Arnhem Lift

''...As an account of the battle as seen by one man and his close comrades, this is excellent stuff.'' Rusi Journal, April 1994.

Of the 10,000 men who landed at Arnhem, over nine days 1,400 were killed and more than 6,000 – about a third of them wounded – were captured. It was a bloody disaster. The remarkable Louis Hagen, an 'enemy alien' who had escaped to England having been imprisoned and tortured in a Nazi concentration camp as a boy just a few years earlier, was one of the minority who made it back. What makes this book so unforgettable is not only the breathtaking drama of the story itself, it is the unmistakable talent of the writer. The narrative was first published anonymously in 1945.45 years later at a dinner party in Germany, Louis Hagen met Major Winrich Behr, Adjutant to Field Marshal Model at Arnhem. Louis added his side of the story to add even more insight to the original work.

The account of the fateful bridge too far... ‘It was a bridge too far and perhaps the whole plan was doomed to failure from the start, but we had to try, didn’t we?’ 17 September 1944: 30,000 airborne soldiers prepare to drop 64 miles behind enemy lines into Nazi-occupied Holland; tens of thousands of ground troops race down Hell’s Highway in tanks and armoured cars, trucks and half-tracks to link up with them. The goal – to secure eight bridges across the Rhine and end the war by Christmas. Ten days later, over 15,000 of these soldiers have died, 6,000 have been taken prisoner. Operation Market Garden was the daring plan to stage a coup de main in occupied territory, gain control of those bridges, and obtain a direct route into Hitler’s Germany. But the operation failed and the allied forces suffered a brutal military defeat. In the 75 years since, tactics have been analysed and blame has been placed, but the heart of Arnhem’s story lies in the selflessness and bravery of those troops that fought, the courage and resilience of the civilians caught up in confrontation, and the pure determination to fight for their lives and their freedom. This is the story of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. In Ballantyne’s Arnhem, we go into battle with not only the famous commanders in the thick of the action, but also with all those whose fates were determined by their decisions. Based on first-hand interviews, military records, and diaries, we witness the confusion and mayhem of war – from the horrific and devastating to the surreal and mundane. But most of all, we witness the self-sacrifice and valour of the men who gave their lives to liberate strangers in a foreign country. Praise for Arnhem: Ten Days in the Cauldron ‘Reminiscent of Stephen Ambrose at his best... some remarkable stories, which Ballantyne neatly dovetails into a rolling epic’ Dr Harry Bennett, University of Plymouth ‘Breath-taking... I thoroughly enjoyed reading this account of Arnhem, adding, if you like, a trench-level perspective to those other accounts written from more senior, and sometimes more detached, points of view. Thoroughly recommended’ British Journal for Military History

First published by Pilot Press, London, 1945.

Arnhem - it was the last major battle lost by the British Army, lost not by the men who fought there but by the overconfidence of generals, faulty planning and the failure of a relieving force given too great a task. If the operation of which Arnhem formed a part had been successful, the outcome of the war and the history of post-war Europe would have been greatly altered. Yet is it worth another book? I had fulfilled all my literary ambitions by researching and writing thirteen full-length books and was ready to retire from that laborious craft when Peter van Gorsel, head of Penguin's Dutch office, asked me to write a book on Arnhem for the fiftieth anniversary in 1994. It was the first time that my publishers had requested a book; all previous subjects had been my choice. I eventually agreed for several reasons. I had not previously researched and written about the British Army in the Second World War and had not previously done any work in Holland; so two fresh fields were opened up to me. I also felt that the fighting in and around Arnhem had still not been described in the detail that it merited.

The vivid and candid autobiography of Louis Hagen, alongside his bestselling Arnhem Lift