Market Garden was one of the most audacious, and ultimately controversial, operations of the Second World War--a joint penetration by an armored column and a large-scale airborne drop. Stephen Badsey provides an authoritative and absorbing account. He closely examines the combatants, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses and explaining the different phases of the battle.
Market Garden was one of the most audacious, and ultimately controversial, operations of the Second World War--a joint penetration by an armored column and a large-scale airborne drop. The objective was to secure key waterways and railheads and punch a decisive hole in the German defenses. If it had succeeded, the war could have been ended in 1944. Stephen Badsey closely examines the combatants, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses and explaining the different phases of the battle.
Yet the two-pronged attack failed as a confusing and daily-changing pattern of events unfurled. Instead of being relieved after 48 hours as expected, British paratroopers were cut off for nine days as the 2nd Army's spearhead, XXX Corps, were slowed by constant German shelling. Facing two unexpected SS Panzer divisions, the Allied paratroops were eventually evacuated across the Rhine after putting up an incredible fight. Of the 10,000 men involved, fewer than 2,000 survived. Badsey provides an authoritative and absorbing account of why this happened. He closely examines the combatants, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses and explaining the different phases of the battle.
- ISBN10 027598284X
- ISBN13 9780275982843
- Publish Date 9 February 2004
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 13 November 2012
- Publish Country US
- Publisher ABC-CLIO
- Imprint Praeger Publishers Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 96
- Language English