In early September, Brussels and Antwerp were liberated and the Dutch Prime Minister, Pieter Gerbrandy, mistakenly announced that the liberation of the Netherlands was already underway. Scores of people rushed to the outskirts of Rotterdam carrying bunches of flowers to throw to their saviours, but Gerbrandy (known to Churchill as ‘Mr Cherry Brandy’) was mistaken. A group of ‘liberators’ spotted in Breda turned out to be a British patrol who had crossed the border by accident. In September, an attempt by British parachute troops to capture a key bridge over the river Rhine at Arnhem –
...more
