IN the first week of September 1944, the British Liberation Army burst out of the Normandy bloodbath where over 7,000 casualties – Germans, British, Americans and Canadians – occurred on average each day.

More than 20 million wildly enthusiastic French, Belgians and Dutch greeted their liberators with champagne, flowers and kisses.

Among them were the 4th and 5th Dorset Regiments, part of the 43rd Wessex Wyvern Division.

The Wyvern insignia – a winged dragon with two eagle’s feet and a serpent’s barbed tail – was said to have been used by King Arthur.

The Wyvern combined ferocity, speed and cunning, but the comics in the Division referred to the savage heraldic beast as “a pregnant prawn”.

In 11 months of brutal fighting, the 4th Dorsets had 266 officers and men killed in action and 5th Dorsets had 218 killed.

Their commander was Major General Ivo Thomas, nicknamed “The Butcher” since the Nazi stormtroopers inflicted 12,484 casualties on the Division in the North-West Europe campaign.

Patrick Delaforce, himself a troop leader in 11th Armoured Division (wounded twice, decorated three times) has just written The Rhine Endeavour – War and Peace, September 1944 (Amberley Publishing), his 39th book.

In Operation Market Garden, both Dorset regiments were heavily involved in the endeavour to reach the River Rhine at Arnhem. They had many heroes as they tried hard to rescue the doomed Airborne troops.

Lt Colonel Tilley, commanding officer of the 4th Dorsets, and his company commanders, Majors Grafton, Whittle, Crocker and Roper, and Captain Dawes and Private N L Francis wrote vivid accounts of the Dorset battles.

It was a tragedy – 220 Dorset casualties were lost in a few hours, and the prisoners were sent to Stalag XIIA at Limburg.

The 5th Dorsets were made responsible for Operation Berlin, the rescue of 2,163 Airborne, 160 Polish troops and 75 Dorsets, who succeeded in reaching Arnhem.

Nevertheless, the Dorset regiments and all the Wessex Wyverns, as part of the British Liberation Army, helped liberate countless towns and villages in the 1944-45 North-West Europe campaign.

They brought brutal war to the Third Reich, but helped bring peace, hence the book title.