"A BRIDGE TOO FAR"

OPERATION MARKET GARDEN.  This from original World War II Newsreels and field reports:
(September 17, 1944)  
Some three and a half months after D-Day, British Field Marshall Montgomery has launched Operation Market Garden, with some 30,000 airborne troops parachuting into Holland.  The objective of Monty's daring feat is to capture bridges over Dutch waterways, thereby allowing Allied forces to push deep into Germany.
 A live broadcast from a B-17 carrying airborne troops:  "Now we are over Holland and I'm going to move forward up to the pilot's compartment.  The nine planes ahead of us have just dropped their contingent, the dome-shaped outlines of parachutes swaying gently against the morning sky.
You can probably hear the snap as our men check the lashing on the starting line.  And here they go - one, two, three, seven, ten, fifteen - every man out of the plane and their chutes open."
From the 17th to the 25th, the raid was a failure.
Allied losses were 17,200.  Germans- 9,500.........Medicineman!