James Holland

You can always retreat to another hood, another wood.

And there's just so much cover in these villages and all these villages.

There's not a single exception in this part of Normandy.

are surrounded by orchards, which again give you cover from an infantry point of view, from a grenadier point of view, but also from an armoured fighting vehicle point of view as well.

So it's very, very difficult.

And the other thing I think is really interesting about all this is that when they're starting their weapons for the war, they're coming up with a two-pounder, the British, and the Germans have the comparatively small pack gun, the 50mm and so on.

And that's because they're expecting...

the warfare to be fought over comparatively small areas in Europe.

And it's only in the Western Desert and in the Soviet Union where you've got huge open spaces that suddenly range suddenly becomes a factor.

But that's sort of shrinking again.

But you've now got the kit for long range in an environment which suits short range.

Yes.

so there's a kind of sort of irony there and they're having to adjust to it and the point about this is everyone knows that they're not going to know how to train you know they haven't practiced fighting in bockage because they just haven't because they haven't had the opportunity to do so but this is where that experience really comes in and why montgomery wants his independent armor brigades to be predominantly made up of experienced troops because he feels that

Their experience is going to be enough to enable them to adapt swiftly to the new environment in which they find themselves.

Yeah, he's a splendid fellow.

He's a lovely chap.

Yeah.

And his gunner is Stan Cox, who's 19, from Didka.

And I got to know Stan.

He was hilarious.