I’m writing this fresh from Normandy, where I attended a street-naming ceremony for the Sherwood Rangers, a British armored regiment that had gone to war on horseback — posted to Palestine in early 1940 — been mechanized two years later, and, by May 1945, had accrued more battle honors than any other single unit in the British Army. They landed on Gold Beach on D-Day, supporting the infantry of the 231st “Malta” Brigade, part of the first wave. I’ve done a lot of research on the Sherwood Rangers, who, with their Sherman tanks, were a fabulous bunch of misfits, eccentrics, charmers and larger-than-life characters.
Many people might think there’s little left to write about D-Day, but that is far from the case. Debates still rage, for example, about who exactly landed where and when on Gold Beach, to the east of Omaha, in the British sector. One can read half a dozen accounts and each one will tell you a different story. My challenge has been to try to unravel what really happened once and for all on the western half of Gold Beach — codenamed “Jig” sector.
