It was the truth. Read Arnhem 1944 by Martin Middlebrook, Arnhem by A. D. Harvey and Tragedy Of Errors by Peter Heclerode. The Officer in question was Brian Urquhart, who had access to intelligence from Dutch sources and photo recon. The existance of the units was known to the British but they felt that the units would be unworthy due to the losses suffered in the Normandy campaign. The two divisions had taken heavy losses but had managed to keep many items of heavy equipment and were also both trained for anti-airborne operations. The intelligence was disregarded for many reasons, the desire to use First Allied Airborne army in battle, the fact that the info arrived too late to allow any changes and the mistaken belief that the German forces would offer little resistence. The film is wrong in portraying it as such a surprise, although to the rank and file and their immediate officers the presence of so much armour was a very nasty surprise! John Frost commented that had he known what he would have faced then changes would have been made to the equipment in order to counter the threat from Panzers. Try any good book on Arnhem, those listed are the best or you can have a copy of my Masters that deals with Airborne Effectiveness in WW2.

RED

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"Watch that Fu*ker, he'll 'ave someones eye out!" King Harold at Hastings 1066.