4 March 1915 : sailed from Avonmouth for India. But knowing what is there and what to ask for is not easy. I would like here to pay tribute to the RAF, who kept us supplied with all the necessities of life from rations to supplementary and replacement equipment, and to the Q side of Force H.Q., for an almost 100% response to requests for such supplies from Column H.Q.. During the whole period of operation from May to August, we missed only one meal, despite most difficult flying conditions due to mountainous terrain, and frequent early morning mists common in this area. The withdrawal of the Japanese from the Imphal/Kohima area had begun. H.Q., which was replied to by our R.A. batteries. These were awarded 66 battle honours and four Victoria Crosses. As an example, the three-line battalions of the 4th Borderers were numbered as the 1/4th, 2/4th, and 3/4th respectively. Frontier attitude appeared to exist right up to G.H.Q. On the evacuation of Palestine in 1948, it served in Somali-land, and later in the Canal Zone of Egypt. vessels en route by sea to Tobruk. Both battalions marched many miles over the veldt during the Guerilla war that followed. 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines (2/4) is an infantry battalion of the United States Marine Corps. In the Army reforms of 1881, the 4th Kings Own Royal Regt was territorially affiliated to Lancaster, and recruited in Furness and North Lancashire. The column commander, Major Scott, was wounded in the arm and, as I was dressing his wound, we were fired upon by a machine gun from the top of the hill. A total of 13,167 of the regiment were killed in action. In May the training period finished and we were transported by the Bengal Assam Railway to Mariani in Assam, passing through one railway town with the Boys Own Paper sounding name of Lumding. The 8th Army then got involved in very heavy fighting at Sidi Resegh, south of Tobruk, and our battalion was ordered to make a frontal assault from our side. On this day in 1944 Captain D.V. After being earmarked for support in General Archibald Wavell's offensive 'Battleaxe' the next departure was for the Syrian campaign. Here in the Basse Fort d'Eu, supported by the artillery of the 51st Highland Division. The regiment's territorial components formed duplicate second and third line battalions. [2], The Border Regiment fielded 18 battalions[7] and lost almost 7,000[8] officers and other ranks during the course of the war. Arroyo dos Molinos is unique to the regiment, mainly on account of the fact that the English 34th met and defeated in battle the French 34th, capturing their drums and drum-majors mace, both of which are still in possession of the regiment and trooped every year on the anniversary of the battle. Eighteen battalions were to see active service in the war, in every theatre. Meanwhile, 2nd Battalion had moved from England to Ireland shortly after the regiments formation. This is a list of battalions of the Border Regiment, which existed as an infantry regiment of the British Army from 1881 to 1959. The 8th U.S. Infantry reactivated in 1947, assigned to Ft. Ord, California, remaining assigned to the 4th Infantry Division. By 1920, all of the regiment's war-raised battalions had disbanded. I've left a message for Jemma, the co-ordinator for the Radio Cumbria volunteer story gatherers, asking for your question to be passed on to Mr Hutchinson, and if he has further details. The whole of the 70th Division became engaged in the fighting on Sidi Rezagh and El Duda. We arrived in the early hours of the morning at the Christian village of Phakedzumi, where the inhabitants gave us hot tea. Two whole Divisions, plus many lines of communications and troops were drawn into battle with the Germans. The Lancastria was sunk during the afternoon of same day. moved off at 4.55 followed by 5th Btn and arrived in bivouac at 6pm. Cartwright John. Simply enter your email address below to start receiving our monthly email newsletter. 10th Parachute Battalion 11th Parachute Battalion 2nd (Oban) Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery, RA 4th Parachute Squadron, RE 133 Parachute Field Ambulance, RAMC 1st Airlanding Brigade Brigade Headquarters 1st Battalion The Border Regiment 2nd Battalion The South Staffordshire Regiment 7th (Galloway) Battalion The King's Own Scottish Borderers . 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines was constituted in April 1914 during World War I when it was activated as one of the three . I met here one Sheikh Hamoudi, who was a friend of Lawrence of Arabia, and Glubb Pasha. So, men from Cumberland and Westmorland were present at both checks on Rommel and the German Afrika Corps! It mentions that Churchill and the Ministry of Information kept the disaster of this evacuation quiet at that time. packs on my back. During the day there were frequent attacks on the Company positions by Stuka dive-bombers, but I only remember two fatal casualties from all these attacks. It deployed to the Western Front in March 1916, remaining there for the rest of the conflict. left there was for a brief visit to Birmingham to participate in bomb-damage relief. However all good things must come to an end, so we left Poona and travelled by troop train across India to Ranchi in the State of Bihar, which was to be our home for the best part of a year, with a few short breaks. The terms of the BBC Peoples War website have been read and understood. 4th Raider Battalion designated as 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. In 1947, 1st Battalion moved to Palestine. Evacuation of casualties was a further problem. As M.O., I had my own difficulties. Pte. ORIGINS: The 144th traces its lineage to six volunteer militia companies of the Texas Volunteer Guard in northeast Texas organized as the Fourth Regiment of Infantry, April, 1880. As we were not now in touch with the two platoons on roadblocks, and as I was not an infantry officer and Major Scott was wounded, it was decided to withdraw as the party was no longer large enough to carry out an assault on the strong point on the hill from which the LMG fire had come. moved north and an armistice was signed on July 14th and we settled in to camping conditions on the outskirts of Qabb Ilyas. Having fought in the West Indies in the early years of the French Revolutionary War in the 1790s, the 55th were in the Army of the Duke of York in his campaign in the Low Countries in 1799, showing particular gallantry at the Battle of Egmont-op-Zee. After that it was Suez, Egypt, and a transit camp, until we entrained for the Western Desert. The two platoons set up two roadblocks outside the village and H.Q. those of the BBC. On July 12th the Bn. Over the six-month period, the Bn. Bob and I had a bathe in the lake the first day we were there, but, as someone told us that a woman had been carried off by a crocodile the previous week, we did not repeat that event. It deals with the experiences of the 4th Battalion The Border Regiment during World War Two. While it isn't strictly what you are looking for I thought it might shed a little more light on it. In 1982, 4 SAI converted to a mechanised infantry battalion mainly consisting of Ratel-20 IFVs. But then, on hearing that Rouen had fallen into enemy hands, Fcamp became the destination. The following year, 2nd Battalion returned to Britain, while 1st Battalion was sent to occupy Trieste. In the immediate post-war period, the army was significantly reduced: nearly all infantry regiments had their first and second battalions amalgamated and the Supplementary Reserve disbanded. When the breakout came, more aggressive raids began, until they were relieved by the Polish Carpathian Division. At the end of the training period, the battalion was not only highly trained in jungle and Chindit operations but, with the constant exercise and increased rations, was very fit. From a health point of view, the area could not have been worse as it was infested with malaria carrying mosquitoes and near a village in which malaria was endemic. Volunteer battalions had been created in reaction to a perceived threat of invasion by France in the late 1850s. whose name, curiously, was the same as mine, Capt. It was planned at 8th Army H.Q. First of all we had no cover and just lay and slept in the open excepting when we were in the Naga villages and managed to get some shelter from the veranda type fronts of their wooded buildings. So, all the units of the 70th Division were glad to take the airfield. WO 169 / 1705 4th Battalion, The Border Regiment The 4th Battalion was a 1st Line Territorial Army unit, originally assigned to the 126th Infantry Brigade, 42nd (East Lancashire) Infantry Division. This was when your uncle would have been ordered to leave. The fighting took place in Picardy, Artois and finally in Normandy. Some days afterwards the Bn. But then at night, the Australian artillery returned the compliment tenfold! One lot was our battalion and the other lot was the enemy, which we discovered to our cost when they opened up on our truck and ambulance with anti-tank guns. The officers were billeted in, and had the Officers Mess in, the school buildings, the school having been evacuated by staff and pupils. I could not imagine a more appropriate ending. Moved to the West Indies to counter the French threat, the 4th and 55th share the battle honour St. Have a look at pages 181-187. Between the wars the regiment was to serve in Ireland, India including the North West Frontier, Burma, China, Egypt and Palestine where Border and Kings Own were involved in the Arab Revolt of 1938-39. It continued in British Army service until 1959, when it merged with The Kings Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster) to form The Kings Own Royal Border Regiment. In the event that you consider anything on this page to be in breach of the site's House Rules, please click here. It was then sent to South Africa in 1899, where it fought throughout the Boer War (1899-1902). The size of a battalion could range from 500 to 1,500 troops. The size of a regiment could range from 1,000 to 5,000 troops. Burgess. (d.11th June 1940) Fearon William Milburn. Early in the year, disorders amongst the civil population in India organised by the Gandhi Congress Party resulted in a call for assistance of the military to the Civil Power to restore order. Many men from 'D Company' of the Borders were killed or captured. Line of Communication troops were brigaded together as infantry to act as support to those two Divisions. It was also atthis time that the 'Lancastria' was hit. and for reinforcement, which eventually led to the amalgamation of 4th and 9th Bn., The Border Regiment. Copyright 2023. It remained in Britain re-equipping until April 1943, when it took part in the landings in Tunisia. Meanwhile, 2nd Battalion was in India on the outbreak of the war. Before Dunkirk, 1 Border, 4 and 5 Border and 5 Kings Own fought in France. It continued in British Army service until 1959, when it merged with The King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster) to form The King's Own Royal Border Regiment. The battalion, nicknamed the Magnificent Bastards, is based out of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California and are a part of the 5th Marine Regiment and 1st Marine Division. At first they headed towards Dieppe. All three regiments were involved in minor wars on the frontiers of India, and the 4th in the Zulu War of 1879. During the few days that we were assembling at Mariani, word came through that Gen. Wingate had been killed in an air accident. This is a list of regiments within the British Army's Royal Armoured Corps during the Second World War.. On the creation of the corps in 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, it comprised those regular cavalry and Territorial Army Yeomanry regiments that had been mechanised, together with the Royal Tank Regiment. The regiment was stationed in Egypt and Cyprus for the first half of the 1950s, moving on to West Germany in 1955 where it served with the British Army of the Rhine. There was the odd troublesome one, but mostly its own muleteer learned how to control it and to keep it in line. The Border Regiment was a line infantry infantry regiment of the British Army, which was formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 34th (Cumberland) Regiment of Foot and the 55th (Westmorland) Regiment of Foot. that day. 42 PDF version, 681.5 KB Footnotes GO 155/05. 4th (Westmoreland & Cumberland) Battalion, Border Regiment during the Second World War 1939-1945. In 1919, 2nd Battalion moved from Italy to Ireland. My email address is david05803@yahoo.co.uk and I would really appreciate any information to that address post the closure. The Battalion began the task of disarming some 2,000 Japanese and controlling the activity of dacoits on the Mokpalin and Bilin areas. The Burma Star Memorial Fund10 A High StreetPewseySN9 5AQ. The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not 6th Rajputana Rifles, 4th Bn. Timeline of WW2 Raiders EXPLORE THE TIMELINES BELOW . At this time, the Japanese advance into India west of the Chindwin had begun and we were quite ignorant of the exact location of the forward Japanese troops and felt that there was a threat to the railway line with its many bridges, but we arrived safely without incident at Mariani. Among the Indian Infantry battalions which formed part of this Division were 3rd Battalion (Bn.) It was the only British Division of infantry in the Middle East at the time. The Tobruk perimeter defences were not a system of continuous trenches like WW1, but consisted of underground concrete strong points built by the Italians before they came into the war. Even though suppressive Mepacrine tablets were regularly taken, malaria was not entirely suppressed. In any case, I hope you find out what happened. The 4th and 5th landed with the Army in the Crimea in 1854 and fought at the Battles of Alma and Inkerman. Raising of the Regiment. Regards, I used to go in a truck to visit a different Company each day from Aleppo, so that I really saw a lot of the country. 41 The battalion was disbanded on 4 April 1946. The fighting continued all day in the beautiful spring day until nightfall when all the companies withdrew, taking numbers of prisoners with them. The programme in Tobruk perimeter until November 18th, this being early October, was as follows: At early morning and again in the evening, we were subjected to periods of artillery fire in Bn. moved from Aleppo to a town called Idlib, some distance away, where we remained for a further three weeks, and then returned to the military barracks in Aleppo. On the night of 19th March, the Bn. It had been from this airfield of El Adem that the garrison of Tobruk had suffered the attentions of the Luftwaffe dive-bombers almost daily. A.E.F. The troubles at Gaya were not serious and we returned to Ranchi after two weeks. [13] Due to the daytime (or shift working) occupations of the men in the LAA troops, the troops required eight times the manpower of an equivalent regular unit.[14]. Passing through Kohima was like viewing a scene of Flanders in the 1914-18 War with skeletons of trees with no leaves on them. 2 Border soon followed with the 7th Dlv, and fought in the first Battle of Ypres in defence of the Channel Ports. 2nd Kings Own and 2, 4 and 9 Border all fought in Burma as explained in the beginning of this article. 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines (2/4th Marines) is an infantry battalion of the United States Marine Corps.The battalion, nicknamed the Magnificent Bastards from the Vietnam War, is based out of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California and is a part of the 5th Marine Regiment and 1st Marine Division. (2d, 3d, and 4th Battalions ordered into active Federal service 2 May 1992 at home stations; released 9 May 1992 from active Federal service and reverted to state control) Reorganized 1 October. troops and travelled by road and rail down through Beirut, Tyre and Sidon to Haifa, where we entrained and eventually ended up at Amyriah transit camp west of Alexandria. Correspondence. The 4th Battalion The Border Regiment had been guarding the Lines of Communications in France since November 1939, but they, inevitably, became heavily engaged in the German onslaught. Over in Europe it seems a lot easier finding out official information about the war and commemoration is taken very seriously. One of these brigades of infantry was named the 23rd Brigade and attached to the 1st Armoured Division. The latter service included punitive expeditions against the tribesmen of the North-West Frontier. The set-up for columns entering Burma proper was that a stronghold was formed from which the columns operated and which contained an airstrip. This infantry regiment was first raised in 1702. This was a regimental formation of men drawn from the towns and villages of Cumberland and Westmorland: Carlisle, Penrith,. up the Tiddim Road and in the battles round Bishenpur and also in defence of the Silchar Track; 4 Border in 23 Bde, harassed the lines of communication of the Japanese 31st Div., and met up with 2 Border on the Ukhrul Road in June, 1944. 21 It landed again in Bombing and shelling here in Tobruk became the daily and nightly portion. Indeed, there is a little about this period in the book, which must also be based on the War Diaries and personal testimony only a couple of yearas after the end of the war. lost a Company as POWs in France but was made up by the time they re-assembled at Kington Camp, including quite a number of newly commissioned officers. 01 FEB 44; 21 July - 10 AUG 44 ; 01 APR 45- 22 JUN 45; 19 FEB 45; 01 FEB 44. I believe that the Bn. The other regular battalion were hastily brought home from the East, Kings Own to fight in France, and Border to join the Incomparable 29th Div. After kitting up we were transported one morning to the dockside in Alexandria and boarded R.N. and after a night in the open, we rejoined the complete column. R.E. H.W.W. It was believed that this was the infantry of the 7th German Panzers. They are colloquially known as "The Loyal Eddies". In the advance into Burma, 2 Border crossed the Irrawaddy on February 13, whilst in April, 1945, 9 Border fought in the battles for Meiktila. Meanwhile, 2nd Battalion had returned to Britain from South Africa in 1907 and deployed straight to France in September 1914. The 9th Battalion The Border Regiment took part in several such actions, notably at Wetlet, Yindaw, Kinde and Pywabwe. Later we moved forward to Mersah Matruh itself with even nicer sea bathing and I accompanied our C.O. Part of the new brigade was the 4th Battalion The Border Regiment. By then, they were surrounded. There were varying degrees of success. The National Army Museum works with a network of Regimental and Corps Museums across the UK to help preserve and share the history and traditions of the Army and its soldiers. was withdrawn and dispatched across the Canal Zone by troop train to Beit Lid in Palestine. This infantry unit was raised in 1680 and subsequently served in many British Army campaigns during its long history. I shall describe briefly our training and operations, so as to give the reader some idea of the conditions obtaining.
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