This book has an eight-page gatefold depicting the brigade in battle deployment, with reconnaissance units, advance companies, the main body, the brigade command section, plus all the supporting engineers, signalers, and artillery to provide a visual guide to exactly how many tanks and other armored vehicles were advancing on 13th June.

Jonathan Fennell captures for the first time the true wartime experience of the ordinary soldiers from across the empire who made up the British and Commonwealth armies. He analyses why the great battles were won and lost and how the men that fought went on to change the world.

In the week after the D-Day landings, British and Canadian forces in the east were ordered to pin down as many German troops as possible to take the pressure off the Americans, who planned to break out on the western flank. The British commander, Montgomery, wanted to capture Caen, however, and to extend the Allied bridgehead further south. To this end, two battle-hardened divisions were to make a flanking manoeuvre west of Caen, cross the River Odon, break through the enemy positions and take the high ground around Evrecy. 7th Armoured Division, the 'Desert Rats' were to capture Villers Bocage and Evrecy in a 'right hook' while 50th (Tyne Tees) Infantry Division were to take Lingevres and Les Verrieres. Unbeknown to the 'Desert Rats' a number of German Tiger tanks already held the high ground. Led by Waffen-SS tank ace Michael Wittman, these Tigers destroyed almost the entire British advance guard and forced the 'Desert Rats' to withdraw, Wittman's crew accounting for some 25 tanks and other vehicles before being knocked out themselves. At the same time the Geordies of 50th Infantry Division were fighting to take Lingevres and Les Verrieres, ably supported by the tanks of 4/7 Dragoon Guards. Sergeant "Spit" Harris, commanding a Sherman Firefly tank, knocked out no fewer than five Panther tanks, a feat rivalling Wittman's.

In this new publication Henri Marie returns to the subject of Villers Bocage with new insights and documentation. A complementary study by a Panzer specialist [Wolfgang Schneider] makes it possible to verify Michael Wittman's real motives in contrast to what German propaganda claimed. This is a controversial yet definitive work on the famous battle between 7th Armoured Division and the s.SS-Pz. Abt. 101, integrating photos from the time with those taken today.

In the summer of 1943, following defeat at Stalingrad, Hitler sought a decisive battle that would turn the struggle on the Eastern Front in the Germans' favor. What followed was the largest tank battle the world has ever seen. This book looks at each component of the brigade in turn, their structure, equipment and what they did on 11th July.

An analysis of the tank battle that took place at Villers-Bocage in 1944, when the 7th Armoured Division, or Desert Rats, took on German panzers and were heavily defeated. The text bases its arguments on photographs taken in the aftermath and the testimony of German tank ace Michael Wittmann.

This WWII military study examines the combat experiences of three Allied divisions charged with spearheading the invasion of Normandy. To lead the charge into France after the Normandy landings, General Montgomery brought three veteran desert formations back from the Mediterranean. They were the 50th Infantry and 7th Armored divisions, plus 4th Armored Brigade. Their task beyond the beaches was to push south to Villers Bocage with armor on the evening of D-Day in order to disrupt German counter-attacks on the beachhead. Difficulties on 50th Division’s beaches allowed time for German reinforcements to arrive in Normandy. As a result, 4th Armored Brigade was firmly blocked just south of Point 103 after an advance of less than five miles. A major counter-attack by Panzer Lehr failed, as did a renewed British attempt, this time by the vaunted 7th Armored Division, which was halted at Tilly sur Seulles. From here the fighting became a progressively attritional struggle in the hedgerows of the Bocage country south of Bayeux. More units were drawn into the fighting, which steadily extended west. Finally, an opportunity to outflank the German defenses via the Caumont Gap allowed 7th Armored Division to reach Villers Bocage. There then followed what the battalions of 50th Division describe as their ‘most unpleasant period of the war’, in bitter fighting, at often very close quarters, for the ‘next hedgerow’.

A companion to the Utah Beach publication, provides a historical narrative dealing with American military operations in France during the month of June 1944 including D-Day in Normandy. Prepared by the 2d Information and Historical Service, attached to the First Army, and by the Historical Section, European Theater of Operations. Other products in the American Forces in Action Series are listed below: Salerno: American Operations From the Beaches to the Volturno, 9 September - 6 October 1943 is available here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00196-9 Papuan Campaign: The Buna-Sananada Operation (16 November 1942-23 January 1943) is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00205-1 The Capture of Makin, November 20-24, 1942-Print Hardcover/Clothbound format can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00206-0 Guam: Operations of the 77th Division, July 21-Aug. 10, 1944 is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00204-3 Fifth Army at the Winter Line (15 November 1943 - 15 January 1944) --Print Paperback format can be found here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00198-5 St. Lo -Print Paperback format is available here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00127-6 From the Volturno to the Winter Line, 6 Oct.-15 Nov. 1943 -is available here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00197-7 To Bizerte With the II Corps (23 April - 13 May 1943) -Print Hardcover/Clothbound format can be found here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00207-8 Utah Beach to Cherbourg (6 June-27 June 1944) can be found here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00129-2 Merrill\'s Marauders (February - May 1944) -Print Paperback format can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00203-5 World War II resources collection can be found here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/us-military-history/battles-wars/world-war-ii

‘An astonishing record...There is no other wartime diary that can match the scope of these diaries’ James Holland ‘An outstanding contribution to the literature of the Second World War’Professor Gary Sheffield From the outbreak of war in September 1939 to the smouldering ruins of Berlin in 1945, via Tobruk, El Alamein, D-Day and the crossing of the Rhine, An Englishman at War is a unique first-person account of the Second World War. Stanley Christopherson’s regiment, the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, went to war as amateurs and ended up one of the most experienced, highly trained and most valued armoured units in the British Army. A junior officer at the beginning of the war, Christopherson became the commanding officer of the regiment soon after the D-Day landings. What he and his regiment witnessed presents a unique overview of one of the most cataclysmic events in world history and gives an extraordinary insight, through tragedy and triumph, into what it felt like to be part of the push for victory.