WWII British Army D-Day 48th Midland Div Binoculars Field Glasses 'WPA Bradshaw'

Description

WWII British Army D-Day 48th South Midland Division Binoculars Field Glasses 'WPA Bradshaw'
Original
WWII British Army D-Day 48th South Midland Division Binoculars Field Glasses attributed to General 'WPA Bradshaw',  WWII Issue FRANK-NIPOLE Coated Optics No. 70872 Charles Frank 8X30 Field 75* and Engraved to the Front: 48th (South Midland) Division Operation Overlord W.P.A. Bradshaw, Major General William Pat Arthur Bradshaw was the General Officer Commanding The 48th South Midland Division during the D-Day Invasion Operation Overlord and Battle of Normandy (see further information below)
Good
Issued Condition as Photographed; from the large estate collection of a very prominent optics collector from Gettysburg PA -
Recent Estate Acquisition & Presented as Acquired, Rare (this estate collection contained some of the scarcest optics of WWII)
Major-General William Pat Arthur Bradshaw CB DSO (8 March 1897 − 9 April 1966) was a British Army officer.
Biography
Educated at Eton College and Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Bradshaw was commissioned into the Scots Guards in 1914. He was deployed to France and was mentioned in dispatches and appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order in 1917.
After serving as ADC to the Viceroy of India, Bradshaw became commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards in 1935 and commander of the Scots Guards Regiment and Regimental District in 1938.
He became commander of 4th (London) Infantry Brigade, which was later renamed the 140th (London) Infantry Brigade, in August 1939. He went on to be commander of commander of 24th Independent Brigade in November 1941, General Officer Commanding 59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division in April 1942 and General Officer Commanding 48th (South Midland) Division in March 1944 before retiring in May 1946.
48th Division
On the outbreak of the Second World War, the 48th Division was mobilised in early September 1939, under the command of Major General Frank Roberts, who had won the Victoria Cross (VC) in the Great War. After spending a few months in England training the division, now commanded by Major General Sir Andrew Thorne after Roberts' retirement in December, landed in France in early January 1940 and became part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), the first complete division of the TA to do so. The division came under command of Lieutenant General Sir John Dill's I Corps. Soon after their arrival, the 48th Division exchanged some of its units with the Regular divisions. For example, in the 143rd Brigade, the 5th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment was exchanged with the 1st Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, a Regular Army unit, and transferred to the 11th Infantry Brigade, of the 4th Infantry Division. This was official policy within the BEF and was, in theory, intended to strengthen the inexperienced Territorial divisions with experienced Regulars.
France and Dunkirk
When the Germans invaded France and the Low Countries on 10 May 1940, the BEF moved forward to occupy pre-planned positions in Belgium, but the rapid German breakthrough into France caused it to retreat towards Dunkirk.
On 23 May, 48th Division was pulled out to form a new defence line along the canal between Saint-Omer and the coast. The divisional Commander, Royal Artillery, Brigadier Edward Lawson, was sent with 'X Force' of artillery, machine guns and infantry ahead of the division to occupy the chosen positions.[30] However, the unexpected surrender of Belgian forces on 27 May 1940 led to a gap appearing between 48th Division in action around Saint-Omer and the coast at Nieuwpoort. Until II Corps could arrive to plug this gap, Lawson was responsible for what the Official History calls 'the most dangerously exposed part of the bridgehead'.[31] He was ordered by the commander of the Dunkirk perimeter, the III Corps commander Lieutenant-General Ronald Adam, to improvise a defence line along the canal and prevent the Germans breaking through to the vital beaches east of Dunkirk where much of the BEF was waiting to be evacuated. At 11.00 on 28 May, advanced German troops reached the canal line, but Lawson seized on the Territorial gunners of the 53rd (London) Medium Regiment, RA who were marching towards Dunkirk having fired off all their ammunition and destroyed their guns. Together with detachments of Regular gunners from both the 2nd Medium and 1st Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiments, and sappers from 7th Field Company, Royal Engineers, they fought as infantry to hold the line. They came under heavy mortar and machine gun fire, and the Germans seized a bridgehead at Nieuwpoort, but all subsequent attacks that day were repulsed. Brigadier Lawson's scratch force was relieved next day and then evacuated to Britain.
48th (South Midland) Infantry Division (1939–40)
Home defence and training
The 48th Division, much depleted in numbers, completed its return to the United Kingdom on 1 June. The division, commanded from 18 June by Major General Roderic Petre, was subsequently posted to Western Command, Southern Command, and VIII Corps under Lieutenant General Harold Franklyn and began training in preparation to repel Operation Sea Lion, the German invasion of England, which proved abortive.
During the war, the divisions of the British Army were divided between "Higher Establishment" and "Lower Establishment" formations. The former were intended for deployment overseas for field operations, whereas the latter were strictly for home defence in a static role. During November 1941, the division was placed on the "Lower Establishment" and assigned to I Corps District, commanded by Lieutenant General Henry Willcox.
During the winter of 1942–43, the British Army overhauled its training of recruits. The 48th was one of three divisions that were changed from "Lower Establishment" units to "Reserve Divisions". On 20 December, the division was renamed the 48th Infantry (Reserve) Division, becoming a training formation in the process. This reorganisation took place during 1943 and the division held this training role for the remainder of the war. These three divisions were supplemented by a fourth training formation (the 80th Infantry (Reserve) Division), which was raised on 1 January 1943. The 48th Infantry (Reserve) Division was assigned to Northern Command[44] Soldiers who had completed their corps training were sent to these training divisions.  The soldiers were given five weeks of additional training at the section, platoon and company level, before undertaking a final three-day exercise. Troops would then be ready to be sent overseas to join other formations.[46] Training was handled in this manner to relieve the "Higher Establishment" divisions from being milked for replacements for other units and to allow them to intensively train without having to cope with recruits.[44] During this period, from 17 October 1942 until 30 September 1943, the 10th Tank Brigade was assigned to the division for the holding and training of reinforcements to armoured units. On 7 November 1943, the 145th Infantry Brigade was disbanded.
On 30 June 1944, the 48th Infantry (Reserve) Division, along with the other training divisions (the 76th, 77th, and the 80th), had a combined total of 22,355 men. Of this number, only 1,100 were immediately available as replacements for the 21st Army Group, at the time of Operation Overlord and the Battle of Normandy. The remaining 21,255 men were considered ineligible for service abroad due to a variety of reasons, ranging from medical, not being considered fully fit or insufficiently trained. Over the following six months, up to 75 per cent of these men were deployed to reinforce the 21st Army Group, following the completion of their training and having met the required fitness levels. In 2007, Stephen Hart wrote that, by September, the 21st Army Group "had bled Home Forces dry of draftable riflemen", due to the losses suffered in the Battle of Normandy, leaving the army in Britain (with the exception of the 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division) with just "young lads, old men and the unfit".
Due to the decreased need for such a formation, the division was disbanded after the war on 1 November 1945.(wiki)
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