Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Fallout from ‘A Bridge Too Far’: British paratroops looking for Americans to kill

I think they left this out of the movie.

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
Dutch_school_being_searched_for_German_snipers
Dutch_school_being_searched_for_German_snipers

 

 

I think they left this out of the movie:

“One day I went into the post office [near Greenham Common] and saw some Red Beret paratroopers. . . . The eyes of these men were the eyes of those returned from hell. They had come to that air base with the express intention of killing one American for every one of their mates lost at Arnhem. That night the feeling in the dark streets was one of absolute quiet and fear. Knots of men stalked about. They didn’t even see the women. They were crazed to kill. American military police combed the pubs and cinemas and every GI was hustled back to base. The British MPs came and hustled the Red Berets off. I heard of only one — not fatal — knifing in a pub.”

(From Norman Longmate, The G.I.’s: The Americans in Britain, 1942-1945.)

Photo credit: IWM Collections/Wikimedia Commons

 

 

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

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