7th Armoured Brigade Box 13 June 1944.

Good Evening. This is my first post so let me introduce myself. My name is Nick Grace and I am trying to research into the 1/5th Queens West Surrey Regiment in the Normandy campaign. I am trying to find more information about when the 7th Armoured Division formed the Brigade Box West of Villers Bocage. I have the unit war dairy for the 1/5th for 1944 but was wondering if anyone knows of any good sources for this battle? It would also be wonderful if anyone knows of any good maps with the positions on.
Thank you all.

 

Daglish was working on this when he died. Perhaps it may surface one day. You wouldn't happen to have 1/7th Queens entries for June 13th?

 

The George Forty book Villers-Bocage in the Battlezone Normandy series has a pretty good map of the box. I believe it's derived from what's in the Div's report on the battle - a document that is conspicuously absent from the Bde/Div war diaries. It seems that Forty had access to a personal copy which didn't make it into the Bovington library.

Daniel Taylor's Villers-Bocage Through the Lens has a brief chapter on the box. The accompanying map has the units in pretty much the correct relative positions but the box is too far west.

 

Thank you for your replies. Sadly I have not copied the 1/7th war diary but when I do I will let you know. It is a good start and I will look at those so thank you.

 

I am working on the Gunner side of this story, editing the work carried out by the Late Will Townend. I know where the gunners were.

 

Well any information is of help and good luck with the work.

 

Nick

Attached may be of help from WO 171/619 War diary 22 Armoured brigade June 1944

If you purchase a map of the time ie 1:50000 Aunay sur Odon and surrounding maps (Battlefield historian has them on line) then you can pinpoint coordinates in the report on map.
VB is in corner of map so you may need more than one, or check if there is a 1:25000 more suitable
Sorry for fuzzy images.

Cheers

 

You can find it online on the BL website mislabeled "St. Pierre-sur-Dives"
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/maps/europe/4998624u7fu3u1943.html

Or you can use the the 1:100,000 map on the BL online website.

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/maps/europe/zoomify138874.html

 

Ah Brilliant that is very helpful. Thank you very much.

 

Above is a preview. The link below gets you to the 4500 x 35000 3mb large version

http://imageshack.com/a/img163/4848/9p23.jpg

 

Thank you.

 

The Villers area on the Anauy Map




Link for a 3 mb version

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/1084/onro.jpg

 

Perfect thank you.

 

I would like to thank you all for your help. With the items linked to me and the various books I have looked at and a few War Diaries I am sure I can now find the locations of the 1/5th Queens during the battle accurately.

 

Air view from 1947




Tracy Bocage is R/H bottom. The road N/W leads to St Germain and then due west through the 'X' crossroads is the road to Amaye


Direct links to large 2mb air views

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/812/txca.jpg



http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/716/1cfn.jpg

 

Oh thank you.

 

I think I used the wrong links above so just in case here are the big photos again...



http://imageshack.com/a/img812/9945/txca.jpg


http://imageshack.com/a/img716/8531/1cfn.jpg

When you click on the link the first image you see (1191 x 913) is not the biggest. Click on that photo and then you then get the largest size of 3500 x 2800

 

Here is the area in a photo taken June 24th.




and again a link for a large 3500 x 3200 image on the second click


http://imageshack.com/a/img849/8701/oqyv.jpg

 

Not sure if this helps. From History of the Queen's Royal Regiment by Foster