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1st Battalion, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment
1st Battalion, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment served in the Middle East with 14th Infantry Brigade, 6th Division. They moved to British India in 1942, and served as Chindits in the Burma Campaign of 1944 where they, suffered heavy casualties mainly from disease.
Feb 1944 Chindit force preparations In early February 1944 preparations began for the 2nd Chindit Expedition. The Special Force or 3rd Indian Division as it was known consisted of the following units, which were split into Columns.
3rd West African Brigade and 14th Brigade
- 6th Btn. Nigeria Regiment. (Columns 66 & 39)
- 2nd Btn. Black Watch (Columns 42 & 73)
- 7th Btn Nigeria Regiment (Columns 29 & 35)
- 1st Btn. Beds & Herts Regiment (Columns 16 & 61)
- 12th Btn. Nigeria Regt (Columns 12 & 43)
- 2nd Btn. York & Lancaster Regiment (Columns 84 & 65)
- 7th Btn Leicestershire Regiment (Columns 47 & 74)
- 54th Field Company, Royal Engineers
77 Brigade and 111 Brigade
- 3rd Btn. 6th Gurkha Rifles (Columns 36 & 63)
- 1st Btn. Cameronians (Columns 26 & 90)
- 1st Btn. Kings (Liverpool) Regiment (Columns 81 & 82)
- 2nd Btn. Kings Own Royal (Lancaster) Regiment (Columns 41 & 46)
- 1st Btn. Lancashire Fusiliers (Columns 20 & 50)
- 3rd Btn. 4th Gurkha Rifles (Column 30)
- 1st Btn. South Staffordshire Regiment (Columns 38 & 80)
- 3rd Btn. 9th Gurkha Rifles (Columns 57 & 93)
23rd Indian Infantry Brigade
- 1st Btn. Essex Regiment (Columns 44 & 56)
- 2nd Btn. Duke of Wellington's Regiment (Columns 33 & 76)
- 4th Btn. Border Regiment (Columns 34, 55)
- 60th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, deployed as infantry, (Columns 60 & 68)
- 12th Field Company, Royal Engineers
16th Brigade Morris Force
- 1st Btn. Queens Royal West Surrey Regiment (Columns 21 & 22)
- 4th Btn. 9th Gurkha Rifles (Columns 49 & 94)
- 2nd Btn. Leicestershire Regiment (Columns 17 & 71)
- 3rd Btn. 4th Gurkha Rifles (Column 30)
- 45th Recce Regiment (Columns 45 & 54)
- 51st and 69th Field Regiments, Royal Artillery, deployed as infantry (Columns 51 & 69)
- 2nd Field Company, Royal Engineers
Dah Force
Stronghold Defences
- R S & U Troop 160th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery (25 Pounders)
- W X Y & Z Troops 69th Light Anti Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery (Bofors)
Divisional Troops
- 219th Field Park Company, Royal Engineers
- Detachment 2nd Burma Rifles
- 145th Brigade Company, R.A.S.C.
- 61st Air Supply Company, R.A.S.C.
- 2nd Indian Air Supply Company, R.I.A.S.C.
Feb 1944 Chindit force preparations
24th Mar 1944 On the March
27th of March 1944 Plan
21st of April 1944 Change of Plan 
24th of April 1944 Orders Recieved
1st of May 1944 Report
6th May 1944 Orders
10th May 1944 Evacuation
14th of May 1944 Difficult conditions
17th May 1944 Supply Drop
18th May 1944 Rations
22nd of May 1944 Reinforcements
23rd of May 1944 After action
26th of May 1944 Reinforcement
If you can provide any additional information, especially on actions and locations at specific dates, please add it here.
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Want to know more about 1st Battalion, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment? There are:1333 items tagged 1st Battalion, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War. |
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Pte. Herbert James Rainbird 1st Btn. Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment Herbert Rainbird served with the 1st Btn. Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment. I have found a number of photos (taken, I think, in India) during WW2.
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Pte. Walter Stockbridge 1st Btn. Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment (d.27th Aug 1944) Walter Stockbridge was my beloved Mum's father, killed in action when she was just 4 years old. For Mum's 60th birthday, I found my grandfather's burial details and took Mum to the beautiful and tranquil Florence War Cemetery. Mum was overcome to be able to pay her respects to her dad.
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Pte. Charles Vernon Blackburn 1st Btn. Bedford and Hertford Regiment Charles Blackburn served in Palestine, Crete and Burma.
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Pte. Arthur William Gardner 1st Btn. Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment (d.24th Oct 1944) Arthur Gardner was married to my late father's half sister.
My father told me he died in Italy. His wife Alice passed away at the young age of 46 in 1966.
I never met Arthur as I was born 4 years after he died.
I do remember my mother taking us on the bus to visit Aunt Alice in Hoddesdon once or twice.
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Albert William Saunders 1st Btn. Beds and Herts Regiment Albert William Saunders served with the 1st Battalion Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment at Kempston Barracks and in Burma.
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L/Cpl. Douglas Paul Greening 1st Battalions Bedford and Hertfordshire Regiment  My Dad joined the Beds & Herts as a Boy Soldier in 1932; he was fifteen! After basic training he was sent to India for four years - he told us he was 4'10" tall when he left and 5'8" when he came home. In 1937 he lined the route for the coronation of King George V.
He remained in the UK until the outbreak of war and then mobilised with the BEF and then was evacuated from the beaches in Dunkirk. He lost the thumb on his left hand during the evacuation - dived into a ditch while he was being shelled and it was taken of by a piece of shrapnel - and left the army. He went to work at the local RAF station in Leighton Buzzard where he met Ruth who was to become my mum; I was born in Nov 1944 and have a younger brother, Pat and sister, Cath. When I went to school some of the other kids used to tell me 'You do your shoe-laces up funny!"; it wasn't until later years that I realised I had been taught by a man with only one thumb!
We loved my dad's stories of India. He played hokey, ran cross-country and boxed for the regiment. He told us one day that he came face to face with a leopard when he was out running and the leopard just padded off back into the bush. The 'boys' who were 'put on a charge' used to be given the strap; he told us on one of his first nights in the barracks one of the boys was being punished and crying 'me mother I want me mother' to which the 'enforcer' replied "It's no used crying for your mother she's four thousand miles away" and there was my fifteen year-old dad sobbing into his pillow. My dad was already in the boxing team when he was first 'put on a charge'. Lofty Shotbolt (I think that was his name) was the heavyweight champion and found out about this; he told the 'enforcer' "Touch Boy Greening and you are in trouble". When my dad went for his punishment in the room at the end of the barrack he was told to scram while the enforcer hit the table with his strap "I never shouted so loud" my dad told us.
My dad died of a sudden heart attack and died in 1994 aged 77. Until then he was as fit as a 'butcher's dog' and we thought he'd live to 100, but we'll never know how the war affected the boys. He was in the RAOB as an older man and with a photo of him in India, my dad is on the left; on the back is a note 'some of the boys' - still makes me cry.
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Pte. Christopher McPartlan 1st Btn. Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire Regiment (d.7th Nov 1940) Christopher McPartlan who died aged 24 was born in Jarrow in 1916 to James and Mary Catherine McPartlan (nee Eales) of Jarrow
Christopher is buried in Keren War Cemetery and is commemorated on the WW2 Roll of Honour Plaque in the entrance of Jarrow Town Hall.
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Cpl. Harry William Mills 2nd Btn. Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment My Dad, Harry Mills signed up in September 1932 and went off to India - I think with the 1st Battalion of the Beds and Herts - they then went on to Palestine. At the outbreak of WW2 Dad, I believe, transferred to the 2nd Battalion and went off to France and Belgium. He was then part of the BEF that were evacuated at Dunkirk. He then went off to North Africa and Egypt. From there to Italy, Sicily and Greece. If anyone has any further information as to what the 1st Battalion did between 1932 and the outbreak of the Second World War, and the 2nd Battalion from 1939 to November 1945 I would be extremely grateful.
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