James Holland

Because it's a two-way thing.

The infantry are the eyes and ears of the armor on the ground.

The armor are providing the fire support.

But what was happening was every time a shot went out, all the infantry would just hit the deck and lie on the ground.

And that was no use to anybody.

And so there's some very, very difficult fighting, but they're still together in partnership with the 49th Polar Division when Operation Martlet gets conceived.

And the idea of Martlet is to push the line forward on the western right-hand flank of what is going to be Operation Epsom, which is this...

Big operation, this first properly coordinated drive operation from Second Army, British Second Army, just to the kind of west of Caen.

And so these guys, the 49th Polar Bears and 8th Armoured Brigade, are to the west of them.

So they're on the right-hand flank of the force that's being brought together for Operation Epson.

We're only talking about a matter of a few miles.

Down in the valley below, directly in front of them, below Point 102, which is further over to the east from Point 103.

Right in front of 103, you've got St-Pierre and Tilly.

A bit further on, you've got Fontenay-le-Pesne.

And Point 102 is above that.

And that's where the bulk of the fighting has been.

It's been in this sort of, this block of land to the road from St-Pierre, stroke Tilly, to Fontenay, up the ridge to 102 to 103.

If you think of that as a big rectangle,

That's where most of the fighting has been going on since they've got there on the 8th of June.

And they're still there.