In this long-awaited book, Robert Kershaw follows up his best-selling
account of Operation Market Garden--It Never Snows in September--to
focus on the experiences of Dutch civilians and British and German
soldiers in one street while fighting to survive at the heart of one of
the most intense battles of World War II. He tells the story from the
perspective of what could be seen or heard from the Utrechtseweg, a road
that runs seven kilometers from the Arnhem railway station west to
Oosterbeek.
This stretch of road saw virtually every major event during the fighting
for Arnhem--the legendary "Bridge Too Far"--during September 1944. The
story is about the disintegration of a wealthy Dutch suburb caught
unexpectedly in the war it had escaped for so long. The book charts the
steady destruction of an exclusive rural community, where wealthy Dutch
holiday-makers had relaxed before the war. The destruction of this
pretty village is charted through the eyes of British, Polish and German
soldiers fighting amid its confused and horrified inhabitants. It
portrays a collage of human experiences, sights, sounds, visceral fears
and emotion as ordinary people seek to cope when their street is so
suddenly and unexpectedly overwhelmed in a savage battle using the most
deadly weapons of the day.
Kershaw's new research reveals the extent to which most people in this
battle, whether soldiers or civilians, saw only what was immediately
happening to them, with no idea of the larger picture. Many original
Dutch, German and English accounts have been unearthed through
interviews, diary accounts and letters, as well as post-combat reports
charting the same incidents from both sides. The story is told as a
docudrama following the fortunes of participants within a gripping
narrative format. Holland had not witnessed conflict since the
Napoleonic wars. What happens when your street, where you have lived for
generations, is suddenly overwhelmed by conflict? A Street in
Arnhem--with its alternating revelations of horror and courage--tells
that story and provides some of the answers.
