James Holland

So Stephen Mitchell becomes second in command, official.

John Semkin becomes A squadron commander, and Peter Soleri takes over as C squadron commander.

Anyway, fighting continues around that area, point 103, 102.

for the next couple of, you know, for the next 10 days.

And there's some really, really bitter fighting around the Bois de Boulogne, all around that area.

And again, you know, I mentioned these aerial photographs, but if you look at the aerial photographs taken around that time, all the fields around there, absolutely pot-marked with shell bursts and, you know, and shell holes and what have you.

The next big operation is going to be Operation Mahler, which is a precursor for Operation Epsom, which we talked about in some length in our Normandy series.

which is the first major British coordinated offensive that takes place.

Gigantic.

Gigantic set piece.

Yeah, which is launched on Monday the 26th of June.

A martlet is a precursor which begins the day before.

Well, they've had this, the Sherwood Rangers have had this very, very steep learning curve, as have the 49th Polar Bear Division.

Ah.

So they landed with the 50th Tyne Tees.

The 50th Tyne Tees then got kind of switched somewhere else.

And in their place came the 49th Polar Bear Division.

And they're so-called the Polar Bear because they'd been stationed on Iceland.

They hadn't really seen any action.

You don't see an awful lot.