The brigade remained there, training in many different roles, until early June 1944 when they were sent to Normandy under command of XXX Corps, shortly after the initial landings on 6 June where they fought throughout Operation Overlord in the Battle for Caen during Operation Martlet, Second Battle of the Odon and later, after the breakout and now attached to First Canadian Army, in Operation Astonia, the capture of Le Havre, and the Battle of the Scheldt. The brigade, with the rest of the 49th Division, saw their final battle in the Liberation of Arnhem in April 1945 and the fierce battles that led up to it. During the fighting on the Continent, the 49th Infantry Division was nicknamed "the Polar Bears" because of their divisional insignia. On 28 September 1944 Corporal John William Harper of the Hallamshire Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.