Watership Down was inspired by real life death and destruction, but among humans not rabbits (Matt Roper for The Mirror, 2018). "Many of the animals, he later revealed, were modelled on officers from the C Platoon in 250 Company's Seaborn Echelon, which the writer commanded as a lieutenant in the Second World War. And many of the gruesome stories in Watership Down also came straight from real life, and specifically the Battle of Arnhem, fought over nine days in September 1944 and in which nearly 2,000 Allied soldiers were killed, including in Adams' company."

Extracts from 'The Day Gone By', by Richard Adams, detailing the events of December 1943 to January 1945 "It would be wearisome - and not really helpful - to give a character sketch of each officer in the company. There were about twelve or thirteen altogether, and they comprised a very strong team, much stronger than any I had yet come across. Apart from that, collectively they have importance to this book, since later, from my memory, they provided the idea for Hazel and his rabbits in 'Watership Down'. By this I do not mean that each of Hazel's rabbits corresponds to a particular officer in 250 Company. Certainly the idea of the wandering, endangered and interdependent band, individually different yet mutually reliant, came from my experience of the company, but out of all of us, I think, there were only two direct parallels. Hazel is John Gifford and Bigwig is Paddy Kavanagh." Full text of The Day Gone By Full text of Watership Down Richard Adams AMA from 2013 1978 movie 2018 adaptation trailer Bunnies & Burrows roleplaying system Sandleford Park development plans still in play, May 2024