The 2nd Norfolk Regiment

From Le Paradis to Kohima

Peter Hart

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9781848844025
• eBook ISBN:
  9781473811430
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Britische Geschichte

The Second World War is vanishing into the pages of history. The veterans were once all around us, but their numbers are fast diminishing. While still in their prime many recorded their memories with Peter Hart for the Imperial War Museum. As these old soldiers now fade away their voices from the front are still strong with a rare power to bring the horrors of war back to vivid life. The 2nd Norfolk Regiment were a proud old regular battalion honed in the pre-war traditions of spit and polish at their Britannia Barracks in Norwich. Sent to France they sold their lives to gain time for the retreat to Dunkirk when surrounded by an SS Division at Le Paradis in May 1940. Over 100 of the survivors would be brutally massacred. Back in England they reformed from ordinary drafts of men called up from all over the country. A new battalion was born. Sent to India they met the Japanese head on in the bloody fight for Kohima against the Imperial Japanese Army. As the fighting raged in the jungle the Norfolks were once again right at the very sharp end of modern war. This is their story.

Contents

PREFACE
CHAPTER ONE	A Slow Start
CHAPTER TWO	The Phoney War
CHAPTER THREE	The Road to Le Paradis
CHAPTER FOUR	Massacre
CHAPTER FIVE	Rebuilding
CHAPTER SIX	Passage to India
CHAPTER SEVEN	Indian Interlude
CHAPTER EIGHT	The Battle for Kohima
CHAPTER NINE	Operation Strident
CHAPTER TEN	Capture of GPT Ridge
CHAPTER ELEVEN	Aradura Spur

Fitt and his platoon in the Kohima area.

Preface

I am greatly indebted to the old comrades of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment without whom this book would not exist. The Royal Norfolk Regiment Sound Recording project to which they contributed was initiated by The Imperial War Museum Sound Archive in conjunction with Major Reeve of the Royal Norfolk Regimental Association and Kate Thaxton of Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum. Yet it was the veterans themselves which made the project so exciting and by patiently tape recording their memories provided the raw material. All I have done is to choose the best extracts from their interviews and then tried to link them together within a broad historical context. I therefore must particularly thank – in alphabetical order – Stan Banks, Peter Barclay, Dennis Boast, R Brown, Len Brazier, Arthur Brough, Len Chamberlain, William Cron, Dickie Davies, Ernie Farrow, Dick Fiddament, Bert Fitt, Maurice Franses, Walter Gilding, Fred Hazell, Sam Hornor, John Howard, Ernie Leggett, Herbert Lines, Ben Macrae, John Mather, Bert May, Bill Robinson, Stan Roffey, Fred Rolleston, Jack Russell and Bill Seymour. It is true that not all are widely quoted in this particular book, but they all played a vital part in building this archive which I am sure others will use to far greater effect in the future.

I would also like to thank my charming and exceptionally able colleagues in the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive. Margaret Brooks, Kate Johnson, Laura Kamel, Rosemary Tudge and Conrad Wood have, by dint of sheer hard work, amassed an archive which is without doubt the finest summation of human experience and knowledge in the face of the misery and challenge of war. Of course I am also particularly grateful to the other interviewers who assisted in the actual recording programme i.e. Nigel de Lee and Stuart Pentecost. Elsewhere in the IWM my trusty chums Nigel Steel from the Department of Documents and Bryn Hammond of Information Systems have been indefatigable in proof checking and improving this text. Ron Brooker, Ian Carter and Paul Coleman of the IWM Photographic Archive were extremely helpful in providing copies and giving me permission to reproduce many of the photographs in the text. Many of the other photographs were supplied by the veterans themselves, particularly Maurice Franses and John Howard.

As a fellow museum worker I can only express my bemused wonderment at the dedicated efficiency of Kate Thaxton and her team at the Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum in Norwich. Under funded, as they undoubtedly are, they nevertheless achieve miracles and I would recommend anyone interested in this great regiment to pay them a visit. They provided both documentary and photographic support for this book. Major William Reeve of the Anglian Regiment and Major Sam Hornor were also kind enough to read advance copies of the manuscript which prevented many ‘howlers’ for which I am deeply grateful.

Finally, but by no means least, Roni Wilkinson of Pen & Sword was chief designer, editor, friend, cook and bottlewasher and should definitely have his salary massively increased if there is not to be a serious injustice! [He also typeset this page – Ed.] It could be said with some justice that perhaps all I am solely responsible for in this book are any remaining blunders!

The extracts have been lightly edited and re-ordered only where necessary to improve readability or clarity. The general accuracy of the information within the quotations has been checked against the regimental history and the relevant war diaries in the Public Record Office. The original tapes are available for consultation by appointment at The IWM Sound Archive, Lambeth Road, London 6E1 6HZ. Telephone for an appointment: 0181-416-5363.

Peter Hart
Oral Historian, IWM
January, 1998

A contemporary print dipicting men of the 9th East Norfolk Regiment during the Napoleonic Wars.

The 9th in action during the Sikh Wars – the Battle of Moodkee 1846.

The 9th Foot, subsequently the Royal Norfolk Regiment, was raised by James II in 1685. It went on to fight all over the world and figured extensively in the actions of the Peninsular War. After the French had been driven out of Spain the 9th was sent to Canada and so missed the final battle against Napoleon at Waterloo. A stint in the West Indies was the cause of heavy casualties through disease and they returned from those fever climes in 1827 a mere fragment of their normal strength. India followed and the Afghan Wars, then the fighting against the Sikhs. March 1854 and England declared war on Russia and the 9th were launched into the Crimean war where disease laid low far more than enemy action. In 1857 the 9th became a two-battalion regiment. As the century came to its close numerous small wars of Empire occupied the Norfolks. The Boer War in particular, where the 2nd Battlion were engaged in the relief of Kimberley, saw many casualties from enteric fever, more so than from Boer rifle fire. During the opening moves of the Great War the 1st Battalion met the Germans head on at Mons. Within weeks the Territorial battalions mobilized and new Kitchener battalions were added to the Regiment. By the end of the First World War the Regiment had lost 5,576 officers and men killed and over 25,000 wounded. Throughout its history the Royal Norfolk Regiment has been renowned for its steadfastness and reliability in difficult situations. A reputation that would be lived up to by another generation of infantrymen who would find themselves at the sharp end in yet another world conflict.

Muleteers of the 8th Battalion in 1915.

CHAPTER ONE

A Slow Start

For generations the infantry have taken their place at the sharp end of war. In modern combat it is no different. It remains the infantry who must first take and then hold any area of ground whilst engaging the enemy face to face. If they fail then the achievements of other arms will be purely transitory. Artillery and aircraft may smash down defences and destroy communications systems to isolate one particular sector; tanks may crash through and maraud behind the lines. But, unless the infantry occupy the contested area in sufficient strength, then eventually the mobile forces will be forced to withdraw. In the moments that follow the enemy infantry will emerge from their ubiquitous holes in the ground, their reinforcements will flood in, forcing the whole operation to be undertaken all over again. Through these vicious and enervating cycles the bodies mount up.

The skills of the ordinary infantryman given this awful responsibility during the Second World War were of the simple repetitive type. For the most part the average individual could acquire them through basic training alone and after a few weeks could claim to be a soldier, in theory at least, fit to take his place in the line. The harder part, which often took years, was to instil in that soldier the willingness to obey orders in all circumstances, the granite physical toughness to withstand the most appalling discomforts, the underlying courage to face the inevitable consequences of such blind obedience and endurance beyond the point of common sense or self preservation. In essence to do what they were told, when they were told, by whom they were told whatever the prevailing circumstances. Only on achieving this exalted level could the recruit consider himself to have become a British ‘regular soldier’, a member of an elite corps which stretched back through the smoke of so many grim, sanguinary battles sanitized only in hindsight by the pages of history.

In the inter-war years the sheer physical discomfort and general mayhem experienced by millions of men in the trenches of the Western Front during the First World War cast a dismal shadow over the whole prospect of life in the infantry. A plethora of war poets and miscellaneous literary giants railed in print, sometimes posthumously, against the sacrifice of their generation in that cruellest of wars. Those who escaped were, by 19395 now grown men with their own children and many had forcefully pointed out to their progeny the awful horrors of war. Yet, undaunted, youth will have its say and many callow young men of 1938 and 1939 had a misplaced confidence in their own immortality. They were ripe to be tempted by the pomp, the circumstance and the sheer youthful zest of army life.

Britannia Barracks in 1936. Soon the buildings and parade ground were teeming with increased activity as the threat of war loomed up again in Europe.

I was impressed with the service because, my brother, he was stationed at Nelson Barracks which is right near Britannia Barracks. He used to come home with a friend of his – very athletic. Going along the front at Yarmouth doing handsprings, all along the front, he was very fit. And of course that impressed me, I wanted to be like big brother! Arthur Brough, Great Yarmouth

Then again civilian life in the late 1930s was not that easy for a working class lad. Although low paid jobs were plentiful in a town like Norwich, the work was often repetitive, boring and lacking in any real prospect of promotion without years of selfless toil for an often ungrateful employer. Some of them realized that they were being bought and sold for coppers.

I had a second hand cycle and I was biking along the road and I stopped and I have to tell you now, hand on heart, I didn’t know where I was working. I’d had so many jobs, I thought, “Where the hell am I going?” I’d forgotten! They weren’t really jobs, I wasn’t losing anything because you were exploited. Without doubt. In the butchers’ jobs, they used to have half days on Thursday then and the shop would close at one. But you were very, very lucky, especially being a lad if you got out of that shop by 2.30. They were meticulously clean and the blocks had to be scraped and scrubbed etc. The governor would sometimes come along and find fault so you were kept behind for another quarter of an hour. Perhaps you’d got a game of football – so that would spoil it. They were very, very hard times, very demanding. They paid a pittance for wages. I had a reasonable education, I wasn’t stupid and learnt very quickly about some things. I certainly knew what was what and I knew I was being exploited, some of them were really unkind and really did take advantage. So there was no reason why I should feel ashamed when I did it for about three days and just never turned up any more. I think there was a lot of my mother in me, she never would be buggered about, I would take so much and that was it. Dick Fiddament, Norwich

The regimental depot of the Royal Norfolk ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright Page
• Contents