“On the afternoon of the 17th September 1944, Lieutenant Joseph Enthammer, Wehrmacht artillery office based in Arnheim, gazed up to the clear skies, hardly believing what he saw. White ‘snowflakes’ appeared to hang in the air. ’That cannot be’, he thought, ‘it never snows in September! They must be parachutists.’” They were. He had witnessed the first wave of the British parachute assault of Arnheim.

One more book about Market Garden… Many books have been written, but “It never snows…” describes the Market Garden operation from a German point of view. Many new sources and personal interviews with veterans from e.g. 9th and 10th SS Pz div has been used and gives a very good view of the actions of “the other side”.
I find the book very interesting, but it requires a quite good knowledge of the allied operations. I had to read Cornelius Ryan’s ”A bridge to far” once more after I read “It never snows…” to refresh my memory, but maybe it is a good idea to read it in parallel.

”It never snows…” definitely kills the myth that the allied jumped right down in the arms of two well equipped German SS panzer divisions. It was the improvisation and the fast build-up of forces that was the major reason they finally could stop the Allied attack. Battle groups were set up with whatever they could find, e.g. Luftwaffe or Navy ground forces, and they succeeded in making them effective despite of the chaos and failures in communications.

I found the orders for the II SS Panzer Corps of the 17th September and the order of battle interesting. They could be found as appendices.

I warmly recommend this book! It is a very good complement to the allied point of view of other books about of this phase of the war. But I would recommend having e.g “A bridge Too Far” beside you when you read “It never snows..”.

(Reviewed by Per Holmbäck)
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.