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Military History
Can anyone help me to find out where my father's regiment was during WW2. I know he was in the ulster rifles, and that 1&2 battalions were at DDay. however, this was the regular army, not conscripted men. I have a photo of him in Kampenhout, Belgium in 1945, and i do know he was in France, then after the war ended, spent some time in Palestine. I have searched everything i can find about this regiment, but not what happened to the conscripted men. I know he was in Hawick in Scotland in 1943 because he was baptised there. i take that as he was likely to be going into active service, presume they didnt want you to risk being killed without having been baptised! Not sure how to find out anything more. the forces war records website is useless, he doesnt show up anywhere, and for that matter neither do several other people who i know for a fact served in ww2. they dont tell you how incomplete their records are before you subscribe. if there is anyone out there who can help me with information, or how to find it i would be very grateful.
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Do you know all this stuff
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Couple of sites that give some info. It looks as if he was in the D Day landings he was with 2nd battalion.
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Couple of sites that give some info. It looks as if he was in the D Day landings he was with 2nd battalion.
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1st Battalion went in by glider.
1st Battalion went in by glider.
I have read the wikipedia entry which is why im so confused. It indicates that it was the regular soldiers of the 1st and 2nd battalions who were in operation overlord. he wasnt regular army though, he was a conscript and the section about the regiment for hostilites only is very confusing. i have some photos and have been trying to determine what his beret badge is like but its difficult to tell. it could be the harp shape of the ulster rifles but im really not sure. he definitely never went anywhere in a glider im sure we would have known about that!! its the complication of how the conscript soldiers were sorted out. i have reason to believe that when he joined up it was with iniskilling fusileers but then later joined ulster rifles. i have looked up pretty much every website i can find without success. all of the photos i have are in this one place, other than the official company photos. i cant work out why he would be there in 1945 they all look quite cheerful so perhaps this was approaching the end of the war in europe. I do know that he was billeted in belgium with a family because we used to get letters from them for years. this was not too far from brussels but cannot remember the name. I also know he was in palestine, i have photos of him there, but this must have been after the war in europe, possibly around late 1945 or 46. I think he got married in march 1947. Hopefully somebody will pop up with something. His best friend was called Mick Coffey (clearly Irish) but he never knew what happened to him afterwards. i cant find him on the forces website either.
I didnt realise the conscripts were the regular army. i thought that was the ones that were in the army before the war. i have studied the photos and the beret badges and they certainly look like the harp of the ulster rifles. i am pretty sure he wasnt in the first battalion as they went into europe via gliders. then again - in later life he was pretty scared of flying - wouldnt admit to being scared just said he didnt like it but he was definitely scared. he never ever said how he got to europe, and exactly when and we thought he was conscripted at age 21, but having found some information we know he enlisted in the january after he's been 18 the previous may. again, information is conflicting about the age of conscription. we also know he wanted to go before he was old enough but his father - who had been gassed in ww1 wouldnt allow him to. he did tell some stuff to my son in law in his later years (he only had girls and was of the generation where females had to be protected from this kind of stuff), but this was just day to day anecdodes and funny/awful stories, never as to how he got to europe, or exactly when. i have been told to apply for his records, but as the cost is £30, and Im not sure how much of what i want know would be on there, cant decide whether to or not.
iloveglee
I believe you are confusing yourself between conscripted or enlisted men and Territorial Army volunteers.
We have a professional standing army. When hostilities broke out in 1939 we began to conscript eligible men to join the regular army. They became regular army once trained and signed on for the duration of hostilities. At the end of hostilities they could either look forward to demob back into civilian life or former trade,if lucky, or could sign on as a regular soldier.
Your father would of been with the regular army regiment of the Ulster Rifles I believe.
I believe you are confusing yourself between conscripted or enlisted men and Territorial Army volunteers.
We have a professional standing army. When hostilities broke out in 1939 we began to conscript eligible men to join the regular army. They became regular army once trained and signed on for the duration of hostilities. At the end of hostilities they could either look forward to demob back into civilian life or former trade,if lucky, or could sign on as a regular soldier.
Your father would of been with the regular army regiment of the Ulster Rifles I believe.
iloveglee
The Oxford and Bucks Regiment were an infantry regiment but became part of an Air Landing Brigade.I guess some of those men may have never flown before or had a fear of flying but they were among the first to land on French soil in the early hours of 6th June in Glider borne landings at Pegasus Bridge which was a vital resupply bridge for German panzers across the River Orne near Caen to the beach heads.They captured the bridge from the Germans and held it until releived by the Green Howards (Commando Brigade) who made their way in land from the beaches later in the day.
The Oxford and Bucks Regiment were an infantry regiment but became part of an Air Landing Brigade.I guess some of those men may have never flown before or had a fear of flying but they were among the first to land on French soil in the early hours of 6th June in Glider borne landings at Pegasus Bridge which was a vital resupply bridge for German panzers across the River Orne near Caen to the beach heads.They captured the bridge from the Germans and held it until releived by the Green Howards (Commando Brigade) who made their way in land from the beaches later in the day.
thank you retrocop for that most useful information. the reason i have become so curious for more details, is that this year we are travelling to normandy for the dday celebrations in june. as i said i never had much information, except that i knew dad was in france at some stage, also in belgium, and have a photo in 1945 that locates him. as we are going to be visiting all the beaches, american and british i was hoping to have some kind of sense of place for someone so close. like many people, i wish i had pushed for more details before he died but, again like to many, they simply wished to put it behind them and not talk about it, especially to girls. i think i can fairly certainly put him in the ulster rifles based on what i have, and what i have read, but may never be able to find out exactly when, and how he arrived in europe. from what i do know of operation overlord, i suppose i can perhaps understand why the survivors might not want to even think about it, let alone talk about it. the only other place i can put him was somewhere on a hill, looking down and reminding of home in the derbyshire peak district. even he couldnt remember the name of the place, otherwise we might have tried to find it before now!!
due to the useful links, i have been able to establish that dad was in the 2nd battalion, and can kind of plot where they went after d-day. there are two places i know for certain he was and these have confirmed the general area. dont know which company he was in and may have to apply to MoD records for his whole record. they do charge £30 but sometimes they dont make a successful search. i dont know if anyone knows if they refund you if they dont find anything (probably not!!!). still i now have a great deal of information that i never knew before.
Have you tried searching for your father's regimental diary? I once obtained one for a friend, and it detailed his regiment's activities from D-Day to the surrender. Try this website:
http://
http://
i have thought of looking for the regimental diaries. i think it would be more useful to know which company, and even better which platoon he was in, this would give the diaries much more accuracy if i can get them. i've briefly looked on the national archives website but it looks quite complex and will take a great deal of time. some stuff is not downloadable. in the end, i have been advised to apply for his records. it does cost £30 but in the end it might be money well spent. i have a grandson who has his medals, and is very interested in the whole thing. it would be nice anyway for him to have this as some extra insight. i have spoken to someone at the military records office, and they are extremely helpful in giving some idea of what the records might consist of. there is some discussion within the family as to where he actually went, and who with so it will settle these arguments. all the information and links given on here have been very useful though, and i'm grateful.
thanks for the information everyone. i have sent for his army record and see what that brings. if there is anything extra that might be valuable from the ancestry website thanks to owner of that, i will post back when i hear from glasgow. they did tell me that any military records after 1920 are sealed and are only available to owner of said records (living person), or next of kin (deceased person).
As a follow up to this thread, there is something i would like to ask - in the vain hope that someone might know. i now know, from the block of service numbers allocated to each regiment, that my father initially joined the iniskilling fusileers. we had thought that this was the case. also from some further research, i have found that this regiment did not fight in the north of europe, and i know for a fact that my father did. there is someone in the family that has an inkling that he left this regiment, and joined ulster rifles but find it hard to believe that someone would just choose to go from one regiment to another. from the photos i have, the badge on his cap does look like that of the ulster rifles. does anyone know whether men from the iniskilling fusileers did transfer to ulster rifles. i have sent for his military records but they have a backlog and it could take a while for these to come.
Just to finalise this thread, i have received my father's records, pretty quickly actually. it tells me something of what i wanted to know, but also opens up questions that i cannot now ask. sadly. however, i know where he was during the initial normandy campaign, and can visit those places. i feel that i can pay tribute to him, and his fellow soldiers, many of whom died there. he was 'lucky', in that he was wounded in action a few days after the landing and was sent home to the uk until a couple of months later. so who knows, if this hadnt happened, i may not even have been her to make these posts. i know there is a memorial in one of the villages to the royal ulster rifles, and i will try and go there to lay a flower as my tribute to these men. my dad was not a war 'hero' as such, but in my opinion they were all heroes.
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