Beevor - Antony Beevor-: The Battle of Arnhem-The Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II

Inside the British Army

Crete: The Battle and the Resistance

Paris after the Liberation (with Artemis Cooper)

Stalingrad

Berlin: The Downfall 1945

The Mystery of Olga Chekhova

The Battle for Spain

D-Day

The Second World War

Ardennes 1944

Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay with Field Marshal Montgomery (IWM B 10113)

The bridge at Arnhem over the Neder Rijn

A pre-war group of Dutch Nazis from the NSB

Teenage Waffen-SS recruits

Boy Browning with the Polish paratroop commander Major General Sosabowski

Viktor Grbner receiving the Knights Cross on 17 September

Sepp Krafft, the commander of the first SS troops to engage

The German command plans its response

Walter Harzer (9th SS Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen)

Horrocks, Montgomery and Prince Bernhard (IWM BU 766)

Major General Maxwell Taylor, 101st Airborne

Brigadier General Jim Gavin, 82nd Airborne

The 21st Independent Parachute Company of pathfinders before boarding their Stirlings (IWM CL 1154)

Gliders of the 1st Airborne (IWM CL 1146)

The air armada over the Netherlands

Glider landing zone north-west of Arnhem, 17 September (IWM BU 1163)

Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe with officers of the 101st Airborne

101st Airborne parachute drop north-west of Son, 17 September

British paratroopers having tea with locals (IWM BU 1150)

A Sherman Firefly pushes past Irish Guards tanks (IWM BU 926)

Another XXX Corps vehicle ambushed south of Valkenswaard (IWM B 10124A)

The liberation carnival of shaving the heads of Dutch women who had slept with Germans

Proud members of the Dutch underground with weapons taken from the Germans

Crowds in Eindhoven on 19 September

British soldiers were amazed by the Dutch chalking messages of thanks

101st Airborne welcomed between Son and St Oedenrode

German tanks for the Knaust Kampfgruppe arriving on a Blitztransport

Waffen-SS prisoners taken by the British 1st Airborne (IWM BU 1159)

German artillery forcing a convoy to halt on Hells Highway

An RAF shot showing the wreckage of Grbners reconnaissance battalion (IWM MH 2061)

Kate ter Horst, the Angel of Arnhem

Major General Roy Urquhart (IWM BU 1136)

A Light Regiment 75mm pack howitzer east of the Bilderberg Hotel, 19 September (IWM BU 1094)

One of the Luftwaffe ground crew in action north of Oosterbeek, 19 September

A Stug III of the 280th Assault Gun Brigade

SS panzergrenadiers in Arnhem amid abandoned British equipment

Civilians evacuated from the St Elisabeth Hospital

Polish paratroopers facing yet another cancellation due to bad weather

Sappers and 3rd Battalion Paras from the school north of the Arnhem bridge forced to surrender

Paratroopers from the 1st Battalion using a shell hole for defence (IWM BU 1167)

C Company 1st Battalion of the Border Regiment on 21 September (IWM BU 1103)

Luftwaffe anti-aircraft gunners of the Flak Brigade von Swoboda

Desperate paratroopers trying to signal to the RAF pilots (IWM BU 1119)

A Waffen-SS half-track of the Hohenstaufen on the Dreijenseweg

American paratroopers under artillery fire

Walking wounded from Hotel Schoonord taken prisoner

Kampfgruppe Brinkmann prepares to cross to the south into the Betuwe

A mixture of Waffen-SS, German army soldiers and Luftwaffe in the Betuwe

On 24 September the Germans began the forced evacuation of Arnhem and the surrounding areas

Canadian troops finally liberate a deserted and ruined Arnhem (IWM BU 3510)

A young victim of the Hunger Winter of 19445

Illustration acknowledgements

The majority of the photographs come from the Imperial War Museum and private collections via Robert Voskuil and Bob Gerritsen. Other photographs are from: , Sem Presser via Maria Austria Instituut. Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright but the publisher welcomes any information that clarifies the copyright ownership of any unattributed material displayed and will endeavour to include corrections in reprints.

List of Maps

: Position of Allied armies in the first week of September 1944 with the Road to Arnhem

: The Advance from Brussels, 614 September 1944

: Operation Market Garden, 1726 September 1944

: 101st Airborne Drop and Landing Zones

: 82nd Airborne Drop Zones

: Arnhem Bridge, Monday 18 September 1944

: The Battle of West Arnhem, 19 September 1944

: 1st Airborne Retreat to Oosterbeek, 1920 September 1944

: The Battle for Nijmegen and the Waal, 21 September 1944

: Oosterbeek Perimeter, 2125 September 1944

: Hells Highway German Counter-Attacks, September 1944

: The Island (The Betuwe), 2125 September 1944

: The Hunger Winter

: Arnhem and Oosterbeek with the landing and drop zones

Key to Military Symbols

Glossary

Compo: British army slang for its composite rations in tins.

Coup de main parties: Assault troops to be landed by glider very close to an objective to seize it by surprise, like those who seized Pegasus Bridge in Normandy.

Divers:Onderduikers, literally under-divers, were those who had gone into hiding from the Nazis, including Jews, those evading forced labour, and members of the underground on the run.