Operation Market Garden, often depicted as one of the most decisive military actions of the Allied campaign, offered an opportunity to conclude hostilities with Hitler's Germany before 1945 but its disastrous failure left the Allies facing another seven months of difficult and costly fighting. In this revised new paperback edition of Arnhem: Myth and Reality, Sebastian Ritchie demonstrates that the operation can only be properly understood if it is considered alongside earlier airborne ventures and reassesses the role of the Allied air forces and the widely held view that they bore a particular responsibility for Market Garden's failure. By placing Market Garden in its correct historical setting and by reassessing Allied air plans and their execution, this groundbreaking book provides a radically different view of the events of September 1944, challenging much of the current orthodoxy in the process.

Author Biography

Sebastian Ritchie is an official historian at the Air Historical Branch (RAF) of the Ministry of Defence. He is the author of numerous official narratives covering RAF operations in Iraq and the Former Yugoslavia, and he has also lectured and published widely on aspects of air power and air operations, as well as airborne operations and special operations in the Second World War.