The Second World War

I don’t want to start a thread about the wrongs and rights of the war, but I thought it might be somewhere to ask a few questions and bounce around some thoughts about family members who were involved, one way or another, in different arms of service or civilian life. I am sure there is a lot of interest on here.

Following on from the D Day commemorations, I went back and researched two of my family who did not survive the campaign in France. I knew a bit already but there’s a lot more info available on the internet now.

One of the things i can’t seem to find an answer to is how my Uncle, who was a Londoner and lived there all his life, ended up in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. Is it simply a case of him being allotted to a random Infantry battalion when he was called up? Or is there something else going on that i’m missing? I have to admit I know nothing of the process involved when civilians were called up to fight so any insight would be appreciated

They used to recruit at Grays Inn for the London Welsh Battalions

RWF spelling is Welch, rather than …sh

It would depend when he was called up, there were initial attempts to have some geographic logic to the regiment a recruit ended up in but generally the infantrymen coming out of basic would be assigned to whatever unit had shortages. The whole idea of ‘pals regiments’ had proved problematic in the Great War when the menfolk from whole villages could be wiped out in one attack.

From about d day onwards the British army had passed its peak manpower level and just plugged holes in the establishment however it could.

RWF spelling is Welch, rather than …sh

Yes, I know. But everywhere seems to have it as sh, which confused and annoyed me but in the end I had to let it go!

I have the basic story of one of my grandfathers time in ww2. He eventually found himself in England on the south coast. I’ve had difficulty finding any of his records on the usual online places. Anyone got any idea how to dig a bit deeper in to army records, he was interrogated/interviewed on his arrival, maybe there’s records of that somewhere?

My dad, as English as they come, from Somerset was in the Royal Welsh.

Spent most of the war in Africa and then Italy. Some fabulous photos, especially of Roman stuff in Libya.

Thanks Wikipedia…

After the 1881 Childers Reforms, normal spelling was used officially, but “Welch” continued to be used informally until restored in 1920 by Army Order No.56. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Welch_Fusiliers

WW1 = Welsh

WW2 = Welch

Anyone got any idea how to dig a bit deeper in to army records,

Try either online forums or the museum for his unit for diaries, etc. Official records at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C543

I related to an attendant at Liverpool’s Maritime Museum about members of my family smuggling in bird seed (pigeon fancying was very popular in the East End and birdseed was a prohibited import), he laughed and said he’d never heard such a thing. It was a complex operation involving sewing up a kit bag, getting the seed in NY or wherever, stashing it onboard away from your quarters, getting past port security, stashing it in ‘left luggage’ in a London station, fixing a deal with a Chinese petshop owner, then deliver. My Pa didn’t drink or smoke but his little enterprises meant he bought his first house in 1947 cash. His brother had his collar felt and got a walloping fine, the old fella never did. Westclox alarm clocks from Canada was another line.

At the end of the war, my uncle, a communist, attended a meeting around a buoy where it was discussed that if it became ‘next stop Moscow’ they would scuttle the ship (a hanging offence). Different times.

Ancestry.co.uk is advertising free access to military records now, just today and tomorrow left though.

“ Anyone got any idea how to dig a bit deeper in to army records, he was interrogated/interviewed on his arrival, maybe there’s records of that somewhere? “

Yes, for £30, the Army will look at their records and give you a photocopy. If they have the records, as obviously, some records were lost during bombing raids etc.
I did my Grandads a few years ago, it doesnt go into great details but says what ship he was serving on and the years. Googling them tells you what / where that ship was doing at that time, it’d work the same with Army units.
https://www.gov.uk/get-copy-military-records-of-service

Once you get a better idea of unit, use social media and Google as there are lots of regimental associations/museums that may have more detailed records.

Once you get a better idea of unit, use social media and Google as there are lots of regimental associations/museums that may have more detailed records.

Very much this, and persevere with every clue you have  I thought I had reached a dead end and then 24hrs later I discovered that my uncle is commemorated by name on a small plaque in a tiny village in France, along with 6 others. I was flabbergasted.

how my Uncle, who was a Londoner and lived there all his life, ended up in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

In theory, the county regiment is where you’d end up, if you were destined for the PBI and some counties recruited to specialist units, Coldstream Guards for instance did used to recruit in the North East…But the realities of plugging holes in units meant that by as early as 1942 you went where you were needed.

But the lesson was also learned from the Great War with the ‘Pals Battalions’. It was a plan to enlist groups of folks that knew each other into the same units, whole factories joined up; the gardening staff at Sandringham formed the basis for a whole company in the Norfolk and Suffolk Brigade. The trouble came when those units got into action and whole platoons and companies would be killed off, (see the Accrington Pals for a very famous example) the next few weeks would see condolence telegrams going to wives and families, often living in the same street – Its one of the reasons why folks still think the Great War took so many more lives, when in fact the Normandy campaign (from June to August) for example was similar to numbers of killed/wounded as Passchendaele. It’s just that deaths weren’t so very concentrated amongst folks who knew each other.

So, rambling aside, yes in theory, Londoners would go to London regiments, in practice; not so much. Interestingly it was a pretty similar situation for the Germans, the Americans and Italians.

I don’t want to start a thread about the wrongs and rights of the war

The Nazis were really bad, they started it and did many very terrible things.

“In theory, the county regiment is where you’d end up,”

There’s an interesting one in my old County, Leicestershire. At the County shows etc, it was common to see a Seaforth Highlanders Assn. pipe band parading, which, being 470 miles from Inverness was a bit peculiar.
It emanated from early in the 2nd WW. The Seaforth Highlanders lost so many men in the Expeditionary force (Dunkirk etc) that they couldnt effectively assemble enough men for further action. The Leicestershire Regiment were plundered for their men, and moved North to join the Seaforths at Fort George, and then, thus, the association continued to this day, with the Seaforth Highlanders still having a Pipe Band in Leicestershire.

My dad got called up towards the end of the war and, because he had some exams, got assigned to train as a glider pilot for the then planned raids. But he buggered his knee playing centre half for one part of the army against another part so never flew or fought. Ended up doing National Service. His sister worked at RAF Knockholt, which listened for the German encoded transmissions which were sent on to Bletchley Park for decoding.