Monty’s Highlanders

Description

Monty’s Highlanders 51st Highland Division in the Second World War

After the 1940 disaster at St Valery when many were killed or captured, the re-formed 51st became a superlative division, brilliantly inspired and led. ‘The Highway Decorators’ (as they were known after their famous HD cypher) fought with consummate skill and courage through North Africa and Tunisia and from Normandy into the heart of Germany. Blooded at El Alamein, where they suffered over 2,000 casualties, they pursued the Afrika Korps to Tunis via Tripoli and fought fierce battles at Homs, Medenine, Mareth line, Wadi Akarit and Enfidaville. They lost 1,500 men helping to liberate Sicily and there they parted from their beloved Lang Tam, Major General D N Wimberley, who had trained and led them so well for so long. Sent back to England in time for the second front, the Division battled its way through the Normandy bocage, then the break-out to the Seine, triumphal re-occupation of St Valery and the taking of Le Havre. On they went through Holland, then the Ardennes and the Reichswald and they were the first troops to cross the Rhine, fighting on to Bremen and Bremerhaven. In the eleven months’fighting in 1944 and 1945 the Highlanders suffered more than 9,000 casualties.

Patrick Delaforce has written a history worthy of this outstanding Division and its immoral achievements.