Arnhem

The Parachute Regiment was founded as a small, elite force to carry out hit-and-run raids, then expanded (though still very much an elite) to become a full-on attacking force, a spearhead to thrust into the heart of the enemy, ahead of the main force. The training was tough, the risk and adrenaline levels high. Only the bravest need apply. Only the best were recruited. To be qualified to wear the red beret set a man apart. ‘We were lauded as super-fit and super-daring,’ recalled Leo Hall. ‘We turned heads in our comings and goings. Though generally from working-class backgrounds, we became an aristocracy.’ As Allied paras,⁸ both British and American, led the invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Italy, they proved their worth as impact players, making a vital difference to the outcome of battle. They also had back-up in the 1st Airlanding Brigade, whose gliders provided an additional means of back-door entry into enemy territory. Towed to enemy air space by ‘tugs’ and then cut loose to coast down, they could carry not only infantry but heavy equipment as well, including jeeps and small tanks. Once on the ground, paratroopers generally had just their own two feet for transport. Gliders were a means to increased mobility – to hitting further and faster. The men and machines they carried were, in effect, the airborne cavalry.

At the D-Day landings, troops of the 6th Airborne, one of the British army’s two airborne divisions, were in the vanguard. Just before the Allied infantry stormed on to the beaches of Normandy, parachutists dropped inland to knock out the gun batteries which dominated the cliff-tops. Meanwhile, brilliantly flown gliders landed just yards from a canal bridge vital to the advance inland, enabling the troops on board to capture it. Strategically, these were vital missions. If either had failed, so too might the entire enterprise. There was every chance of the Allied army being pushed back into the sea. The men of the 6th demonstrated in full the impact of airborne on the modern battlefield. Three and a half months later, there seemed no reason to doubt that a similar smash-and-grab operation could be repeated, with equally devastating results, this time to seize bridges over the wide and muddy waters of the Rhine in the Netherlands.

The plan was the brainchild of Montgomery – the hero of El Alamein and the Western Desert – and was remarkably daring for this habitually meticulous military planner. But he had a point to prove. His recent promotion from general to field marshal was the clue to his state of mind – the enhanced rank was a personal and political sop concocted by Churchill and the king to divert attention from the fact that he had lost overall control of the land forces in Europe to the American supreme commander, General Dwight ‘Ike’ Eisenhower. He was also losing the argument among the Allies about how best to defeat Hitler. Eisenhower wanted a broad-front attack on Germany, his armies ranged from north to south and advancing in tandem as they pushed towards the Rhine, sweeping all before them. But Monty, contemptuous of the Americans – he thought Eisenhower pedestrian and unfit to command – believed this approach slow and cumbersome. Every yard would be a battle. The Germans would have time and opportunity to re-group their defences. Certain of his own pre-eminence as a military leader, his preference now was for a single rapid strike, concentrating forces on one weak spot and thundering through the enemy lines. ‘One really powerful and full-blooded thrust towards Berlin is likely to get there and thus end the German war,’ he lectured Eisenhower in a communiqué at the beginning of September. ‘[But] if we attempt a compromise solution and split our resources so that no thrust is full-blooded, we will prolong the war.’⁹

It was not just his belief in the superiority of his own military prowess that led him to this conclusion. He picked up on the sense of urgency that had developed among the Allies, and especially the British public, since the euphoria of D-Day. With hindsight, we know that final victory over Germany was close, just seven months away in fact. It didn’t feel that way at the time. For war-weary armies and civilians back home, the desire to see a glimmer of light was immense. Britain had been at war since September 1939, and the conflict had already outdistanced the 1914–18 War to End All Wars, by many months. London was under intense aerial bombardment again; sirens wailed and for the first time since the Blitz of 1940–41, women and children were dying in the rubble of their own homes, first from doodlebugs, Hitler’s revenge weapons, and then, the latest horror, V2 rockets. Morale – which should have been sky-high with the victories in Europe – was lower than it had been for years. An exhausted air hung over the country.