Research for this book started while I was serving as the British Liaison Officer to the German (Bundeswehr) Infantry, Airborne and Mountain (Gebirgsjäger) Schools.

Vivid testimonies poured in following a request by the British Staff College to provide German eye-witness reports for a staff battlefield tour of Arnhem and the MARKET-GARDEN battles of September 1944. A put out an appeal for information through my Bundeswehr colleagues. The human content and pathos that radiated from the replies was such I felt they had to be recorded in some way. British parachute veterans were amazed at the stories and confirmed that this was credible and potentially revisionary material.

I declined an offer to write an account for the Staff College feeling I ought to go it alone and heed the advice of a number of parachute veterans who said I should write a book. This I found daunting in the midst of a busy career. Nevertheless, a number of representative chapters were sent to twenty publishers whose addresses I had copied from well thumbed military library books. After ten not unexpected refusals I received my first three acceptances. It appeared the project was a goer!

Surviving German soldiers were interviewed from all over Germany, where I was serving at the time, well directed by advice from my German Army colleagues. Included among them was Heinz Harmel, the commander of the Frundsberg 10th SS Panzer Division, tasked with defending the Nijmegen Bridge and fighting free the Arnhem road bridge to reinforce his men on the River Waal. He was the first to bring clarity to research on a confusing battle, talking me through the operation over a map wreathed in cigar smoke. Many of these veterans were quite old even during the battle and beginning to pass away when I conducted these interviews in the late 1980s. Most accounts were captured just in time.

I did not appreciated at the time what a privilege it was to receive such stories until the project eventually took shape and still information was pouring in. I finally wrote the book at a particularly busy time as Second in Command of 1 PARA, finishing the final chapter after my third operational tour in Northern Ireland.

I received enormous encouragement from British Arnhem veterans, including Major General John Frost, General ‘Shan’ Hackett and Colonels Geoffrey Powell and John Waddy – all respected authors in their own right. Otherwise I might never have started. Encouraging reviews from John Keegan added confidence and pleasure to my first book written under challenging conditions. My career was active; three young sons were snapping about my ankles and needed more attention. Without an incredibly supportive wife, this book would have never happened.