market being the airborne element, Garden designating XXX Corps) -- had been conceived by one of the Allies' most cautious generals: Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, victor of El Alamein, commander of the initial phase of Operation Overlord, and now head of the 21st Army Group. Popular in the British public and among his troops, "Monty" was a skilled organizer and a master of the "set-piece battle." But he was also very meticulous -- known for wanting "a tidy battlefield" -- and deliberate in his preparations for campaigns, single-minded, ambitious, and overconfident to the point of arrogance. He wanted to be given command of the entire Allied ground force -- including the predominant American contingent -- and form a powerful mass of troops and vehicles to make a "single thrust" that would pierce the German front lines and drive across the Rhine, capture the industrial cities of the Ruhr valley, and march to Berlin.
A Bridge Too Far, first published in 1974, Cornelius Ryan's third and final major book on the final battles of World War II, chronicles the seven-day long Battle of Arnhem and the disastrous failure of Operation Market-Garden, as seen by the soldiers and civilians caught up in the chaos and horror of battle. Of the three books in "the World War II Trilogy (the others being 1959's The Longest Day and 1966's The Last Battle), it's the most complex and, in some ways, the most fascinating book.
The complexity of A Bridge Too Far mirrors its topic, mainly because Operation Market-Garden was a very complicated affair. Even though on the map the plan looks childishly simple -- three airborne divisions and an additional brigade drop at points X, Y and Z along one major road while an armored corps races up that road and links up with the paratroopers -- it was fiendishly complex. Ideally, the 35,000 parachutists and gliderborne infantry should all have dropped on the first day, but there were not enough transports to go around, so the drop of the Market forces was divided into three lifts over three consecutive days. All the bridges had to be taken intact. The advance of the ground forces had to be fast and steady -- XXX Corps had a maximum of four days to reach Arnhem, Market-Garden's ultimate objective -- in order to relieve the airborne troops before the Germans could reorganize and counterattack. Most of the gliders -- some of which could carry light tanks -- and troop transports had to arrive safely. Even more critically, the weather had to be good enough for the delicate and complicated time schedule of reinforcement and resupply drops to hold. Finally, German forces in Holland had to be taken by total surprise and -- obviously, be understrength and underequipped.
If you have seen Richard Attenborough's 1977 film adaptation of this non-fiction book, you know the rough outline of A Bridge Too Far's narrative and are aware that Market-Garden was a prime example of a military operation affected by Murphy's Law; everything that could go wrong, starting from D-Day, Sept. 17, 1944, did go wrong. Gliders slipped out of their tow lines or broke apart in mid-flight. Planes aborted due to engine failure or ran into flak. German defenders on the front facing XXX Corps proved to be tougher than expected. The bridge at Son, in the 101st Airborne's sector, was blown up by its defenders. The British paratroopers' radios did not work properly, and most of the gliders lost en route were for the Arnhem bridgehead. The weather turned sour. Worse, British intelligence, ignoring offers of assistance and reports from the Dutch underground, failed to note the presence of vast German reinforcements in the Market-Garden area, including the two battered armored divisions of the II SS Panzer Corps. Though hardly amounting to even a full armored division's worth of tanks and supporting infantry, the presence of the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions would spell certain doom for the lightly armed British and Polish paratroopers in the critical Arnhem bridge area.
I have read this book several times over the past 30 years, and I have seen the movie based on it often, yet I am always amazed at how Ryan, who was battling a fatal strain of cancer when he was writing A Bridge Too Far, captures all the emotions and drama of one of World War II's fiercest battles. While I believe that the cover blurb ("The Classic History of the Greatest Battle of World War II") is overblown (Stalingrad, in my opinion, ranks as the greatest battle of the war, followed by the Normandy campaign), the Battle of Arnhem -- from its intellectual inception to its tragic ending -- certainly was a decisive engagement, giving the Germans a significant victory at a time when they were recovering from the battles for France and Belgium and dashing the Allies' hopes for an early victory before winter set in. Beginning with Part One: The Retreat and concluding with Part Five: Der Hexenkessel (The Witches' Cauldron), A Bridge Too Far is a gripping, well-written account that leaves the reader breathless as the greatest airborne operation ever mounted, launched with so much optimism on a fall Sunday morning, comes to a sobering and disappointing conclusion.
On the Belgian-Dutch border, the tankers, soldiers, artillerymen, engineers, and vehicle drivers of Gen. Brian Horrocks British XXX Corps were anxiously awaiting the appearance of the southern group of airborne "skytrains" and the scheduled H-Hour of 2:35 PM. At that time -- and one hour after the first airborne soldiers had landed -- a devastating artillery barrage would begin, heralding the start of an armored dash along a single highway leading from the Dutch border to the city of Arnhem on the Lower Rhine -- 64 miles behind enemy lines. The ground forces had one single objective -- to link up with the men of the airborne divisions and secure the bridges, thereby allowing the British Second Army to outflank the Germans' fixed defenses along the so-called West Wall and end the war before winter set in.
Surprisingly, this daring plan -- code-named Market-Garden (Market being the airborne element, Garden designating XXX Corps) -- had been conceived by one of the Allies' most cautious generals: Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, victor of El Alamein, commander of the initial phase of Operation Overlord, and now head of the 21st Army Group. Popular in the British public and among his troops, "Monty" was a skilled organizer and a master of the "set-piece battle." But he was also very meticulous -- known for wanting "a tidy battlefield" -- and deliberate in his preparations for campaigns, single-minded, ambitious, and overconfident to the point of arrogance. He wanted to be given command of the entire Allied ground force -- including the predominant American contingent -- and form a powerful mass of troops and vehicles to make a "single thrust" that would pierce the German front lines and drive across the Rhine, capture the industrial cities of the Ruhr valley, and march to Berlin.
A Bridge Too Far, first published in 1974, Cornelius Ryan's third and final major book on the final battles of World War II, chronicles the seven-day long Battle of Arnhem and the disastrous failure of Operation Market-Garden, as seen by the soldiers and civilians caught up in the chaos and horror of battle. Of the three books in "the World War II Trilogy (the others being 1959's The Longest Day and 1966's The Last Battle), it's the most complex and, in some ways, the most fascinating book.
The complexity of A Bridge Too Far mirrors its topic, mainly because Operation Market-Garden was a very complicated affair. Even though on the map the plan looks childishly simple -- three airborne divisions and an additional brigade drop at points X, Y and Z along one major road while an armored corps races up that road and links up with the paratroopers -- it was fiendishly complex. Ideally, the 35,000 parachutists and gliderborne infantry should all have dropped on the first day, but there were not enough transports to go around, so the drop of the Market forces was divided into three lifts over three consecutive days. All the bridges had to be taken intact. The advance of the ground forces had to be fast and steady -- XXX Corps had a maximum of four days to reach Arnhem, Market-Garden's ultimate objective -- in order to relieve the airborne troops before the Germans could reorganize and counterattack. Most of the gliders -- some of which could carry light tanks -- and troop transports had to arrive safely. Even more critically, the weather had to be good enough for the delicate and complicated time schedule of reinforcement and resupply drops to hold. Finally, German forces in Holland had to be taken by total surprise and -- obviously, be understrength and underequipped.
If you have seen Richard Attenborough's 1977 film adaptation of this non-fiction book, you know the rough outline of A Bridge Too Far's narrative and are aware that Market-Garden was a prime example of a military operation affected by Murphy's Law; everything that could go wrong, starting from D-Day, Sept. 17, 1944, did go wrong. Gliders slipped out of their tow lines or broke apart in mid-flight. Planes aborted due to engine failure or ran into flak. German defenders on the front facing XXX Corps proved to be tougher than expected. The bridge at Son, in the 101st Airborne's sector, was blown up by its defenders. The British paratroopers' radios did not work properly, and most of the gliders lost en route were for the Arnhem bridgehead. The weather turned sour. Worse, British intelligence, ignoring offers of assistance and reports from the Dutch underground, failed to note the presence of vast German reinforcements in the Market-Garden area, including the two battered armored divisions of the II SS Panzer Corps. Though hardly amounting to even a full armored division's worth of tanks and supporting infantry, the presence of the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions would spell certain doom for the lightly armed British and Polish paratroopers in the critical Arnhem bridge area.
I have read this book several times over the past 30 years, and I have seen the movie based on it often, yet I am always amazed at how Ryan, who was battling a fatal strain of cancer when he was writing A Bridge Too Far, captures all the emotions and drama of one of World War II's fiercest battles. While I believe that the cover blurb ("The Classic History of the Greatest Battle of World War II") is overblown (Stalingrad, in my opinion, ranks as the greatest battle of the war, followed by the Normandy campaign), the Battle of Arnhem -- from its intellectual inception to its tragic ending -- certainly was a decisive engagement, giving the Germans a significant victory at a time when they were recovering from the battles for France and Belgium and dashing the Allies' hopes for an early victory before winter set in. Beginning with Part One: The Retreat and concluding with Part Five: Der Hexenkessel (The Witches' Cauldron), A Bridge Too Far is a gripping, well-written account that leaves the reader breathless as the greatest airborne operation ever mounted, launched with so much optimism on a fall Sunday morning, comes to a sobering and disappointing conclusion.
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