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predecessors were killed by a shell. At this time the R.S.M. was sent to B Echelon and encouraged by the 2 i/c, astonished French peasants and alien Quartermasters by drill, P.T. and regular hours. Our reinforcements varied in quality, but were universally non-Green Howards.

On 27 June the Bn. did a diversionary attack on the LA TAILLE area, while 8th CORPS started an offensive further East. Our attack achieved most of its objectives despite heavy shell fire from enemy big guns. As I was wounded during this action I cannot give details or say whether it achieved its object or not; but for the second day in a week it earned the Bn. the congratulations of the Corps Commander.

The Germans met during the last fortnight had been quite different to those of the Coastal Divisions. They come mainly from 12 S.S. Panzer Division and the Panzer Lehr Division. They were, on the whole, young men brought up as Nazis, who were prepared to die rather than surrender. They had been told that we would shoot them if they were captured. It was those determined fighters, aided by bad weather and remarkably close country, who helped the German Higher Command once again out of a difficult situation largely of their own making. Whatever mistakes were made by German generals, the individual German behind a hedge with a spandau was a difficult man to dislodge.

The Bn. had little contact with the French. We saw the devastation of villages and the slaughter of livestock. In those circumstances you could not expect the peasant-owner of land to welcome us. We did not stop in BAYEUX where I believe the inhabitants turned out to give our soldiers a great welcome. There was no evidence that Frenchmen were actively unfriendly to the Bn. At AUDRIEUX they came and gave us the information about the approach of a German patrol. The chatelaine and cure - and those two still had a great influence in the villages - here told us in perfect English of the shooting of Canadian prisoners and gave information about German numbers and dispositions. On D Day the forming up for our evening attack was held up by several girls trying to fill the soldiers with cider. The owner of the chateau where we spent the night during our 36 hours rest, was civil, but let us understand that he had not regarded the Germans as conquerors and that they had always been "tres correctes". In several places there were unfriendly looks. Some cases of looting, not by troops of the Bn., did not help our cause. On the whole the French were less helpful and less friendly, though cleaner, than the Sicilians who met the Bn. last July.

The Bn's casualties for three weeks were about 26 officers and 300 men. There was a high proportion of Sjts. and Cpls. among the killed. Of the total casualties very few were missing and the number of prisoners of war from the Bn. must have been small - an indication of how well the men of the Bn. fought. Replacements for these casualties were mainly from other divisions and regiments. It was rare for a Yorkshireman to join the Bn. This made it very much harder to assimilate new men. While it was obviously impossible to arrange for Green Howards reinforcements throughout, the value to morale of the territorial connection and of regimental spirit is so great that it is to be hoped that the army will be so organized in future that those, who regard men as numbers of nameless bodies concealed in large files, will give way to those who have actual experience of troops and know that men are individuals, working, much better with people from their own country. It was not altogether a coincidence that C.S.M. Hollis who was awarded the V.C. came from Middlesbrough, the home of the Bn.