Air War Market Garden - Martin W. Bowman

Many individual acts of self-sacrifice and gallantry and sheer determination, persistence and endurance such as the courage of Private Len Moss were characteristics of Market-Garden. This is the second volume in this meticulously researched four-part series that provides a comprehensive insight into all aspects of the Operation in September 1944. In an interesting method of presenting the information, the authors arrangement of British, American, Dutch and German personal narrative interspersed with factual material offers a more personalised view of the war through the eyes of the hard-pressed Allied airborne troops who were actually there in the thick of the action. They take you steadily through the bitter house-to-house fighting in Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arnhem and the fanatical attempts to keep open the narrow road to permit XXX Corps to reach and relieve Colonel John Frosts men, outnumbered and out-gunned at Arnhem Bridge. They reveal the frustration and bitter disappointment in the battles of the drop zones, the bloody fight for the bridges across the Rhine and the almost suicidal second and third lifts to re-supply the troops holding on precariously, fighting desperately, tenaciously and bravely to prevent their positions being overrun in the face of overwhelming enemy superiority. From among the many individual acts of bravery during Market-Garden were actions that resulted in the award of five Victoria Crosses - four of them posthumously; including that of David Lord, a RAF pilot, who sacrificed his life on a resupply drop. Timelines detail the day to day events happening in all areas of the battle both on the ground and in the air and also add weight to the story in hand.