James Holland - Brothers in Arms: One Legendary Tank Regiments Bloody War from D-Day to VE-Day

FORTRESS MALTA

TOGETHER WE STAND

HEROES

ITALYS SORROW

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

DAM BUSTERS

AN ENGLISHMAN AT WAR

THE RISE OF GERMANY

THE ALLIES STRIKE BACK

BIG WEEK

NORMANDY 44

SICILY 43

THE BURNING BLUE

A PAIR OF SILVER WINGS

THE ODIN MISSION

DARKEST HOUR

BLOOD OF HONOUR

HELLFIRE

THE DEVILS PACT

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Atlantic Monthly Press
New York

Copyright 2021 by Griffon Merlin Ltd

Maps drawn by Lovell Johns Ltd
Aerial photographs courtesy of NCAP, ncap.org.uk
Jacket photograph: British Sherman Vs advancing from Nijmegen in the Netherlands towards the German town of Kleve, about 20 miles away just across the border, in early February, 1945. Bovington Tank Museum

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First Published in Great Britain in 2021 by Bantam Press, an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America

First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: November 2021

Typeset in 11.25/14 pt Minion Pro by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

ISBN 978-0-8021-5908-3
eISBN 978-0-8021-5909-0

Atlantic Monthly Press
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street New York, NY 10011

Distributed by Publishers Group West

groveatlantic.com

For David Christopherson

Reading the names and numbers of military units can often be confusing, and it can be hard to keep track of who is who. In an effort to make it more obvious, I have listed German units as they would be spelled in the vernacular, so that, for example, the 6th Paratroop Regiment has become 6. Fallschirmjger Regiment, and battalion has been written Bataillon not to be pretentious, but simply in the hope that this will help distinguish Allied and German units more easily.

The spelling of many place names has subtly changed since 19445; for consistency, I have used the spellings used on British-issued military maps of the time. Geel, for example, is spelled without an h today, but was known as Gheel to the British in 1944 and so this is the spelling I have used.

This book is something of a snapshot of the Sherwood Rangers, not a comprehensive history of the regiment, and so follows just a handful of those who served during the final eleven months of the Second World War. As a result, many who deserve to have their exploits written about or even mentioned in passing do not feature. I hope it will be read in the spirit in which it has been written.

James Holland, June 2021

Jig Gold Beach, 7 June 1944

North-west Europe

Normandy

Gold Beach

Gold Beach, Jig Red sector

Gold Beach and Asnelles, 10.30 a.m. D-Day

Gold Beach and Asnelles, 11.30 a.m. D-Day

Gold Beach and Asnelles/Le Hamel, 1.00 p.m. D-Day

Gold Beach, Jig Green sector, 2.00 p.m. D-Day

Point 103, Saint-Pierre and Fontenay

Point 103

Saint-Pierre

Bois de Boislonde and Fontenay

Fontenay and St Nicholas Farm

Berjou, 16 August

La Bigne

Gheel

Action at Windmill, 23 September 1944

Lochem road block, 23 September 1944

Geilenkirchen

Operation BLACKCOCK

Weeze

Operation VERITABLE

Dinxperlo, March 1945

Near Bremen, 19 April 1945

Stanley Christopherson (right) leans on the bonnet of a jeep as he discusses the situation at Rauray ridge on 29 June 1944 with Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson of the 24th Lancers (centre) and Brigadier Cracroft (second from right)

While researching this book, I drew heavily on contemporary aerial photographs and wartime maps (including some used at the time by Stanley Christopherson). These were augmented by liberal use of Google Earth images. For this reason, we are using annotated versions of these various photographs, maps and images in place of a number of the more usual drawn maps used in books of this kind. I have also placed all these various images together at the front of the book rather than integrating them into the text so that readers can more easily locate them. I hope they are as much help to readers as they were to me when piecing together many of the Sherwood Rangers battles in these last eleven months of the war in Europe.