A Bridge too Far - Cornelius Ryan

'the battle of Arnhem, the greatest airborne operation of the war, the master-stroke by which Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, having won over a reluctant General Dwight D. Eisenhower, proposed to end the war in 1944. He planned to drop the combined airborne forces of the American and British armies behind German lines to capture the crucial bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem, subsequently sending a vast army to catch up with them for the drive into Germany. (...) the masterly chronicle of a daring and grandiose operation that ended in bitter defeat for the Allies."