celebrate Minden Day. 354th and 357th Searchlight Batteries (the latter converted into 414th Light Anti-Aircraft Battery) defended Southern England against V-1 flying bomb attacks in the summer of 1944 ('Operation Diver'). 356th Searchlight Battery took part in D-Day and was later converted into a 'Moonlight Battery' to provide 'movement light' or 'Monty's moonlight' to assist 21st Army Group's night operations during the campaign in North West Europe. The 1/8th Battalion began the war in 125th Brigade with the 1/5th and 1/6th Battalions, but while in France with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) it exchanged with the 1st Battalion, Border Regiment into the 4th Infantry Brigade part of the 2nd Infantry Division, as part of official BEF policy to mix the Regular and Territorial armies. During the Battle of France, the 1/8th Lancashire Fusiliers, along with the 1st Battalion, Royal Scots and the 2nd Battalion Royal Norfolk Regiment, were overrun on 26–27 May 1940 around the village of Locon, 2 kilometres north of Bethune, by advancing German troops. Several massacres of Allied prisoners took place shortly thereafter, such as the Le Paradis massacre, primarily by the German SS Totenkopf Division. Later, the battalion fought in the Burma Campaign and participated in many famous battles, such as the Battle of Kohima, serving in the British Fourteenth Army under Bill Slim. The 2/5th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers was formed in 1939 as a duplicate of the 1/5th. It was part of the 197th Infantry Brigade, the 2nd-Line duplicate of the 1st-Line 125th Infantry Brigade. It served with the 66th Infantry Division until 23 June 1940, when the division disbanded. The brigade was then transferred to the 59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division. They landed in Normandy as part of Operation Overlord on 29 June 1944 and first saw action in early July at Malon on the North West outskirts of Caen as part of Operation Charnwood, where they suffered 121 casualties. They also took part in Operation Pomegranate and the battles on the Orne River. Of all the companies in this battalion, B Company stood out for the highest number of officers killed (in just two months, B Company lost three commanding officers, and all officers on a company attack just outside Vendes). On 21 August 1944, the divisional commander, Major-General Lewis Lyne, late of the regiment, visited the battalion and informed them that the 59th Division was to be disbanded, due to a severe shortage