Normandy: The Search for Sidney

In 1983, the author, Tom Bates, (no relation to Sidney Bates, VC), formerly an officer in the British Royal Corps of Signals, now an American citizen living in Berkeley, California, had no sooner started writing about his namesake than he realized he would have to go to the actual battlefield in Normandy in order to understand exactly why the smart young soldier - Sidney was twenty-three years old at the time and had been promoted to lance-corporal, several times - had acted as he did. And thus started the Search for Sidney. Eventually, it turned out to be a search not only for the battlefield and for the personality of Sidney himself, but also for ways to correct certain misunderstandings, even slanders, both on the military and civilian sides, that have crept into the D-Day literature.Bates, Thomas J. is the author of 'Normandy: The Search for Sidney', published 2000 under ISBN 9780945992035 and ISBN 0945992033.