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2nd Battalion, Border Regiment
In mid-late 1942 2nd Battalion Border Regiment was in training for jungle warfare in Horana, Ceylon. In January 1943, the Battalion was posted to Kandy and in June that year became part of the 100th Brigade within the 20th Indian Division. In October 1943 the Division moved to a camp in Burma near to Imphal where there was fierce fighting with the Japanese who had laid a heavy siege upon Imphal. The successful counter-attack to relieve this siege began in early June 1944.
17th Aug 1942 Orders
25th October 1943 On the Move 
If you can provide any additional information, especially on actions and locations at specific dates, please add it here.
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Those known to have served with 2nd Battalion, Border Regiment during the Second World War 1939-1945. - Bastow Harry. Pte. (d.3rd February 1945)
- Davies Wilfred. Pte. (d.5th June 1945)
- Donald Alexander Kerr. Lt. (d.11th April 1943)
- Hopper William. Pte
- Jones Frederick Harry. Pte. (d.13th Mar 1944)
- McMahon Patrick. Sgt.
- Moore Kenneth. Pte.
- Mullen Thomas. Pte.
- Raybould Harold. Sgt.
- Thompson Harold. Pioneer Sgt.
- Thwaite John. A/LCpl.
- Wain Leslie. Pte. (d.3rd Feb 1945)
- Wilson Robert Fleming. Sgt. (d.17th Mar 1944)
- Wilson Robert Fleming. Sgt. (d.17th Mar 1944)
The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed,
please
Add a Name to this List
Records of 2nd Battalion, Border Regiment from other sources.
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Want to know more about 2nd Battalion, Border Regiment? There are:1320 items tagged 2nd Battalion, Border 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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Sgt. Robert Fleming Wilson 2nd Btn. Border Regiment (d.17th Mar 1944) Robert Wilon is the uncle I never knew. I was named Robert after him.
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Sgt. Robert Fleming Wilson 2nd Btn. Border Regiment (d.17th Mar 1944) Robert Wilson was the son of John and Ann Wilson of Workington, Cumberland, he enlisted into 5th (Territorial) Battalion, Border Regiment. On 9th of May 1942, he transferred into the 2nd Battalion. He was killed in action on 17th of March 1944 at the age of 32. His name is commemorated on the Rangoon Memorial.
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Pte. Wilfred Davies 2nd Btn. Border Regiment (d.5th June 1945) Wilf Davies died on the way home to the UK after serving 4 years in Burma, following a road accident in India.
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Pte. Harry Bastow 2nd Btn. Border Regiment (d.3rd February 1945) Harry Bastow was born on 26th of June 1910. His parents were Frederick, born 1879 and Hannah. Hannah died in 1914 and his father remarried in 1915to Hilda Elizabeth Gibson.
On the 1911 Census, Harry is an infant living with Father Frederick who is a leather shaver, his mother and two older brothers, David and William. The family are living at 16 Marion Street, Whitehall Road, Farnley.
On the 1939 Register, Harry is shown with his occupation being walleyer and fitter textile. He is single. He was also living with his Father whose occupation is Machine Shaver and his step mother who is shown as unpaid domestic. The family are living at 112 Bawn Lane. Old Farnley.
During WW2 Harry served with the 2nd Battalion, Border Regiment. He died on 3rd of February 1945 and is buried at Taukkyan War Cemetery in Burma.
I am researching the men named on Farnley War Memorial, Leeds, this is the information I have found so far.
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Pioneer Sgt. Harold Thompson 2nd Battalion Border Regiment My father, Harold Thompson enlisted for WW2 and was sent to Burma with the 2nd Border Regiment. He enlisted in 1939 and served from 1943 to 46 in India and Burma. He was released in April 1946
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Pte. Thomas Mullen 1st Btn. Border Regiment My father Thomas Mullen was conscripted aged 20 on 16th October 1939 at the same time as William Sloan at Bitts Park, Carlisle. They went through Dunkirk together and the training in the gliders on the Brecon Beacons in Wales. They were first posted to the Border Regiment Holding Battalion at West Hartlepool on 14th February 1940.
On the 13th March 1940 he embarked Southampton to join the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium, the Regular Soldiers in the 1st Border had been there since 22nd of September 1939.
He disembarked at Cherbourg in France on the 14th March 1940 and was sent to Lille on the Belgian Border then moved on to Tournai in Belgium. He took part in the ˜Phoney War in Belgium. On the 10th of May 1940 the Germans invaded Holland and Belgium. When the Belgians capitulated and the French surrendered was forced back with everyone else to the beaches of Belgium by a larger, far superior and better equipped German army.
On the 10th May the Germans attacked in the West and they moved into Belgium occupying positions round the canal in Tournai from 13th to the 21st May.
On the 21st May the order was given to retreat back to Lille. On the 27th May the order was given to retreat to Dunkirk in a vehicle Column.
He got to Dunkirk on the 29th May as the Stuka dive bombers and German artillery were hammering the town.
He joined the line on the harbour wall but kept running for cover with the air raids and losing his place when he got back in line. They were that tired so decided to sleep in the dunes even though being bombed, as the sand muffled the explosions.
He found a Ladies watch in the dunes?
At that time the French Calvary Horses broke loose on the beach and stampeded which woke them up. He eventually got on a Royal Naval Vessel from the Mole on 30th of May 1940 and arrived Dover 31st of May. They went by train from Dover to Welwyn in Hertfordshire they got kitted out and then off to Crook in County Durham where they arrived on the 5th of June 1940. Then on to Prudhoe in Northumberland on Home detail on 1st July 1940. On the 5th September 1940 1st Border were sent to Ainderby Steeple in North Yorkshire.
On the 7th of September 1940 1st Border was on standby for a German invasion but were taken off standby the next day.
On the 9th September 1940 1st Border was sent to Burghclere in Basingstoke Hampshire. They were sent back to Welwyn on 1st of December 1940. On the 16th/18th February 1941 the battalion moved from Welwyn to Glanusk Park near Crickhowell South Wales training in the Black Mountains.
On the 13th of August 1941 1st Border moved to Llanelli, Wales and in September became part of 1st Air-Landing Brigade of newly formed 1st Airborne Division and were issued with the maroon beret. All had to volunteer or be transferred to other battalions (30 other ranks left battalion on 30th December 1941 being unfit for the new role). In November 1941 there was a Glider accident.
2nd/4th December 1941 1st Border moved to Salisbury Plain and made camp at B Camp, Barton Stacey near Winchester. On the 19th December 1941 a Hotspur Glider crashed at RAF Ringway killing all 18 men. On 29th of August 1942 my father was best man at his sister Catherine Mullen's wedding to Thomas Cox. In October 1942 they were training in Airspeed Horsa Gliders.
In May 1943 the 1st Borders went to North Africa, but my father was pulled out of the Gliders with a foot injury, causing disability being reclassed medically as B7 and sent back to Prudhoe on Home detail. 15th July 1943 he was was declassified from IA to IA Scale D put on Y list and sent back to Carlisle to be put into a reserve unit.
He was sent to London for a few weeks with the LDAC. Then sent back to Carlisle and transferred to 2nd Battalion, Border Regiment.
He embarked for Delhi, India with 2nd Borders on 25th of October 1943 as part of the SEAC (South East Asia Command commanded by Lord Louis Mountbatten). In April 1944 the SEAC was transferred to Kandy in Ceylon.
In May 1945 (VE day) my father was still with Mountbatten's forgotten Army who were not stood down till 15th August 1945. He did not get back to the UK for de-mob till 17th April 1946.
He was de-mobbed and he never qualified for a disability pension (or any other pension).
William Sloan was killed sometime around 24th/25th September 1944 at Arnhem. Many years later and shortly before he died, with the advent of the internet he found that every last one of his friends in 1st Border (Airborne) had been killed at the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944, My father was in Kandy, Ceylon at that time.
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Pte. Kenneth Moore 2nd Battalion Border Regiment Sadly Kenneth Moore passed away in 2004 aged 59. He was awarded the Burma Star
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Lt. Alexander Kerr Donald 2nd Btn. Border Regiment (d.11th April 1943) Alexander Donald was a Lt in the Border Regiment, he later transferred to the Royal Inniskillin Fusiliers and was killed in action in Burma on the 11th of April 1943.
He was the son of Charles William Donald MD
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Sgt. Patrick McMahon 2nd Btn. Border Regiment Patrick McMahon was born at Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, Ireland on 2nd September 1904, son of Daniel McMahon and Jane nee Lamb, he died in Brisbane Australia on 23rd July 1987. Pat served with the Irish National Army from 1922 to 1926, and then enlisted in the British Army on 13th July 1926 and served with the Border Regiment, as far as we can determine from the military record we have obtained, it was mostly with the 2nd Battalion. He was discharged from the Regular Army on 30th December 1947 and continued his service as a Reservist with the East Lancashire Regiment until 11th December 1951, at which time he migrated to Australia. I have his original medals awarded to him by the British Government: India General Service medal with clasp NW Frontier 1930-31, General Service Medal with clasp Palestine,1939/45 Star, Burma Star, British Defence Medal and 1939/45 War Medal. I also have copies of the documents that approve the award of the IGSM and GSM to my Uncle Pat. During his service Pat served in England, China, India (4 times), Burma, Palestine and Ceylon,
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Pte. Leslie Wain 2nd Btn. Border Regiment (d.3rd Feb 1945) My great uncle, Pte. Leslie Wain, was killed, aged 28, by a Japanese sniper on 3rd February 1945. We knew he had been killed in Burma, but until last week we had no idea where he was buried. Now we do, in the war cemetery in Yangan (Rangoon).
My mum, his niece, remembers him with great affection, but unfortunately has no photo of him, nor do any of the surviving family. My mum is 86 this year and the best present she could have would be a photo of him or his regiment so she can pick him out.
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