Arnhem: 24 hours that shattered Allied dreams

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. The morning of Tuesday the nineteenth of september nineteen forty four was ripe with possibility for the Allied forces at Arnhem. But just 24 hours later, the die of defeat had been well and truly cast. Here, in conversation with Spencer Mizen, the comedian and history buff Al Murray discusses the failure of this bold attempt to deliver a crushing blow to Nazi Germany, and considers how poor planning, overconfidence, and strong German resistance came home to roost in 24 fateful hours in the Netherlands. So Al, in the introduction to your new book, you write that you've been drawn to Arnhem all of your life.

So, I mean my first question is, why is that? Why did you develop this fascination with the battle? Well, it's to do with my father, really. He was an airborne zappa in the TA after he'd done his national service. And

So I grew up with, you know, red berets and and all that, maroon berets and going to see him parachute. It's one of my earliest memories is going to see him parachute on Salisby Plain or somewhere from the balloon. And going to see the parachute regiment get new colours from the Queen or something in 1974. These are things deeper than memory. But then we went to see A Bridge Too Far when it came out in the cinema.

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