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.

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