of the HQ and the Queen's Bays, 9th Queen's Royal Lancers and the 10th Royal Hussars armoured regiments. The HQ and the Bays had landed at Cherbourg on 20 May and had deployed on the Bresle from Aumale to Blangy. The other two armoured regiments arrived on the night of the crossed the Seine on 23 May to join the brigade, arriving at Hornoy and Aumont on the Aunoy–Picquigny road, having travelled since de-training. Thornton also had the 101st Light Anti-Aircraft and Anti-Tank Regiment (less Bofors guns) and three companies of the 4th Border from Beauforce from 24 May. An advanced party of the Bays from the 2nd Armoured Brigade moved forward, during the night to Araines, from the Somme at Longpré and lost two tanks on mines trying to capture the bridge, then found that all the bridges and the road along the south bank had been mined, blocked and guarded. An attack was ordered on the bridges at Dreuil, Ailly and Picquigny, with a company of the 4th Borders and a troop of the Bays at each place. At Ailly, the Borders got two platoons across the river despite the bridge being blown but with the tanks stranded on the south bank the party was withdrawn. The groups at Ailly and Picquigny could not reach the river due to the strength of the German forces holding the bridgeheads, the Borders suffering many casualties and the Bays several tanks. The Borders spent the night at a wood south of Ferrières and the Bays between that village and Cavillon. The 51st (Highland) Infantry Division arrived on the Channel Coast during the early Allied attacks on the German bridgeheads south of the Somme and assembled on the Bresle, after a difficult journey from the Saar due to German bombing, frequent changes of plan and delays caused by the big regrouping of the French armies south of the Somme. The divisional HQ was established at St Leger, south of Blangy on 28 May under the command of the French IX Corps. Plan The ground north of the Bresle is a flat plateau cut with wooded river valleys draining into the Bresle or the Somme and is dotted with villages obscured behind trees, among open fields with little cover. Under the impression that the Allied attack at Arras on 21 May was the beginning of operations either side of the panzer corridor, to