Hell's Highway: U.S. 101st Airborne & Guards Armoured Division (Battleground Market Garden)

Hell's Highway is the dramatic name given to the vital stretch of road that the British 3rd Guards Armoured Division had to advance down rapidly on their route to relieve the American Paras (82d Airborne) at Nijmegen and the British I st Airborne Division at Arnhem. Adopting the clear and successful style of Battleground works this book relies on personal accounts to embellish this dramatic story. This WWII history and battleground guide offers a fascinating look at the vital and infamous stretch of road through the Netherlands. After the Allied victory at Normandy, Operation Market Garden was intended to cut a path to Germany through the Netherlands. Essential to the plan was a two-lane road that came to be known as Hell's Highway. This was the route that the British 3rd Guards Armored Division had to advance down rapidly to relieve the American Paratroopers of the 82d Airborne at Nijmegen and the British I st Airborne Division at Arnhem. Beginning with the famous capture of Joe's Bridge by the Irish Guards—an essential preliminary action before the start of Operation Market Garden—historian Tim Saunders guides visitors through the seizure of bridges, the liberation of small towns, and other actions undertaken by the famous Screaming Eagles. With vivid personal accounts throughout, this guide features practical visitor information about monuments and other important sites. "This volume of the Battleground Europe series starts with one of the most celebrated events of the North West-European campaign, the spectacular capture of Joe's Bridge by the Irish Guards. Though, strictly speaking, not a part of Market Garden, it is an important and exciting precursor. This is followed by an explanation of the controversial and optimistic assumptions made by 21st Army Group and the Airborne Army's planning staff and the difficult logistic and Alliance issues that General Eisenhower had to deal with. However, the meat of the book covers the part played in Operation Market Garden by 101st US Airborne and the British Guards Armoured Divisions in the heady days of September 1944, following the German defeat in Normandy"--Introduction