British Band Of Brothers: Disaster At Berjou (Part 8)

**James Holland** (0:09)
Lieutenant F. Galvin, C Squadron, Sherwood Rangers, BLA, 15th of the 8th, 44th. My darling June, thanks dear for the really grand letter I received last night. You were in a really chatty mood when you wrote it, darling, and you seemed nice and happy. I'm afraid that my letters may be really poor just now, for I'm really busy at the time of writing, dear. But I guess as long as you get a note telling you I love you dear, you won't grumble. If and when we get a quiet spell again, you can be sure that I will settle down to write real letters again.
You talk about having photos taken dear. Well, yesterday I had it taken again in my tank, a more or less rear view with some PBI near me. So you may see it, darling. You ask which is my favorite photo. Well, dear, I haven't really got a favorite, for I love them all.
Well, dear, I have to close now. Excuse scrappiness of this letter. So cheerio. All my love as always. Lots of love and kisses.
That was a letter by Lieutenant Frank Galvin written on the 15th of August, 1944, the day before he goes into action on Operation Blackwater, which we flagged up at the end of our last episode.

**Al Murray** (1:23)
Yes. Welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with Al Murray and James Holland for episode 2.4 or 8 of our Band Of Brothers series.

**James Holland** (1:32)
Episode 32 of our story of the Sherwood Rangers. They finally got to Hamburg.

**Al Murray** (1:40)
Yes. So about the Noir-O, Operation Blackwater, the Noir-O. In the last episode, we looked at Operation Bluecoat, which was the strawberry jam in the Allies strategic Victoria sponge and cream.

**James Holland** (1:53)
So I just felt that just jam on its own wasn't quite enough. It sort of underplayed the importance of the British window.
Yes. But do you do cream or jam first?

**Al Murray** (2:02)
8 quarts of the cream. There we go, right? It all works out. That essentially these are the series of colossal cracks on the German line, which have caused the German line to fall apart. And this means that in France, the broader picture is General Patton's third army. He is now in Brittany. He has arrived after being on the bench, basically.
He's arrived. He's now broken out into Brittany. And it does this incredible breakout. There are no Germans there, but he does an incredible...

**James Holland** (2:33)
That was Sadie and Marv Patton.

**Al Murray** (2:40)
If you like arrows on maps, he's doing extremely well. The actual issue for the German series, they are a great risk of great danger being encircled.
They've been pushed into Southern Normandy. They're under tremendous pressure from all angles.

**James Holland** (2:54)
So what do you do? You're on a counterattack.

**Al Murray** (2:57)
Hang on a minute. Did you just suggest one of the stupidest things anyone could possibly suggest in all of military history?

**James Holland** (3:03)
Let's hear this idea. All right, of course.

**Al Murray** (3:04)
Oh, there we go. Fair enough.

**James Holland** (3:06)
He's the greatest commander ever.

**Al Murray** (3:07)
He's the greatest commander. He's struck by genius here. And he orders a thing called Operation Lutich, Liege.
And that's the idea of a western facing counterpunch Yes. towards Avranche.

**James Holland** (3:18)
That will happen as we'll split them in two and they'll be divided and that'll be the end of the war and we'll win.

**Al Murray** (3:23)
And you will win.

**James Holland** (3:24)
Oh, by the way, it's going to be a thousand fighter planes.

**Al Murray** (3:26)
And a thousand fighter planes. And my fear, what will we do with this? How are we going to do this? You'll use all of your reserves.

**James Holland** (3:32)
Sheer German will do it.

**Al Murray** (3:34)
And so on. And the problem with this, of course, is that Hitler's conception of the forces at his disposal is always basically, it's back of, and he doesn't smoke. It's back of a vegetarian sausage package.
Calculation.
He's got out his Linda Mccartney sausage pack and he's written the calculations on them. He, when he sees a division on his inventory, he thinks it's in full bloom, right? But blue coat has resulted in the destruction of second and 21st Panzer divisions. So whatever he might be planning, whatever armies he might have up his sleeve is, so to speak, right? They're not what he thinks they are.

**James Holland** (4:15)
There's a difference between paper and reality.

**Al Murray** (4:17)
Precisely. And also the Allies have got their own momentum, their own plan. So hot on the heels of blue coat, you have Total Eyes, which is the Canadians' similar, like hammer blow on to the German.