Military Training in the British Army, 1940-1944: From Dunkirk to D-day (Military History & Policy S.)
Timothy Harrison Place

Between 1940 and 1944, although large numbers of British troops battled around the littorals of the Mediterranean and Burma, most of the British Army bided its time at home. Between Dunkirk and D-Day, those troops lived in a grey area, neither fully at peace nor properly at war.While they trained under virtually peacetime conditions, their colleagues overseas were gaining up-to-date battle experience. The lessons from that experience should have made the troops who crossed the Channel in summer 1944 the most thoroughly prepared soldiers ever to go into their first battle. Sadly, the results in Normandy confounded any such expectations, as in battle after battle the combat effectiveness of British troops, particularly infantry and armour, proved weak.Timothy Harrison Place traces the reasons for the British Army's tactical weakness in Normany to flaws in its training in Britain.This book paints a picture of an untried British Army working hard to learn its trade. Oblivious to the fact that it was always one step behind the enemy, this was an army cruelly let down by poor direction from the top.

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http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...177295-7579634

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