Lieutenant-Colonel G.H. Bolster
&
Lieutenant-Colonel J.H. Orgill
1st Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment

The five years of war were for Geoffrey a period of unceasing labour, almost always in highly responsible and exacting staff appointments … There, at his urgent request, he was allowed to step down in rank to lieutenant-colonel so that he might command a battalion. After two months in the line with his new command, a battalion of The South Lancashire Regiment, he was mortally wounded while visiting his forward posts

(Quoted in The Iron Duke, Feb 1945, 50)

The high rate of officer causalities in the Normandy campaign resulted in a shortage of battalion commanders in the British Army. To find replacements, 21st Army Group headquarters often relied on older qualified senior officers previously stationed in the United Kingdom. When Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Burbury of the was killed on D-Day and second-in-command Major J.E.S. Stone was wounded at the end of June, the South Lancashire Regiment needed a new commanding officer.

On 29 June 1944, Brigadier Geoffrey Hadden Bolster reverted in rank to join the Souths Lancs in France. Born on 6 March 1902 County Cork, Ireland, he attended Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was commissioned with the Northumberland Fusiliers in 1921. He completed staff college and acted a brigade major in Egypt and Palestine before the war. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1941, and commanded a Duke of Wellington’s Regiment battalion for about one year. In November 1943, he was made acting brigadier and appointed to the general staff of Southern Command.

With the South Lances in need of a CO, Bolster requested a reduction in rank to lieutenant-colonel. He commanded the battalion for under one month. He was shot in the neck by a sniper on 22 July and died two days later. His replacement was another older senior officer who had held a higher command in England.

Born on 26 November 1900 in Staffordshire, John Henry Orgill was a commissioned officer with the Manchester Regiment since 1919. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1940 and commanded the 1st Battalion, Manchester Regiment from June to August 1942. He then took up an appointment with the South Eastern Command in the United Kingdom. He joined the 1st South Lancs in France two days after Bolster’s death. 

Although well-regarded by many of the troops, Orgill proved less capable in the opinion of brigade headquarters. Captain Eddie Jones recalled that in mid-October, Brigadier E.E.E. Cass pulled Orgill aside:

I was not privileged to hear what was said, but when the Brigadier had left the CO intimated to me that he would be ‘piping down in the future and leaving things to Major Waller,’ and he left for England the same evening … I can only assume that the battalion’s rate of progress had not been to the satisfaction of the Brigadier and he had made the change of command. We were sorry to see Lt-Col Orgill go. He was a gentleman and had concern for his men.

(Quoted in Tony Colvin, The Noise of Battle, 440)

Second-in-command Major W. A. Waller, formerly of the Duke of Wellington Regiment, took over the 1st South Lancs.

In May 1946, Orgill took command of the 2nd Battalion, The Manchester Regiment in India. Having reached the army’s age limit in 1955, he retired as an honorary colonel. He died Cawston, Norfolk on 2 June 1975.