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~~June 6, 2023~~ Updated April 2, 2026

Ignoring Clint Eastwood's advice in "Dirty Harry" that opinions, like certain body parts, are best kept to yourself.

A Bridge Too Far

Charles Dohun (September, 1912 to January, 1994) was a Sergeant in the US Army during World War II. He notably saved the life of Captain LeGrand Johnson during Operation Market Garden by forcing a doctor to examine him at gunpoint.

From the article to the left: Charles Dohun (September, 1912 to January, 1994) was a Sergeant in the US Army during World War II. He notably saved the life of Captain LeGrand Johnson during Operation Market Garden by forcing a doctor to examine him at gunpoint.

James Caan agreed to do this movie because of the scene in which he forces a reluctant Army surgeon to operate on one of his buddies at gunpoint. He said, "When Richard Attenborough came to see me in Los Angeles, he offered me the choice of several roles. I chose the Sergeant chiefly for that one scene."

A Bridge Too Far", a 1977 epic that is, perhaps, my favorite and most accurate war movie. Filmed on location in Holland where all the action took place in World War II, "Operation Market Garden" was the largest airborne operation in the history of war, with 34,600 men and 1,700 vehicles dropped from the skies by glider or parachute. Less remembered than "D-Day" because, in the end, we lost. Trying to take one more bridge and failing, it was "a bridge too far".

Based on the best selling book by Cornelius Ryan, with screen play by William Goldman, and directed by Richard Attenborough, who spent heavily on making this film as accurate to actual events as possible, right down to the smallest detail. Filmed in the actual locations in Holland, and little side stories that most would ignore or not even know about, Attenborough got them in.

A good example would be the scene in the airplane when the paratroopers are getting ready to jump and you'll see a chicken pop her head out of a paratrooper's jacket. That actually happened, the man had a bet going that chickens could fly and he was proving it, taking the bird on several jumps, including this one.

When released, the film was panned severly by critics because of the cavalcade of big name stars in the movie, most being paid $250,000 a week, except for Robert Redford, who was paid substantially more, making this the most costly movie of all time in 1977. The character Major General Urquhart, who we follow through most of the movie, was played by Sean Connery. When Connery discovered that Robert Redford, who had much less time on the screen than Connery, was being paid more, he went on a sit-down strike until an adjustment was made.

Now, over 50 years later, criticizing the film because the cast included too many big stars is, to me, a moot issue, and all of them are now gone.

This video added on April 2, 2026:

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I welcome responses, and will be glad to post them here. Email your remarks to ron@global-air.com

June 6, 2023: www.fark.com picked up this editorial and posted a link on their website, resulting in several thousand visitors, with lots of comments, pro and con. More

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He tricked Hitler so thoroughly that the Germans thanked him after the war—with no idea he'd helped defeat them.

A barrage balloon is used to defend against aircraft attack by raising aloft cables which pose a collision risk, making the attacker's approach more difficult.

Bill Millin, the personal piper to Commander Lord Lovat, of 4 Commando, piped his men onto Sword beach against military regulations which banned musicians from travelling to the front. Millin’s role in the D-Day landings is well documented, with it said Germans chose not to shoot the piper simply because they thought he had gone mad.

In 1945, Churchhill and Roosevelt handed over all the captured Cossacks to the Red Army, men, women and children, knowing full well the fate that awaited them.

''Never in the field of human conflict did so many know so little.'' Younger Britons were the most unfamiliar with the battle as only 33% of those aged 18 - 24 were able to correctly identify the battle. Of the other 67% in that age bracket 30% had no idea what the battle was, 12% thought it was a battle for control of the Channel in WWI, 9% believed it was a civil war between England and Scotland, 6% a Viking invasion and 3% wrongly identified it as the 2019 General Election.

The reason the 1940 German Blitzkrieg, the invasion of France and other countries, was so successful is that the soldiers were on crystal meth.

These days, the U.S. military only trusts its best pilots behind the stick of its most advanced aircraft. In the days of World War II, that just wasn’t the case. The United States would build 300,000 airplanes over the course of the war, and it needed pilots and crewmen to test and transport them as well as fly them into combat.

If you overlook the part where the Jews all died of typhus, and the war was everybody else's fault, this is a pretty decent narrative of World War II.

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