Fifty members of the Regiment enjoyed this year’s Battlefield Study to Normandy last week, including 41 serving personnel from the Vikings and the Poachers.
The group stayed in Bayeux, and looked at the early days of the Battle for Normandy from the landings on D-Day, the 6 Airborne Div operation, and specific actions by our forebear regiments at Hillman (1 Suffolks), Essex Wood (2 Essex), Herouville St Clair (2 Lincolns), and Grimbosq (7 R Norfolks).
Complemented by actual radio broadcasts and film footage obtained from the BBC archives our guide, Major Mike Peters Deputy Regimental Secretary, did an outstanding job of bringing the campaign to life. Ably assisted by Brigadier Tony Calder and Captain Peter Black recounting the stories of our heroic forebears, there was also a much greater degree of syndicate discussion than in previous years allowing the soldiers of today to compare the doctrine, SOPs, and weapon systems of today with those of 1944.
The 2023 Regimental Battlefield Study will take place in Holland and Germany as we study the final months of WWII through the winter of 1944 and the spring of 1945 following in the footsteps of our County regiments.
