Monty's Iron Sides: From the Normandy Beaches to Bremen With the 3rd (British) Division

Major-General Bernard Montgomery commanded the British Expeditionary Force's 3rd Division at the beginning of the Second World War. Four years later on 6 June 1944, Monty chose his Iron Sides to spearhead the Allied attack on the Normandy beaches on D-Day. As the only division in the British Liberation Army to fight from D-Day all the way through to VE-Day, the indomitable Iron Sides were frequently in the thick of the action, led by the popular ex-Desert Rat GOC 'Bolo' Whistler. Monty's Iron Sides fought in the battle for Caen and in Operations 'Goodwood' and 'Bluecoat'. They helped force a crossing of the Escaut canal and took part in Operation 'Aintree' to free the Dutch towns of Overloon and Venraij. Operation 'Heather' saw them drive through the Siegfried Line, before finally 'cracking around' in northern Germany in the hard fighting that culminated in victory in Europe. The Iron Sides' immense contribution won them two Victoria Crosses, but the price in lives was high, the division losing 15,000 casualties including 2,586 dead. Patrick Delaforce draws on contributions from the dozen fighting regiments who proudly wore the sign of the black and red triangles, designed by Monty himself. Coming from every corner of Great Britain - Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Shropshire, Suffolk, Warwickshire, Yorkshire, the Scottish Borders and Ulster - it was probably the most heterogeneous of the British divisions fighting in the 1944-45 campaign.