Monty S Highlanders

The 51st Highland Division was the most famous infantry division that fought with the British Army in WW2. It was the only infantry division in the armies of the British Empire that accompanied Monty from during Alamein to BerlinAfter the 1940 disaster at St Valry when many were killed or captured, the re-formed 51st were a superlative division, brilliantly inspired and led. The Highway Decorators (after their famous HD cypher) fought with consummate success through North Africa and Tunisia and from Normandy into the heart of Germany. Blooded at Alamein where they suffered over 2000 casualties they pursued the Afrika Korps via Tripoli and Tunis fighting fierce battles along the way. They lost 1,500 men helping to liberate Sicily. Back to the UK for the second front, the Highlanders battled their way through Normandy bocage, the break-out to the Seine, triumphal re-occupation of St Valry, and were the first troops to cross the Rhine, fighting on to Bremen and Bremerhaven. In the eleven months fighting in NW Europe in 1944 and 1945 the Highlanders suffered more than 9000 casualties.

The 51st Highland Division was the most famous infantry division that fought with the British Army in WW2. It was the only infantry division in the armies of the British Empire that accompanied Monty from during Alamein to Berlin After the 1940 disaster at St Valery when many were killed or captured, the re-formed 51st were a superlative division, brilliantly inspired and led. The 'Highway Decorators' (after their famous HD cypher) fought with consummate success through North Africa and Tunisia and from Normandy into the heart of Germany. Blooded at Alamein - where they suffered over 2000 casualties - they pursued the Afrika Korps via Tripoli and Tunis fighting fierce battles along the way. They lost 1,500 men helping to liberate Sicily. Back to the UK for the second front, the Highlanders battled their way through Normandy bocage, the break-out to the Seine, triumphal re-occupation of St Valery, and were the first troops to cross the Rhine, fighting on to Bremen and Bremerhaven. In the eleven months fighting in NW Europe in 1944 and 1945 the Highlanders suffered more than 9000 casualties.

The Scottish soldier has been at war for over 2000 years. Until now, no reference work has attempted to examine this vast heritage of warfare.A Military History of Scotland offers readers an unparalleled insight into the evolution of the Scottish military tradition. This wide-ranging and extensively illustrated volume traces the military history of Scotland from pre-history to the recent conflict in Afghanistan. Edited by three leading military historians, and featuring contributions from thirty scholars, it explores the role of warfare in the emergence of a Scottish kingdom, the forging of a Scottish-British military identity, and the participation of Scots in Britain's imperial and world wars. Eschewing a narrow definition of military history, it investigates the cultural and physical dimensions of Scotland's military past such as Scottish military dress and music, the role of the Scottish soldier in art and literature, Scotland's fortifications and battlefield archaeology, and Scotland's military memorials and museum collections.

Using a combination of new perspectives and new evidence, this book presents a reinterpretation of how 21st Army Group produced a successful combined arms doctrine by late 1944 and implemented this in early 1945. Historians, professional military personnel and those interested in military history should read this book, which contributes to the radical reappraisal of Great Britain’s fighting forces in the last years of the Second World War, with an exploration of the reasons why 21st Army Group was able in 1944–45 to integrate the operations of its armor and infantry. The key to understanding how the outcome developed lies in understanding the ways in which the two processes of fighting and the creation of doctrine interrelated. This requires both a conventional focus on command and a cross-level study of Montgomery and a significant group of commanders. The issue of whether or not this integration of combat arms (a guide to operational fighting capability) had any basis in a common doctrine is an important one. Alongside this stands the new light this work throws on how such doctrine was created. A third interrelated contribution is in answering how Montgomery commanded, and whether and to what extent, doctrine was imposed or generated. Further it investigates how a group of ‘effervescent’ commanders interrelated, and what the impact of those interrelationships was in the formulation of a workable doctrine. The book makes an original contribution to the debate on Montgomery’s command style in Northwest Europe and its consequences, and integrates this with tracking down and disentangling the roots of his ideas, and his role in the creation of doctrine for the British Army’s final push against the Germans. In particular the author is able to do something that has defeated previous authors: to explain how doctrine was evolved and, especially who was responsible for providing the crucial first drafts, and the role Montgomery played in revising, codifying and disseminating it.

The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders is one of the best-known regiments in the British Army. In a previous incarnation as the 93rd Highlanders, its soldiers were famed for being the 'thin red line' that repulsed the Russian heavy cavalry at the Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War. When the regiment was ordered to disband in 1968 as part of wide-ranging defence cuts, a popular 'Save the Argylls' campaign was successful in keeping the regiment in being. In 2006, it became the 5th battalion of the new Royal Regiment of Scotland. Formed by two earlier regiments, The Argylls have a stirring history of service to the British Crown. They served all over the empire, taking part in the Indian Mutiny and the Boer War, and fought in both World Wars. In the post-war period the Argylls captured the public imagination in 1967 when they reoccupied the Crater district of Aden following a period of riots. Recruiting mainly from the west of Scotland, the regiment has a unique character and throughout its history has retained a fierce regimental pride which is summed up by its motto: 'sans peur', meaning 'without fear'. The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders puts its story into the context of British military history and makes use of personal testimony to reveal the life of the regiment.

This is the second volume, but the last to be published of a trilogy - the other volumes being Smashing the Atlantic Wall and The Battle of the Bulge. Monty's Rhine Adventure begins immediately after the Normandy invasion with the euphoria surrounding the belief that the war would soon be won. However, it was not to be as easy Monty hoped. The book covers the difficult next few months as the Allies slogged through France and Belgium fighting stern and skilled Nazi resistance. However, the centrepiece of Monty's Rhine Adventure is Operation Market garden - Monty's bold plan to cut through the German defences via the eight bridges which spanned the Dutch/German border. The book deals with the plan, its execution and its aftermath in rigorous detail. Had Market Garden gone to plan, it might have led to the overall defeat of the Third Reich before the end of 1944. As it was, it was the Russians that entered Berlin first in May 1945. Nonetheless, this period remains one of the boldest and most exciting of the Second World War.

The official account of the Royal Artillery's activities in the Normandy campaign, this volume breaks down the historic achievements of the Regiment, integrating newly published research with a detailed account of their activities, logistics and equipment in the offensive. Gunners in Normandy includes mention of every regiment that served, a Roll of Honour, and a list of the dead by unit. This book presents the definitive record of events, assembled from interviews with veterans, papers and documents from the Firepower Archives, terrain studies, personal memoirs, war diaries and other official documents. Serious students of the battle for Normandy should find this essential reading, with comprehensive coverage of the role of the Royal Artillery, and much material not published anywhere else, including orders of battle, the details of targets engaged by the guns and their effectiveness.

An unforgettable memoir of fighting with the renowned Scottish infantry regiment during World War II. “The real stuff of history . . . a classic.” —Trevor Royle, author of Facing the Bear When Ray Ward died in 1999, his sons discovered an old and dusty manuscript in an Afrika Korps ammunition box in the cellar of the family home in Glasgow. These papers contained a collection of their father’s memoirs, which detailed his experiences as an infantry officer during the Second World War, when he served in the 1st Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. His memoirs give vivid accounts of Ray Ward’s time in Eritrea, Abyssinia, Egypt, the Western Desert, Sicily and mainland Italy, and bring to life individual episodes of bravery, adventure and danger that characterized the North African and Italian Campaign.