James Holland

But if you think of a division being about 15,000 men, that's about right.

And an infantry division, such as the 50th Tainties, which the Sherwood Rangers are supporting on D-Day, that's three infantry brigades, each with three battalions of 845 men.

Yeah.

Divided into, you know, companies of 120.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because the independent armoured brigade, you would have one independent armoured brigade supporting one infantry division.

And that means that the armoured brigade is always outranked by the division.

So you've got a major general commanding an infantry division, but you've got a brigadier commanding a brigade.

And so how it would work is each regiment would support one of the infantry brigades.

So again, you've got a half-colonel supporting a colonel.

Then you've got each squadron supporting each of the battalions.

So you've got a major supporting a lieutenant colonel.

So you're always outranked, and that is...

It's the hinge of the Normandy battlefront.

Yeah, you definitely want to get those big nodal points.

But basically what they're trying to do is they're all trying to link up as quickly as possible so that you've got these little link spots around where they're landing and you want those to all join up and push inland.

And you want to push inland as quickly as you possibly can because the more space you've got, the more space you've got for air support and creating airfields and the more space you've got for stores and build-up and all the rest of it and supplying the front.

Well, there was a classic example of being outranked.

So you had Stanley Christopherson, an A squadron, who was a major, being outranked by the, I think it was the 4th Essex Battalion, who was a lieutenant colonel, who refused to go and take it that evening.