CAPTURE AT ARNHEM - A Diary of Disaster & Survival by Roberts, Captain Harry

Moretin-in-Marsh, 1999, Windrush, UK first paper back original , 5 1/2 x 8 1/2, 148 pages, FINE CONDITIONillus, index. ....................................................................Captain Harry Roberts of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers was landed by glider at the fateful battle of Arnhem in September 1944. The moment he landed, he came under fire and received a disabling bullet at the base of his spine and other injuries. This extraordinary memoir is his distillation of his wartime diaries and incorporates information on his training, his capture at Arnhem and his subsequent experience as a POW incarcerated deep in the German countryside. As a soldier he was brave and resourceful and blessed with a robust sense of humor. Capture at Arnhem shows all the chaos of war, the bitterness of defeat and the sheer will to live. As an officer and prisoner of war Captain Roberts was reasonably well treated but this did not spare him from the vicissitudes of war, witnessing, for instance starved and broken women acting as slave laborers for the Nazis. His account vividly conveys the kaleidoscope of emotions that all prisoners suffer and the debilitating effects of ever-present pangs of hunger. Tempered with humor and common sense, this is a story that despite its apparent bleakness is still a joy to read.