Action Rear: The 2nd Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment - D-Day & Normandy Campaign

One of the oldest county regiments in the United Kingdom, The Royal Warwickshire Regiment has served the crown around the world since 1674. During the Second World War, the 2nd Battalion was integral to the greatest invasion in modern military history, the D-Day landings on 6th June 1944.

Landing in the Sword Area, Queen White Beach, they fought in land, relieving the beleaguered airborne troops at the River Orne Bridges, before the ill-fated advance on Caen and the horrors and heroism of close fighting around Lebisey Wood.

The Battalion faced SS, Panzer & Elite Airborne forces as they held their ground and forced the passage to Caen in Operation Charnwood and Operation Goodwood and beyond as they advanced across the Seine before leaving France in September 1944.

This latest work includes previously unpublished letters and accounts from the men who were there, the men who fought and died on the sand and soil of Normandy in 1944. Personal diaries, photograph albums have been made available by the families of the men who served to produce this unique work of remembrance and thanks to all men of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, especially those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom.

The author's great uncle, Corporal Charles Tweed, landed with C Company, 2nd Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment on 6th June, and served in Normandy until being killed during the fighting around Caen on 19th July 1944.