College, Camberley, a General Staff Officer (GSO) with the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division, then commanded the 3rd Reconnaissance Regiment and acted as the colonel in charge of training for the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group. Bols was also involved in planning for Operation Overlord as well as helping to train the soldiers who would participate in the invasion of Normandy, then scheduled for the spring of 1944. When the invasion began on 6 June 1944 Bols did not participate directly, being retained at the War Office in London as a staff officer, but, in early July, he was given command of the 185th Infantry Brigade, with the acting rank of brigadier on the same date. The 185th was one of three brigades which formed part of the 3rd Infantry Division under Major General Lashmer "Bolo" Whistler, and was serving in France after having been one of the first Allied formations to land in the country on the day of the invasion almost a month before. He led the brigade during the final stages of the Battle for Caen, where it saw heavy fighting in Operation Charnwood, Operation Goodwood, and Operation Bluecoat and later in the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine. He was appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for his command of the brigade during the Battle of Overloon and the subsequent liberation of Overloon and Venray in the Netherlands; the recommendation for the award of the DSO makes particular mention of the achievement of the brigade in forcing the River Breek despite heavy resistance, poor weather and shortage of assault equipment. The award was gazetted on 1 March 1945. Not long afterwards, Bols was unexpectedly offered the command of the 6th Airborne Division by Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, commander of the 21st Army Group on the Western Front. Surprised by the news, he later claimed that, "I nearly fell backwards." Prior to this, Bols had not previously commanded a military formation as large as a division. Bols took command shortly before Christmas of 1944, superseding the previous General Officer Commanding (GOC), Major General Richard Gale, who had raised the division in May 1943 and commanded it during Operation Tonga, the British airborne landings in Normandy some six months earlier. He was granted the acting rank of major-general from 6 December 1944. The division was composed of the 3rd Parachute Brigade, under Brigadier James Hill,