The Dutch have not forgotten Arnhem and the other battles to free them. I just saw on TV news a ceremony there honoring the US dead who perished that Holland might be free.
I think the vanity of the generals who signed off on the Arnhem raid after dismissing air intelligence photos showing the German tanks were too danged vain. And whoever supplied incorrect radio crystals was just plain incompetent. But Maj. Gen. Urquhart's officers should have ensured that they had the right ones.
Even Germans admired the ferocity of the Parachute Regiment. Those red-bereted men fought like tigers.
But were they more valiant than one of their modern members who was recently awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry in Afghanistan? Among those he saved while also recovering and using a machinegun under fire so intense that bullets ricocheted off the gun as he retrieved it was a US Marine captain, along for the mission. L/Cpl. Joshua Leakey, V.C. showed the same spirit as his forebears in that regiment did in 1944.
And I think that modern US soldiers do the same. I think they endure even more than our forces did in WWII, because there are fewer of them and they rotate back to the battle zone, time after time. They do this in a war that has lasted three times as long as US involvement in WWII did!
We do have an unsupportive media in many cases, who undermine our troops and extoll leftist elements who do not have our best interests at heart. The WWII soldier was spared that.
They had reporters like Richard Tregaskis on Guadalcanal, who carried a .45 because he WAS NOT there to interview the enemy and they might shoot him. We had Ernie Pyle, who also went upfront with the troops and did well by them.
The closest thing we have now is a blonde South African woman who is a CBS correspondent and who has been chastised for seeming too friendly to our troops and their cause. Frankly, I approve the way that Lara Logan admires Medal of Honor awardees and earns their trust. Her bosses seem to think they should be skeptical of our involvement in wars and are there to criticize as much as anything. During the first Gulf war, Harry Smith agonized about one soldier who played a musical instrument possibly having to use a rifle. We were told how fierce the Iraqis were and how tough a nut Iraq would be to crack, as if US forces were not up to the task. In fact, the 3rd Infantry, to cite just my son's division, went further and took more land in less time than any US unit had done in any prior war. The Iraqis were not pushovers, but we beat them as surely as our fathers defeated determined Germans and Japanese. The US fighting man has not gone soft. His support in the USA sometimes has, especially among those reporting the war.
Anyway, yes, the Allied generals, especially Lord Montgomery, made some errors and the men in the field at Arnhem paid for their trying to go A Bridge Too Far.
We remember them today, and I am glad that the Dutch nation still honors their sacrifice . I'm glad that my NBC channel showed that ceremony, however briefly. They aren't all bad, all the time.
BTW, if you haven't read Donald R. Burgett's, "The Road Past Arnhem", do. He was a US paratrooper there and saw first hand what those soldiers endured.
Finally, I don't see how your thread is off topic. It is Memorial Day...
