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Author(s): Patrick Delaforce
Monty’s greatest gamble required the whole of the British Army, the Canadian Army and two American Airborne Divisions to fight their way to liberate Holland and reach the River Rhine.
The book begins immediately after the Normandy invasion, with the euphoria surrounding the belief that the War would soon be won. However, it was not to be as easy as Monty hoped. The book covers the difficult next few months as the allies slogged through France and Belgium fighting stern and skilled Nazi resistance. However, the centrepiece of the book is Operation Market Garden – Monty’s bold plan to cut through the German defences via the eight bridges which spanned the Dutch / German border. The book deals with the plan, its execution and aftermath in rigorous detail. Had Market Garden gone to plan, it might have led to an end of war before the end of 1944. As it was, it was the Russians that entered Berlin first in May 1945. Nonetheless, this period remains one of the boldest and most exciting of the War.
| BOOK ISBN | 9781781553299 |
| FORMAT | 234 x 156 mm |
| BINDING | Paperback |
| PAGES | 288 pages |
| PUBLICATION DATE | 15 January 2014 |
| TERRITORY | World |
| ILLUSTRATIONS | 164 black and white photographs |
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Patrick Delaforce was educated at Winchester College. During the Second World War, aged 17, he was in Churchill's Home Guard and witnessed the London Blitz of 1940 and 1941. Later he served as a troop leader in Normandy with the Royal Horse Artillery of the 11th Armoured Division.
Hitler's Wehrmacht blew him up with their mines in Holland, and he was again wounded by a rifle grenade on the banks of the River Elbe. He was with the first battle group into Bergen- Belsen concentration camp in April 1945, was twice mentioned in despatches, and was awarded the Bronze Cross of Orange-Nassau.
In autumn 1945 he served on a War Crimes Tribunal in Hamburg and tried many concentration camp guards. Finally, he was an official British Army of the Rhine witness when Mr Albert Pierrepoint, the British hangman, executed 13 convicted war criminals in Hameln on 13 December 1945.
After leaving the army, he worked as a port wine shipper and ran an advertising agency in New York, before becoming a professional writer, mainly on historical and military subjects.
40 books by him have been published with 100 editions (including in Russia).
