Battle of Arnhem audience, as did Richard Attenborough's adaptation of the book into the film of the same name in 1977. Frost, Urquhart and Arnhem veteran John Waddy were hired as military consultants. English author Richard Adams, himself an officer in the seatail of 250th (Airborne) Light Company, Royal Army Service Corps, based the struggle of the anthropomorphised rabbits in his award-winning 1972 novel "Watership Down" (adapted into an animated film in 1978) on the adventures of the officers of the 250 Company of the 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem. Battle of Arnhem The Battle of Arnhem was a major battle of the
Richard Adams it as a book. He began writing in 1966, taking two years to complete it. In 1972, after four publishers and three writers' agencies turned down the manuscript, Rex Collings agreed to publish the work. The book gained international acclaim almost immediately for reinvigorating anthropomorphic fiction with naturalism. Over the next few years "Watership Down" sold over a million copies worldwide. Adams won both of the most prestigious British children's book awards, one of six authors to do so: the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. In 1974, following publication of his second novel, "Shardik", he left the