Friday Night Movie number 11 – A Bridge Too Far

 

Another classic World War II actioner this week. A Bridge Too Far tells the story of Operation Market Garden, a plan devised by General Montgomery and his staff to capture the bridges over the canals and rivers that bordered Germany and the Netherlands.

Although D-Day had been a triumph for the Allies, fighting the Nazis after that wasn’t a picnic. Although Paris and Belgium had been liberated, the Nazis had regrouped to defend Germany. Therefore there was a need to capture the bridges and the border lands and attack Germany via that route. However, the attack was not a success but the bravery and fighting skill of the Allies who took part in the Battle of Arnhem cannot fail to impress and quite rightly is remembered both in the UK and in the Netherlands.

I once visited the Arnhem museum and its surroundings, and it was extremely moving to see the sites of the Battle of Arnhem read the stories of the thousands of men who took part in Operation Market Garden and remember in reverence those who didn’t return.

The BBC has a good potted history of Operation Market Garden and it can be found here.

A Bridge Too Far was directed by Sir Richard Attenborough has a stellar cast containing all the top talent of its day and is big visual spectacle of a film.

So put your feet up, put the film on and marvel at people who bravely parachuted out of aircraft or boarded rickety gliders to take the war to the enemy at great cost to themselves and who bought for us with their lives the very freedoms that the Islamo-fascists wish to remove from us.

 

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.