Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Operation Bluecoat is apparently the name for the Normandy operation in 1944.

There was discussion in The Blue some years ago concerning whether the name "Operation Bluecoat" could have been chosen by an Old Blue, or the operation could have had some other (undisclosed) link with Housie. This is extremely unlikely. The system for codenames is that there is a masterlist of randomly-selected names which have no possible military connotation, and the planner of a new operation applies to the staff officer responsible for the list for a name, which the latter then selects at random - thus there is, so to speak, a double randomisation. The keeper of the list then crosses out the name, which cannot be reused. Sometimes an operation may consist of two elements, in which case each element has its own name. Thus, for example, the famous Operation Market Garden in 1944 actually consisted of the airborne assault on Arnhem - Operation Market - and the land thrust intended to link up with them - Operation Garden.

My original comment wasn't about Operation Bluecoat and was transferred to this thread by mistake.

Foureyes , do you know much about Operation Market Garden? My father was there and he never spoke much about it. He said the famous book didn't do it justice. Just realised this is totally off topic in true forum tradition.

I have split this thread by starting a World War II thread in Non-CH.

Now, we can keep this one to Operation Bluecoat.