ISBN 1-86227-256-5
288 pages

New Foreword by Michael Howard; Foreword by Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery; Note; New Preface and Introduction; Preface; Introduction: The Division; photos; maps; Glossary; Index.

Appendices: Casualties, Honours, and Awards; An Address Read to a Unit of the Division; Two Critics of the 3rd Division's Performance in the battle for Caen

   In the United States, the bulk of World War II ground unit histories are written at the divisional level, and most American divisions have been the subject of one or more such histories. In the UK and its World War II Commonwealth and colonies, regimental histories prove far more common. Consequently, American and British unit histories typically take rather different forms. While US divisional histories mostly exist as straightforward chronological works following a single body of troops on a single path through the war (and usually in a single theater), British regimental histories usually move through alternating chapters describing different battalions of the same Regiment fighting in entirely different circumstances in entirely different parts of the world. Assault Division, although the story of a British unit, follows the American model of divisional history rather than the common Brit form of regimentals.
   Inconsistency is one of the hallmarks of unit histories—be they Yank or British, divisional or regimental. Some of these histories were written as serious military/academic exercises with the expectation that historians would be able to refer to them for solid, factual information about wartime actions. Others were written strictly as scrapbooks or memorabilia for the veterans themselves, without any attempt to set down a serious historical record. Fortunately for those who prefer the former approach to unit histories, Norman Scarfe has put a great deal of effort into writing a book which absolutely deserves this reprinting after almost sixty years.
   While 3rd Division was a regular unit serving in France and Belgium during 1939-1940, it spent the next four years in the UK. On 6 June 1944 it participated in the Normandy landings as one of the Allied assault divisions. Scarfe excludes the 1939-1940 campaign from his book, picking up the story of the division's training and then following the 3rd from Normandy across Northwest Europe until the end of the war. That span of time—from assault training through German surrender—also matches the author's service in the division. As he says, "In writing about a military campaign it is certainly an advantage to have taken part." Scarfe also takes advantage of first-hand accounts provided to him shortly after the war by other veterans. In addition, the author has sifted through the war diaries of the division and its subordinate formations. Along with his wartime experience and all that source material, Scarfe also adds another important ingredient to his book: few other authors of unit histories gained an education at Oxford as a professional historian. In fact, Scarfe—although he abandoned military history—went on to gain a distinguished reputation for his scholarly works of local history.
   As might be expected with so much going for him, Scarfe in 1947 produced one of the best histories of any division in any WWII army. After devoting about forty pages to following the 3rd's progress through training in Britain and setting the stage, Chapter Two opens with the assault on Sword Beach.
   Here's an excerpt (and keep in mind that the writer came ashore in the first wave with his self-propelled artillery unit, so he was a participant and witness):

   The idea was that the D-D Shermans should land just ahead of the Assault Infantry Companies and R.E. gapping teams and keep the enemy's heads down, while the Infantry went in at H-hour to finish off the enemy, enabling the gapping teams to work undisturbed at least by enemy small-arms fire. But the D-Ds had been slowed down by the heavy sea, and they all landed roughly together at 7.30. Already the front line of obstacles was awash. The tide was rising fast, flowing up over the sand' at a visible pace. And those armoured vehicles, R.E., that landed ahead of the D-D tanks and Infantry were some minutes without the close support planned. They were not likely to give that a second thought. This was the time for calm thinking and swift action. To clear the beach of those obstructions, both the inanimate and the very animate, was the job; to make haste, for the next wave of men would break and flood up across the sand in a few minutes, and succeeding waves would develop the regularity of Atlantic rollers advancing over the shore.
   These R.E. gapping and obstacle-clearing teams all succeeded in disembarking with the exception of one LOT carrying a gapping team for White Beach. After the first flail was discharged from this craft a close enemy anti-tank gun hit the second flail, which jammed on the ramp door, while a second hit caused an explosion aboard and killed Lieutenant-Colonel A. D. B. Cocks, Commander of 5 Assault Regiment, R.E., the man who was in command of all beach clearance and gapping teams.
   Our terrific barrage and bombardment " lifted " on ahead as our Infantry assaulted the beach defences : and just as the East Yorks and the South Lancs felt the relief of the solid sands under their feet, the Germans were emerging from the solid and comfortably furnished underground shelters, which seem to have given them good protection from everything but shock. Within a few minutes the enemy was applying the fire of rifle, machine-gun, mortar and field gun to Queen Beach, particularly to Red, opposite the Cod strong-point. The South Lancs on the right had severe casualties in A Company, Major Harward, the Company Commander, being mortally wounded, and one of his subalterns, Alien, killed breaching the beach wire. They sent C Company left to assist the East Yorks in the reduction of Cod, while Lieutenant R. W. Pearce, M.G., took command of A Company and directed it right towards Lion-sur-Mer. On this beach the gapping teams had opened four exits at the end of an hour, despite heavy casualties in men and tanks.
   On Red Beach C Company of the South Lancs were engaging the active Cod, when the H.Q. and remaining companies of the South Lancs landed almost on the strong-point. B Company went in to help them, and Major Harrison, their Commander, was killed immediately. So was Bell-Walker, who assumed command and led an attack on a pillbox. Battalion H.Q. moved up towards the sand-dunes near an 88-mm. position, and the Battalion Commander, Lieutenant-Colonel R. P. H. Burbury, was killed by a sniper's bullet as he directed this assault.
   The Red Beach gapping teams suffered crippling enemy fire, lost most of their tanks and were nearly all reduced to clearance by hand. Their first two exits became blocked by damaged tanks. They managed to open one gap with lateral communications after an hour and a half, and two more within the next quarter of an hour. No mines were found on the beach itself, though the exits and strips behind the dunes and beside the streets were thickly inlaid with them.
   The obstacle-clearing teams fared worse. Their work was more formidable even than they had expected ; their first discovery was that every ramp-type obstacle and a number of the stakes, steel hedgehogs and concrete tetrahedra were armed with a Tellermine or Anti-Aircraft shell with push-igniter to operate against the first craft that fouled them. The situation was aggravated by the high tide and swell. By the time the unarmoured element of the obstacle-clearing teams got ashore the seaward ramps stood in six to eight feet of water and were about to be submerged. Enemy small arms were still active and mortar-fire was coming down. Men on Red Beach were swimming in an effort to remove the mines and shells, and a number were dislodged and dropped to the bottom. Then, as more L C T ran ashore, it became impossible to work at the deep obstacles. Fortunately it had become evident that the obstacles were not preventing the discharge of craft and that some of the mines were failing to detonate.

   As can be seen from those paragraphs, Scarfe's writing emphasizes the fire and maneuver of the tactical formations of 3rd Division. Although he never omits telling details of individual accomplishments and casualties, they never overwhelm his narrative. This is the history of a unit, but it's a unit whose battles are the sum of the activities of many soldiers, and while Scarfe follows the division he always includes the men. Furthermore, when he writes lines about details such as the tide rising over the sand at a visible pace, he does so from first-hand experience on the scene.
   After D-Day the 3rd Division continued to fight in Normandy, advanced into the Netherlands, spent the winter of 1944-1945 on the Maas River, took part in the Rhineland offensive, and pushed to Bremen for the war's end. All of the division's campaigns are told in informative and lively manner.
   The new edition is mostly unchanged from the original. A couple of pages (the "Divisional Memorials" appendix) have been removed, and some new material added, but the vast majority of the text reads and looks exactly as in the original edition, including some rather unusual and old-fashioned spacing and punctuation. (The new edition seems to have been reproduced directly from a used copy of the original, including someone's faint underlining in at least one place. Footnotes in the new edition also occasionally refer readers to maps at the front and back endpapers, but both of those have disappeared.) As to the new material, Michael Howard adds the "New Foreword" while Scarfe himself, still kicking, contributes six fresh pages of "New Preface and Introduction." In place of the deleted appendix, Scarfe writes two new pages regarding criticism of 3rd Division's performance in Normandy. Despite his advanced age, the author stingingly rebukes "ill-informed journalists" who followed Chester Wilmot's inaccurate assessment of the 3rd's failure to capture Caen on 6 June. He points out that the loss of 9th Brigade's commanding officer and a consequent change in plan by Crocker of I Corps ended all hope of taking Caen on D-Day, not some perceived slowness of 3rd Division's infantry. Scarfe also rates Decision in Normandy by Carlo D'Este (incidentally quite critical of Montgomery) as "...the first serious description of the whole Normandy campaign which revealed a true understanding of the 3rd Division's actions on that day."
   The original 1947 edition of this excellent book having been long out of print and difficult to acquire (and running US$100 or more on the secondhand market), it's a pleasure to see Assault Division available again. This is an exemplary work, and one we wish more divisional historians had emulated, although of course there weren't too many others trained in History at Oxford.
   Recommended.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from the publisher and its US distributor, Casemate.
   Thanks to Casemate for providing this review copy.