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45 reviews for:
The Battle of Arnhem: The Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II
Antony Beevor
4.12 AVERAGE
45 reviews for:
The Battle of Arnhem: The Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II
Antony Beevor
4.12 AVERAGE
I loved Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin by Mr Beevor. That said, I felt like The Battle of Arnhem was somewhat disjointed and contained a dizzying flood of names, titles and locations. Don't know if it is necessary or helpful to write out "Obersturmbannfuhrer" when an English equivalent might do. Maps in the book don't seem to match what is being described in previous pages. Could just be me but it seemed like a rather confusing jumble. Organizational charts for each force might've helped as well.
There too many good reasons to give this book 5 stars.
I'd just pick up three:
- perfectly balanced narrative: we have both fighting sides speaking in full voice, with so many amazing quotes and stories;
- very special attention to the Dutch civilians - practically an equal third party of the whole story;
- and (I must say that) another justice - given so much too late - to Polish soldiers.
Respect, Mr. Beevor, sincere respect and gratitude.
Excellent, excellent book.
I'd just pick up three:
- perfectly balanced narrative: we have both fighting sides speaking in full voice, with so many amazing quotes and stories;
- very special attention to the Dutch civilians - practically an equal third party of the whole story;
- and (I must say that) another justice - given so much too late - to Polish soldiers.
Respect, Mr. Beevor, sincere respect and gratitude.
Excellent, excellent book.
medium-paced
Compared to his other superlative books, this one was weirdly difficult to slog through. Perhaps the essence of a constantly chaotic battle makes a single narrative hard to pin down, and the book suffers for it.
Not essential reading.
Not essential reading.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
I like Beevor and this is a solid blow by blow military history which takes on one of the more disastrous episodes of WWII. Montgomery and much of the British brass come out of it rightfully poorly with a plan that was doomed to fail from the outset.
Historia de la desacertada operación Market Garden. Beevor lo deja claro desde el principio: no hay lugar para los "y si en lugar de...", la operación estaba mal diseñada y basada en expectativas, cuando menos, bastante optimistas. Si fue posible fue gracias la lucha de egos entre las prima donas del estado mayor aliado, con un Montgomery que no podía admitir una posición de segundón frente a los generales norteamericanos.
A partir de aquí Beevor nos regala lo que tan bien sabe hacer: una recreación de la operación con abundantes testimonios que humanizan la contienda. Durante la lectura alternamos entre la descripción de los movimientos tácticos, con la habitual avalancha de datos y nombres de unidades (que hacen que en ocasiones cueste saber quién está dónde haciendo qué) y, al mismo tiempo, una descripción cercana de la vida de los civiles y soldados de a pie atrapados en el conflicto.
A partir de aquí Beevor nos regala lo que tan bien sabe hacer: una recreación de la operación con abundantes testimonios que humanizan la contienda. Durante la lectura alternamos entre la descripción de los movimientos tácticos, con la habitual avalancha de datos y nombres de unidades (que hacen que en ocasiones cueste saber quién está dónde haciendo qué) y, al mismo tiempo, una descripción cercana de la vida de los civiles y soldados de a pie atrapados en el conflicto.
I have read other books by Beevor and this one was similar, incredibly detailed and dense. This is everything you might ever want to know about Operation Market Garden, and then some. This book took me a long time to read, and I believe that is because the author makes no attempt to create a narrative. This is pure event driven history. Beevor never met an anecdote from some British privates diary that he did not want to include in his pages. What I came away with was renewed awe at the bravery that these soldiers displayed every hour of every day. To fly a glider into a well defended area was to accept mortality rate over 10%. Many of the divisions sent into battle for Market Garden lost more than 80% of their effective strength before it was over. This was thousands and thousands of dead and wounded, all because Montgomery wanted to try to win the war on his own, and block the Americans from having any glory. The vanity and absolute lack of caring for his men that Monty embodies is staggering. This is a great work of history, a hard book to read, but worth it in the end.
Whoever claims Beevor turns a blind eye to British mistakes* hasn't seen him take down the entire script for Arnhem and the slow advance of Horrocks in particular. No plan survives the contact with the enemy Sosabowski, who'd rather have spent that summer in Warsaw, was right when he pointed out that no allowance was made for anything to go wrong, and from the remote designation of LZ's onward it did.
The first 100 pages of so are an enjoyable exposé of the opposing plans; this is where I found myself taking most notes. To summarize the strategic situation: With the 15th Army allowed to escape and regroup under 'Fireman' Model and Kurt Student, the Allied flank was not secure while the Germans were in waterway-rich country, positioned for a favourable defence against an armoured thrust into the Heimat. Like in Normandy, diehards from Russia were aptly regrouping scratch formations.
Bradley was good to push into the Saarland, but any airborne operation was welcome before the war ran out, if only because the interminable series of cancelled plans was eroding the morale of these elite formations.
Once paratroopers take one in the crotch on the downward, there is definitely overlap from other testimony-heavy books, such as Middlebrook*. Yet pay attention to Beevor's Asterix Footnotes for the most outlandish reality-is stranger-than fiction anecdotes on both sides of the Arnhem bridge. My favourite concerns a young German POW shipped off to the USA, declared 'safe', seeking American citizenship & sign up to serve alongside his former captors, the 82nd Airborne.
[bc:Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle, 17-26 September|1276657|Arnhem 1944 The Airborne Battle, 17-26 September|Martin Middlebrook|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1182447145l/1276657._SY75_.jpg|1265632][b:Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle, 17-26 September|1276657|Arnhem 1944 The Airborne Battle, 17-26 September|Martin Middlebrook|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1182447145l/1276657._SY75_.jpg|1265632]by[a:Martin Middlebrook|58248|Martin Middlebrook|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1243616597p2/58248.jpg]
* "...Otherwise I believe that British historical studies are still after 70 years too self-important and won't consider other aspects seriously enough...One good example is Mr. A. Beevor, who gets blind at once when his work deals with British forces and their actions"
The first 100 pages of so are an enjoyable exposé of the opposing plans; this is where I found myself taking most notes. To summarize the strategic situation: With the 15th Army allowed to escape and regroup under 'Fireman' Model and Kurt Student, the Allied flank was not secure while the Germans were in waterway-rich country, positioned for a favourable defence against an armoured thrust into the Heimat. Like in Normandy, diehards from Russia were aptly regrouping scratch formations.
Bradley was good to push into the Saarland, but any airborne operation was welcome before the war ran out, if only because the interminable series of cancelled plans was eroding the morale of these elite formations.
Once paratroopers take one in the crotch on the downward, there is definitely overlap from other testimony-heavy books, such as Middlebrook*. Yet pay attention to Beevor's Asterix Footnotes for the most outlandish reality-is stranger-than fiction anecdotes on both sides of the Arnhem bridge. My favourite concerns a young German POW shipped off to the USA, declared 'safe', seeking American citizenship & sign up to serve alongside his former captors, the 82nd Airborne.
[bc:Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle, 17-26 September|1276657|Arnhem 1944 The Airborne Battle, 17-26 September|Martin Middlebrook|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1182447145l/1276657._SY75_.jpg|1265632][b:Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle, 17-26 September|1276657|Arnhem 1944 The Airborne Battle, 17-26 September|Martin Middlebrook|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1182447145l/1276657._SY75_.jpg|1265632]by[a:Martin Middlebrook|58248|Martin Middlebrook|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1243616597p2/58248.jpg]
* "...Otherwise I believe that British historical studies are still after 70 years too self-important and won't consider other aspects seriously enough...One good example is Mr. A. Beevor, who gets blind at once when his work deals with British forces and their actions"
informative
sad
medium-paced
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced