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Pegasus BridgeBy contrast, the British high command trusted General Gale and allowed him wide leeway in meeting his objectives. Gale trusted Poett and Kindersley. Poett trusted Pine Coffin; they all trusted John Howard; Howard trusted his subalterns. In every instance, superiors left details of operations to the man on the spot. The common soldiers of the Third Reich were almost incapable of acting on their own. Deprived of their officers and NCOs, they tended to fade away into the night. Whereas British soldiers - men like Jack Bailey and Wally Parr and Billy Gray and Wagger Thornton - were eager to seize the initiative, quick to exploit an opportunity, ready to act on their own if need be. It is, therefore, possible to claim that the British won the Battle of Pegasus Bridge primarily because the army they sent into the fray was better than the enemy army, and it was better precisely because it represented a democratic rather than a totalitarian society. Ultimately, then, the victory was one for freedom, won by an army of the free ...» |
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