The 49th Division had originally been selected as one of the initial three assault divisions for the invasion, and had, under Barker, been trained accordingly. However, with General Sir Bernard Montgomery arriving in England from Italy, where he had commanded the British Eighth Army, in early January 1944 to take command of the 21st Army Group (which controlled all ground troops for the invasion) from General Sir Bernard Paget, he almost immediately had the plan recast, increasing the number of assault divisions from three to five, with three airborne divisions in support. Montgomery, who, along with Paget, had been one of Barker's instructors at the Staff College when the latter had attended as a student, also opted for the landings to be undertaken by experienced assault troops, and as a result the 49th Division, despite training for many months as an assault formation, was relegated to a backup role, and Major General Douglas Graham's 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division, which had fought in France and North Africa and had recently conducted an amphibious landing in Sicily, was chosen instead. Although disappointed, Barker's division, in late January, moved to East Anglia and transferred to XXX Corps, under Lieutenant General Gerard Bucknall (formerly GOC I Corps, Bucknall, eager to see action had, in July 1943, requested demotion to command a division in an active theatre of war, being made GOC 5th Division in Italy before returning to England at Montgomery's request to be GOC XXX Corps), and began preparations for the invasion, then scheduled for June, and continued training almost to D-Day itself.