The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies. If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.     Site Home     WW2 Home     Add Stories     WW2 Search     Library     Help & FAQs  WW2 Features     Airfields     Allied Army     Allied Air Forces     Allied Navy     Axis Forces     Home Front     Battles     Prisoners of War     Allied Ships     Women at War     Those Who Served     Day-by-Day     Library     The Great War  Submissions     Add Stories     Time Capsule     TWMP on Facebook     Childrens Bookshop  FAQ's     Help & FAQs     Glossary     Volunteering     Contact us     News     Bookshop     About Advertisements World War 2 Two II WW2 WWII 1939 1945

205864 Cpl. John Robert "Breck" Percy British Army 9th Battalion Royal Northumberland Fusiliers from:Bedlington, Northumberland My Father, John Robert Percy, never gave me much detail of his time in the Northumberland Fusiliers and never told me which actual unit he was in so there are many gaps in my knowledge which I would like to fill if possible. I am assuming he was in the 9th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers because that fits with the stories I have. For a long time as a child I was told that he was wounded at Dunkirk but in the 1970's he finally told me, (citing the 30 year rule as by then he was a civil servant in the MOD and a signatory to the Official Secrets act) that he was actually wounded in a friendly fire accident in England while the unit was dug in on the south coast. Because of this he was in hospital when they were sent to Singapore and he fortunately missed becoming a POW His tale is that he joined the Territorial Army prior to the war because as a coal miner he got no holidays and this was a way for himself and his mates to get a paid holiday away from the pit. When he was called up in 1938 (Munich Crisis) at the age of 19 he had actually moved away to the south taking his whole family with him but his call up papers took some time to catch him up as they went to the old address in Bedlington. By the time he did report to his unit he had been posted AWOL and was promptly jailed. Fortunately his unit passed the hat round and collected his fine to get him out again. He also said that before going to France the they were all given the option of going back to the pit. They all turned it down preferring the Army. He said that when they arrived in France they had no firing pins for the machine guns. Looking at other information it seems they were light on lots of other equipment too. Stories of France are very thin, almost non existent and the only one I can recite completely is of his unit being in Arras where they had been told there were no Germans. So, they went sightseeing having left all their equipment in a cul de sac. In the process they met a group of Germans doing the same thing. While the Brits ran back to their guns, the Germans went to their tanks and were entering the Cul de sac as the Brits were moving up the road. My Father said the Commanding Officer was killed in this action and actually said it was the Duke of Northumberland!? The 9th Duke is on record as having died in 1940 but i have no other information. He never said anything about Dunkirk itself and that is all I have, apart from his cap badge. I would be grateful if anybody can fill the gaps. He died in 1998 and would be 90 now. John Percy Add to this record.  Related Content: 9th Battalion, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. 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. Contact us. 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.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. 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: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.