The Devil’s Birthday: The Bridges to Arnhem, 1944

By Geoffrey Powell. 1984; reprint, Barnsley, S. Yorks., UK: Leo Cooper, 2001.  276 pages; GBP 19.95/US $28.13. ISBN 0-85052-352-4.  Available from Pen & Sword Books, Freepost, 47 Church St., Barnsley, South Yorkshire  S70 2BR  UK.

Lt Col Harold E. Raugh, Jr., United States Army (Retd) reviews this book exclusively for DJ.

The three airborne divisions of the British Airborne Corps conducted parachute and glider landings on 17 September 1944 along a sixty-mile road in Holland from Eindhoven north to the Rhine River town of Arnhem.  The plan was that after key bridge sites on this road were secured by the paratroopers, the British XXX Corps was to pass through the airborne divisions and attack into Germany, thus flanking German forces in France in an attempt to thrust to Berlin to bring the war to a swift conclusion.  Named Operation “Market Garden,” this brainchild of British Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery was poorly planned, feebly supported, and the ground element timidly led, resulting in failure.  The anguish of this Allied defeat, despite the gallant and intrepid actions of the British and American paratroopers, has been immortalized in a noteworthy book (by Cornelius Ryan) and on film as “a bridge too far.”

The daylight airborne drops and glider landings on 17 September 1944 were initially successful, although German resistance on the ground was stronger than anticipated.  The U.S. 101st Airborne Division secured the Wilhelmina Canal crossing near Eindhoven.  The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division captured the Maas Bridge at Grave but was unable to seize the Waal Bridge at Nijmegen.  The third division of the British Airborne Corps, the British 1st Airborne Division (with attached 1st Polish Parachute Brigade), reached the Arnhem area but became heavily engaged with strong German forces.

The British ground advance reached Eindhoven and linked up with the U.S. 101st Airborne Division on 18 September 1944.  After a ferocious attack involving British and American troops, with the latter conducting a hasty river crossing under intense enemy fire and closing with the enemy with fixed bayonets and grenades, the Nijmegen Bridge was secured on 20 September. 

The British 1st Airborne Division, however, was surrounded by Germans who blocked any further Allied advance.  With bad weather preventing aerial reinforcement or resupply, the British paratroopers, forced from the Lek bridgehead, pounded by German artillery and mortars, and with food and ammunition exhausted, were ordered to attempt to break out from German encirclement.  During the night of 25/26 September 1944, some 2,398 British and Polish soldiers were evacuated across the Lek in assault boats, leaving behind some 7,000 men killed, wounded, or captured.

Most British accounts of Market Garden end with the courageous stand and evacuation of the British 1st Airborne Division, the survivors of which were back in England by 30 September 1944.  This narrative also includes the heroic actions of the two U.S. airborne divisions, which continued to fight in Holland until pulled out of the line two months later.

Author Geoffrey Powell, a retired British Army colonel who commanded an airborne company at Arnhem, has synthesized his own combat experiences with the results of extensive archival research to produce a comprehensive and balanced account of Operation Market Garden.  Organized chronologically, this detailed study provides an omniscient perspective of the planning, leadership, and combat at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war.  Three dozen interesting photographs and over a dozen excellent maps ably supplement the well-written and highly readable narrative.

The Devil’s Birthday: The Bridges to Arnhem, 1944, is an interesting, authoritative, and action-packed study of Operation Market Garden based upon Powell’s own distinguished World War II paratrooper service in combat in Holland and on diligent research.  This outstanding book provides detailed and worthwhile insight into leadership, planning, and intelligence at the strategic level, and the trials and tribulations, fears and fatigue, and concerns and courage, of the airborne Infantrymen fighting ferociously in the swirling maelstrom of combat.  It definitely deserves a wide readership.