Men at Arnhem - A true account of a Parachute Battalion's annihilation seen through the eyes of one of its forty-six survivors
Many books have been written about the Battle of Arnhem and much ink has been spilled in arguing the pros and cons of the disaster. Tom Angus sets out to apportion no blame, nor does he seek to analyse the reasons for the failure of the operation. His aim is simply to describe what it was like to be a 30-year old company commander during those eight days in hell. For obvious reasons, the characters are not all drawn straight from life. The names are changed and he does not specify the units concerned. But the events he describes did happen just where and when and how he describes them; so if this is not a conventional work of military history nor is it by any means fiction. It is a remarkable and intensely moving account of one of those great military tragedies which only the British seem able to turn into triumphs, and as a book it certainly triumphs over all conventional accounts of that blood-drenched sacrifice that was the Battle of Arnhem. It is also the finest evocation of an infantryman's war to be published for many years and will become a classic in its field.