The book I read to research this post was Arnheim The Battle for Survival by John Nichol et al which is an excellent book which I bought from Kindle. In 1944 the allied forces wanted to end the Second World War for once and for all. Had it worked the war would have been over by christmas. Anyway they tried to invade an area in the Holland, Belgium area and most of the fighting centred around Arnheim. So many troops had to be landed many were parachuted in. Many landed in plywood gliders and these were often shot to pieces and the men felt like sitting ducks. Many of the soldiers who parachuted landed in wells or got tangled up in trees. At any rate it was a bit of a disaster although the soldiers who fought in it fought valiantly. At the end of this battle 6,500 men from the allied forces surrendered but by then they were heroes. When D day did finally arrive they had learnt many lessons from this battle. One pilot dropped his bombs and a bullet came through the bomb bay and struck a fuel tank. The plane caught fire and the pilot flew the plane while most of his crew bailed out before it exploded. Many people who fought in it said you had to be there to believe it such was the ferocity of the conflict. Many dutch people died of starvation and after D day they weren’t liberated until the war was near enough over. Had they liberated Holland sooner many of them people could have been saved. Apparently a lot of the paratroopers used came from polish regiments. When Stalin invaded Poland which he divided with Hitler, he shipped many poles out to Siberia. They were basically worked and starved to death although many hadn’t commited any crimes. Anyway when Germany invaded Russia Stalin gave the Poles amnesty if they would fight the Nazis. He then didn’t trust them to fight alongside the Russians so he made a deal that they would fight with the British. Many fought in Iran.