|
Website © Copyright IMM - MMIX - All Rights Reserved |
If you enjoy this siteplease consider making a donation.
Home
Add Your Story
Features
Submissions
Schools
Information
World War 2 Two II WW2 WWII
The Royal Norfolk Regiment
The Royal Norfolk Regiment can be traced back to Henry Cornewall's Regiment of Foot formed in 1685.
Battalions of The Royal Norfolk Regiment during the Second World War.
- 1st Battalion
- 2nd Battalion
- 3rd Battalion
- 4th Battalion
- 5th Battalion
- 6th Battalion
- 7th (Pioneers) Battalion
- 8th (Home Defence) Battalion
- 9th Battalion
- 30th Battalion
- 50th (Holding) Battalion
- 70th (Young Soldier) Battalion
We are currently conducting a survey of users to improve the website, please could you spare a few moments to complete our survey?
Oct 2009 - Please note we currently have a large backlog of submitted material, our volunteers are working through this as quickly as possible and all names, stories and photos will be added to the site.
Research your own Family History.
Looking to replace lost medals?
British authorities will not reissue lost medals, we often get enquiries where to purchase copies and other memorabilia, the best starting place is Ebay.co.uk
The Wartime Memories Project is supporting the campaign to save the ITV Shows Heartbeat and The Royal from being axed, if they are lost it will impact many many jobs in North Yorkshire.
Please show your support by signing the two pettitions:
List of those who served with The Royal Norfolk Regiment during The Second World War
- Alfred William Goose 2nd, 7th & 50th Btn Read his Story.
- Private Albert Jobson 1st Bucks, Company D, 13 Platoon Read his Story.
- Private Charles Johnson Read his Story.
- George Arthur Kay 1st Battalion Read his Story.
- Pte. Frederick Thomas Wren Read his Story.
- Ronald John Abel. 6th Btn. (d. 3rd Nov 1943.)
- Regimental Sergeant Major Brooks. Read his story
- Robert William Brown 2nd Btn. Read his Story
- Bill O'Callaghan 2nd Btn.
- Ernie 'Strips' Farrow. 2nd Btn. Read his Story
- John Hagan 2nd Btn.
- Bill Liffen 2nd Btn.
- Captain C. Long, MC. 2nd Btn.
- Pte Albert Leonard Pooley 2nd Btn.Read his Story
- Alfred Charles Taylor Read his story
Alfred William Goose 2nd, 7th & 50th Btn Royal Norfolk Regiment
My dad came out of France on 16-june-1940(I have a telegram). While serving in France my dad went to Rouen, Paris, Le-Mans and St Marloi. I am unable to find St Marloi on a French map. Is there anyone that may have info as to the route they took ?
Private Albert Jobson 1st Bucks, Company D, 13 Platoon Royal Norfolk Regiment
My father, Pte. Albert Jobson, crossed to Arromanches beach on D Day +1 June 8th 1944 with the Royal Norfolks and was transferred to the Ox and Bucks in Sept. 1944.
I have photographs of him in Hannover in May 1945 and Bremnen. He is also pictured as a member of 1st Bucks Coy.D 13 Platoon with the other members (names recorded on back of photo) with a captured German tank at Alterhunden. Glad to share with anyone interested.
Private Charles Johnson 1st Royal Norfolk Regiment
I am looking to contact members or relatives of the 1st Royal Norfolk Reg who served in the battle Caen, on behalf of my grandad, Pte Charles Johnson (14418178, from E London) to share memories etc.
Pte. Frederick Thomas Wren
The date was May 25th 1940 and we were in France. Our guns were covering a canal five miles back, on a farm near the little town of Bbethune. We had just withdrawn from Tournay with the Germans hot on our heels, but we had time for breakfast that morning. Not eggs and bacon, but the next best thing, a pig had conveniently become a war casualty and roast pork was on the menu. I was about to tell Tich, our cook, that he had done a grand job, when my commanding officer asked me to take some of the pork down to our gun team in their nest in the wood, about five miles forward.
I was detailed to go with a sergeant and as I had driven the guns into position the previous night, I knew the way. We took a 15 cwt truck and a can full to the brim with meat.
The journey was a lonely one, all the French civilians had fled and the only living things we saw were a few stray cattle. Eventually we left the road and swung onto a cart track which led us to the wood and the guns. "Here's your breakfast" I told the gun team, "and make the most of it. God knows when you"ll get anymore." It was their first food for two days and they greeted us like a pack of wolves. There were howls of delight when they saw what we had brought. After a quick yarn about the battle, The sergeant and I turned the truck and set off back the way we had come. Then things started to warm up, mortar shells started to fall round us and shrapnel rattled against the side of the truck, it looked like shaping up for a full scale bombardment.
Suddenly the truck slipped into a ditch. I looked at the sarge. We needed a vehicle jack to get us out of this fix and we did not have one our only hope was lay in a farmhouse nearby. We slithered to it along a ditch, hugging the mud with our bellies. Luckily the farmer was still there after a lot of gesticulating, and a little broken French, he got the message and produced a big hand operated jack. By this time, snipers were peppering the ditch and the sarge stayed behind to give me covering fire. Carrying the heavy jack was no joke, but I got it back to the truck in one piece and started to extricate it. Then along came a German spotter plane. The pilot saw me and let go with his machine gun. all I could do was to lie low, curse the pilot and try to manoeuvre the jack into place. Every time he showed himself he had a go at me. I knew he had to run out of ammunition and he did. The cat and mouse game was over, but my troubles weren't
I raised my head for a look around and saw a figure waving in the shadows of the wood. The gun team, I reckoned,wanted me back. As I jumped up and dashed the last 20 yards a Ggerman Tommy-gunner appeared and let rip. He missed, but as the sound of shots rang in my ears, I crashed face-down in the ditch. As the muddy water wrapped itself round me, I wondered how much was left of me. Then a knee landed in the small of my back and shock turned to horror. Germans were crawling across the ditch over me, one by one thinking that I was a corpse and a convenient stepping stone and though I didn't know it at the time, an officer in my company had witnessed my "death" and reported it to the war office. My wife received the formal notification of my death, killed in action from the war office and a letter of sympathy from Buckingham Palace, so she claimed my life insurance and resigned herself to planning a new lonely life. But i wasnt dead.
The German troops pressed me painfully into the mud as they advanced across the ditch, their boots stirring up the mud round my ears. To avoid suffocation, I raised my head. "Raus schweinhund" said a voice, 'get up you pigdog'. I did so and wondered if the Germans were as surprised as I was that I could do so. They kicked me down again, then they prodded me into the wood where one of my mates, a lance corporal, lay wounded in the shoulder. I stood there looking at him and wondered what I could do to help him. One of the Germans pulled the pin out of a grenade and tossed it at me, I jumped aside and it exploded noisily but harmlessly. My captors then concentrated on the Lance Corporal, ordering him to get up he looked at me with a mixture of fear and hopelessness, "if I get up" he said "they will kill me". They didn't wait. Even as he said it, a soldier pushed me aside and opened fire. I wondered why I had been saved, as I was led to join the surviving gunners.
There were two of them they told me what had happened, the lance corporal had pulled a grenade at the time of the German attack held it almost until the point of the explosion and hurled it at the commander of the enemy, the death of the lance corporal had been brutal revenge. The Germans ordered me to take the dead officers personal effects. I was marched off to five years as a prisoner of war.
A few months later the my wife was told that my name had appeared on the latest list of war prisoners even though she had her doubts, till she received the first letter from me. I went the rounds of the POW camps including Stalag Luft 111.
George Arthur Kay 1st Battalion Royal Norfolk Regiment
I am trying to trace the service history of my late father, George Kay, for our family history. I know he enlisted in 1939 and my elder sister says he was in the "Loyals" as a Bren Gun carrier. We both have a photograph of him in uniform with the badge on the right sleeve showing "Royal Norfolk". We know he served in Germany and that is about all as he never talked about the war. As for his service number and rank I don't know. We are just looking for some advice as to how to trace his records.
My Dad, Alfred Charles Taylor, was captured at Dunkirk and apparently was both carried and protected by two Australian soldiers, identity unknown. Eventually he finished up in Stalag VIIIB where he spent the rest of the war, all told he spent in excess of five years in captivity. During this time he was very badly treated and lost his first wife.
When he was finally released by the Red Cross and was repatriated to Britain he celebrated with his friends and married my mother.
Sadly he passed away some time ago but I have been able to get a summary of his war record and have finally had the medals he was due issued to him. He would never claim them and would never (or very rarely) talk about his time incaptivity.
I know he spent some time in India prior to the commencement of the war. I am desperate to try and put the pieces of his life together and to know if anyone remembered him. Alf was born in the East End of London and was in the Royal Norfolk Regiment.
I would be so grateful to hear from anyone who can help in any way. Unfortunately I have very few of his belongings from this period. Can anyone help? Thank you.
Can you help us to add to our records?
The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them
Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area?
If so please let us know.
Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice.
Celebrate your own Family History
Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc.
Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.
We are currently conducting a survey of users to improve the website, please could you spare a few moments to complete our survey?
The Wartime Memories Project is a non profit organisation run by volunteers.
This website is paid for out of our own pockets and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources.
If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.
Hosted by:
Website © Copyright IMM - MMIX
- All Rights Reserved