MOVIES - Watching "A Bridge Too Far" at the shop today...

[Hobie]

We are, appropriately, watching "A Bridge Too Far" in the shop today. The Battle of Arnhem was fought 17–26 September 1944 or 65 years ago.

Visiting today was a lady who's family emigrated to the U.S. from Czechoslovakia in 1949 (60 years next Sat.) when she was 8 or 9. She said she was so happy that her parents had the gumption to come to the U.S. as she, her sister and brother had all had the opportunity to get their college degrees and have good lives here.

Sean Connery DOES look like Gen Urquhart!

[cas]

Always loved that little bit where he shoots the guy through the window.

[Rusty]

I hated seeing the Brits using those weak anti tank weapons they had. It looked like a kid's spring powered dart gun. I forget what they call them. The mind is going to sleep without me.

[Hobie]

They are the PIAT. That spring is heck for stout, it beats up your shoulder but you have to hang tough. The spring is what throws the bomb out there, kinda. You need it to recock from firing which you must stand up to do if you have a weak shoulder. The darn thing is heavy, too! I'd rather carry the 90mm recoilless...

[madman4570]

Cool Pic and interesting info Hobie!

[Ben_Rumson]

It's said the Brit Paratrooper (actually from a glider) using the PIAT scored the most important shot of D-Day when he stopped the lead panzer before they could get across the most important bridge to protect it.. BTW it was in the dark!

"A Bridge Too Far" is a great movie and is one nearly exactly like the book.

[cas]

You used to see them for sale in the Shot Gun News for years, for not all that much money.


A Bridge Too Far is an amazing movie, and the magnitude of the film making is lost on a lot of people today. I watched some of it with my young nephew a couple years back and I was trying to get through to him... "That's all real! Not some CGI mess, but hundreds of real men jumping jumping out of lots of real planes!"

[Ysabel Kid]

One of my favorite movies. Y2K and I watched it recently. A great one to have on DVD!

[El Chivo]

I watch it every year, it's a great one. Although I always cringe when I hear Gene Hackman's Polish accent.

Hobie you should also get "Bridge at Remagen", it was very well done too, and not as famous. I guess you'll have to wait for spring.

[RSY]

Why does he have an M1911A1? Is that accurate? Shouldn't it have been a Webley or a Hi-Power???

Always loved that little bit where he shoots the guy through the window.

[BlueStateSaint]

Why does he have an M1911A1? Is that accurate? Shouldn't it have been a Webley or a Hi-Power???

Always loved that little bit where he shoots the guy through the window.

I was wondering the same thing. Not that it matters . . . It's Sean Connery.

[Hobie]

It is a .45 there but I remembered a Hi-Power from the movie. This movie is one with all sorts of archaic and incongruous things like butane lighters, Japanese MGs, Germans with M1 Garands... Still a good movie.

My wife's uncle was at Remagen. About 6 months before he died he was suddenly struck with a need to document his participation and remember some friends who had died. I helped him with some of that. He had to take me off in a corner to "confess" his participation. He had NEVER told anyone else in his family. I see a lot of this sort of behavior.

[Rexster]

Hobie, my father-in-law went through a "confession" period, too, suddenly trusting me with information. I tried to get him to the local Holocaust Museum, to get it documented, but he declined. Perhaps it was just as well; his dementia had already kicked in, so he was getting dates, chronology, and places confused. My FIL's experience is a bit off-topic, because he was not in the Polish military, though he was part of the Polish resistance, and keeping Jews hidden. He left Poland after the war, as the communists would have imprisoned or killed him, knowing he would resist them, too.

As for Sean Connery's character with a 1911, well, that may be a movie prop of convenience, but SOME Brits did indeed use 1911s, for various reasons. Mercy, it has been 30+ years since I was reading about stuff like this, so I can't cite anything. I do remember some type of unit that swam ashore ahead of amphibious invasions carrying the 1911, as it was deemed more reliable in a combat swimmer type of environment.

And, oh mercy, Gene Hackman indeed does NOT "get" the Polish accent! I am not Polish, myself, but married into a Polish family, and my wife converses with her Dad in Polish on a daily basis, especially as his dementia is causing him to lose his English.

I did see a documentary a while back, perhaps of BBC origin, that showed what happens when a tank leaves the paved roadways in the area of this battle. Those tanks HAD to mostly stay on the pavement, or get stuck; this made the plan very vulnerable to delays, as the Germans really only had to defend the roads.

[Blaine]

Even though not that effective (except for maybe Jap armor in the WestPac) I always liked the Boy's Rifle, or maybe, it was the brute of a fella that it took to haul and shoot that ***

[Ray]

Deleted.

[wm]

I recall reading that the Brits purchased a large quanity of 1911s in 455 Webley during WWI so perhaps Gen Urquardt carried one of these.

Also the British purchased some BM from Argentina and issued these to commandos.

And lets face it, I am sure more than one 1911a1 got swapped by a NCO or Junior officer for a Luger or some such.

In our church was a veteran of the battle who served with the Polish airborne. He later fought with some German soldiers of fortune in Southern Africa, for Isreal in 1967 and again in 1972, and worked in Pananma for years with the canal authorities and at the US jungle school. He carried a 1911a1 everyday, every where he went.

He came to live in this town with his sister and her husband around 1980 but I think the quiet life disagreed with him. He passed away before I graduated in 1985.

[Hobie]

A fella I served with name of Kondaki was the son of a man who fought in the Polish resistance. He told me that his dad had killed his first German at the age of 12...

[Ben_Rumson]

I saw the same documentary as Rexter... In it they used they used the same tanks and vehicles used 60 years ago... It became immediately apparent that it would only take a few vehicles to muck up area and cause the vehicles to become stuck, forcing the column to stay on the roadway and to have to fight their way to Arnhem. It's a wonder they made it!

Also shown were the overgrown German ambush positions..Parts of destroyed anti tank weapons still in place...There was even rusted in half German helmet still lying there.

[Big Bore 94]

101st and 82nd Airborne were in complete different places during Market Garden.

[2ndovc]

Why does he have an M1911A1? Is that accurate? Shouldn't it have been a Webley or a Hi-Power???

Always loved that little bit where he shoots the guy through the window.

Perfectably acceptable for a British soldier to be armed with a 1911A1. The U.S sent several thousand to England as Lend Lease guns. My Dad has one along with an 1903 Colt .32ACP. The .455 pistols were part of an order for the RAF in WWI.
Also not many of the Canadian Inglis Hi-Powers made to England before the end of the war. Most got hung up in India and China.



jb

[MrMurphy]

I agree. Quite a few pictures of Brit NCOs running around with 1911s, Thompsons, etc.

In some theaters (like Italy) where resupply could be difficult it was simpler to hand friendly forces 1911s or Garands than get them their own ammo.

Most Polish forces were armed by the Brits, the FFI was armed mostly by the US (Springfields and Enfields, etc) if I remember right.

Edit: The PIAT needed to be cocked for firing, typically a 2 man job, but I believe on firing it recocked itself. I'd have to check. It was basically a horizontally fired spring-powered mortar.

[gamekeeper]

It's a pity that Sean Connery, a man who made a very good living with a pistol in his hand was one of the many "celebrities" that jumped on the "Ban the Handgun Bandwagon" when we lost our right to own handguns in the UK after Dunblane.
For that I will never forgive him or the other hypocrites and to this day I refuse to watch any film with him in it!
Seeing him with a 1911 in his hand makes me want to puke!
Otherwise it was a very good film.

[Yodar]

For you history buffs, check out Part 13 of Nigel Hamilton's book Monty, The Battles of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.

The author states the operation failed because it was too late in the course of events at that stage of the march toward Berlin. Monty's own staff was largely against the Arnhem operation according to the author.

The book is interesting in that it documents the inter-play among the Allied leadership (Monty, Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton, et al), not always pleasant, and how that effected the course of the war.

Good history.

[El Chivo]

well, the "Bridge too Far" comment was made before the battle, not after. A lot of people had their doubts.

"If anything can go wrong involving cabbage and mayonnaise, it will"

- Cole's Law

[Hobie]

Edit: The PIAT needed to be cocked for firing, typically a 2 man job, but I believe on firing it recocked itself. I'd have to check. It was basically a horizontally fired spring-powered mortar.

That's correct.

[Ben_Rumson]

The main trouble started when planners issued orders for the type of radios to be used in the operation.
The planners went with the radios they had used successfully in Africa...Unknown to the high up planners, the specified radios were line of sight radios....So in Holland as soon as the soldiers moved into a tree line or whatever... commo was lost... This was recently proven using identical radios in the same documentary about the road conditions...There is a moment in the movie that really happened...where the commo sarge says as much about the radios to one of his fellows, but says if that’s what the higher ups want, then that’s what they shall have. I'd easyly wager he got shafted for Pension if he made it thar far

When clueless planners ignored the recently transferred German armor, they were way way down and around the bend up Stuff Creak!...And to top it off, against orders, some fool carrying the complete battle plan got himself killed in the glider crash that destroyed the Jeeps for the dash to the bridge too far...The plans were in German hands practically before the dust settled... They knew everything about everything...But the troops made a paddle, and Monty got to put his spin on history..