Following their epic combat in Normandy (the paratroopers were finally pulled out of the line on June 30, 1944, after being in virtually constant combat since their night drop in the early morning of June 6) the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division returned to battle on Sept. 17, 1944 as part of Field Marshal Montgomery's audacious plan to seize a Rhine River bridgehead and help bring the war against Germany to a swift conclusion.
The plan was simple: A three airborne division air assault would secure key bridge sites along the sixty-mile road to the Rhine River town of Arnhem allowing the attacking British XXX Corps, spearhead across the river. Once across the Rhine, Monty's armies would be able to end-run the German forces in France and capture Berlin before the Nazis would be able to respond. The British field marshal named his bid to bring the war to a quick end Operation Market Garden. Historian Cornelius Ryan immortalized it with a different name: 'a bridge too far.'
Operation Market Garden proved to be as impossible as it was audacious. Yet, the paratroopers of the 101st accomplished their mission, capturing and holding all of their assigned objectives. It was at a high cost, however as the Screaming Eagles battled the Nazis along what quickly became known as Hell's Highway for seventy-two days. Finally, in late November, the 101st was pulled out of line.
In a harrowing first-person narrative of battle, The Road to Arnhem, Donald R. Burgett describes his experiences in the 101st Airborne Division during World War II, is considered a classic of combat literature.
Donald R. Burgett is the author of Currahee!, a critically acclaimed memoir of the Normandy invasion, and Seven Roads to Hell, his epic account of the Battle of Bastogne and Beyond the Rhine that continues through Austria and Germany to the capture of Hitler's home in Berchtesgaden.