Description
Object description
Bound ts memoir (74pp plus photographs), written in 1947, covering his service in North West Europe between August and October 1944 as a troop commander in the 55th (West Somerset Yeomanry) Field Regiment RA when he was mostly attached to the 5th Battalion Coldstream Guards (32nd Guards Infantry Brigade, Guards Armoured Division) and describing in particular his experiences during the final phase of the battle for Normandy, the Division's advance across the River Seine and over the Somme battlefield and their occupation of Douai, the liberation of Brussels (3 September), the advance to the Escaut canal and the fierce fighting there in consolidation of their positions (early September), the advance into the Netherlands, occupation of Eindhoven and the fighting for Nijmegen bridge and the Nijmegen bridgehead at the time of the Battle of Arnhem (late September), further fighting at Elst where a determined German counter-attack was repulsed and then in positions on the Arnhem-Nijmegen autobahn where the writer was wounded. The memoir emphasises the warmth of the reception given to the Guards Armoured Division by liberated French and Belgian civilians, the happy co-operation between his Field Regiment and the Coldstream Guards and American troops in the Nijmegen bridgehead, their satisfaction at firing onto German soil for the first time and their disappointment at the outcome of the Battle of Arnhem.
Content description
Bound ts memoir (74pp plus photographs), written in 1947, covering his service in North West Europe between August and October 1944 as a troop commander in the 55th (West Somerset Yeomanry) Field Regiment RA when he was mostly attached to the 5th Battalion Coldstream Guards (32nd Guards Infantry Brigade, Guards Armoured Division) and describing in particular his experiences during the final phase of the battle for Normandy, the Division's advance across the River Seine and over the Somme battlefield and their occupation of Douai, the liberation of Brussels (3 September), the advance to the Escaut canal and the fierce fighting there in consolidation of their positions (early September), the advance into the Netherlands, occupation of Eindhoven and the fighting for Nijmegen bridge and the Nijmegen bridgehead at the time of the Battle of Arnhem (late September), further fighting at Elst where a determined German counter-attack was repulsed and then in positions on the Arnhem-Nijmegen autobahn where the writer was wounded. The memoir emphasises the warmth of the reception given to the Guards Armoured Division by liberated French and Belgian civilians, the happy co-operation between his Field Regiment and the Coldstream Guards and American troops in the Nijmegen bridgehead, their satisfaction at firing onto German soil for the first time and their disappointment at the outcome of the Battle of Arnhem.
History note
Cataloguer RWAS
History note
Catalogue date 2003-07