Compiled by Tom Anderton Ex/Sgt. 4th Lincolns "D" Coy., 18 platoon, later HQ Coy.(Education). Sub-Editor, and 'Touchline Tommy' of THE LINCOLN IMP.

Many battalions in N.W.Europe 1944/45 had an historian, official or otherwise. To make good this deficiency in the 4th Lincolns, even at this late date, I have put this folio together in the hope that it may suffice. Let it also stand as a memorial to the many friends, who, with their crosses marked the way we went. Let it too, commemorate the comradeship of those times, thankfully carried over into the present age. Life was a fragile element, held by a gossamer thread; and a shallow grave was more probable than possible. For those who found this shallow grave, no better epitaph exists than these lines by A. E. Housman:-

Here dead we lie because we did not choose.

To live and shame the land from which we sprung.

Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;

But young men think it is, and we were young.

Preface

The Fighting 49th

Potted history of the 'Imps'

The story of Goirle

Formations in the 49th

Advance towards Breda

Arnhem: Just over the river

The Normandy Poem

The Early Days

Episode of mines

Birth of the 'Butcher Bears'

The Battalion that Failed

The Scottish Corridor

Saturation Bombing

A Stabilised Front

The Long Left Flank begins (Missing Page)

Le Havre - Operation 'Astonia' (Missing Page)

Antwerp-Turnhout Canal and the Northern Front

Watch and Wait

The Farm at Groenewoud

Random Ramblings of an Un-Military Mind (Missing Page)

Submarines on the Waal

Arnhem and Beyond

Honours and Awards

Military Organisation

Epilogue (Missing Page)

Remember the Date

British Infantry Divisions

Memories