Having met the author on his battlefield tours - Gary Weight has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Normandy campaign and the units involved - I eagerly awaited this book and it did not disappoint from the view of a wargamer and modeller with an interest in the NW European campaign.

The number of photos of personnel and the detail on personnel, training, locations in the UK and overseas, and movements will appeal in particular to relatives of veterans wishing to follow the paths of their families.

It is long (498 pages), well indexed, and concentrates absolutely on the 2nd Battalion the Lincolnshire Regiment, including only where necessary the minimum of background on the wider operations the unit took part in. Given the very large number of more or less general books, especially on the Normandy Campaign, this focus is welcome, as is the use only of photographs that are specific to the unit.

There are two 'prelude' sections on the history of the Lincolnshire Regiment (1685-1857 and 1857-1939), then 14 chapters on the 2nd Lincs part in:

Entering France with the BEF;

the Blitzkrieg in Flanders;

the Dunkirk evacuation;

Two on rebuilding, training and preparation in the UK;

Normandy 1 June-6 July (covering the landings and operations inland from Sword beach);

Normandy 6 July- 11 July (covering Operation Charnwood)s

Normandy 12 July - 31 July (Covering operation Goodwood);

the battle of Pont-de-Vaudrey;

crossing the Escaut Canal;

The Battle of Overloon and Venray;

fighting in the Maas Salient;

Into Germany and Operation Heather; and

Crossing he Rhine until the German surrender.

An Epilogue contains a selection of photos of personnel taken immediately after the war, the Roll of Honour, and seven appendices cover Awards and Citations, a note on assault river crossings, background on two particular individuals, the War Establishment (organisation) of a British Infantry Battalion at various stages throughout the War, and the order of Battle (names where known of key personnel and their roles in the battalion command structure).

Overall the book strikes the right balance between business-like but sympathetic coverage of the Battalion and their actions, and helps redress the balance of the majority of books on the big operations and armoured warfare. It really brings home the unrelenting grind of day-to-day infantry work, punctuated by short but bloody battalion level attacks.

Appropriate weight is given to the various sections, with the emphasis on the key battalion level engagements. It is not padded out with an overview of the campaigns and is mercifully free of generalisations about the strategic arguments around the Normandy fighting and the capabilities of various German weapons.

The (30!) maps deserve special mention and are an object lesson in how to present maps in books of this genre. There are wide overviews of movements, the theatre and annotated contemporary maps but the jewels are, firstly, the annotated and faintly colourised contemporary air recon photos of the areas of detailed actions and, secondly, and presumably where suitable photos were not available, original maps by the author that bring out every detail referred to in the text.