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6th Battalion, Royal East Surrey Regiment
6th Battalion, Royal East Surrey Regiment was a unit of the Territorial army. During WW2 they saw action in France with the BEF, in North Africa and Italy.
4th May 1940 Change of Command
31st May 1940 In Action
2nd June 1943 Sports
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 6th Battalion, Royal East Surrey Regiment? There are:1321 items tagged 6th Battalion, Royal East Surrey 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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Capt Alfred Gilbert "Freddie" George 1/6th Battalion East Surrey Regiment My father, Alfred George, was taken POW during the the Cassino campaign, and held at Stalag VIIB and according to records also at Oflag 79. I have very little information about his time as a POW apart from the fact that I knew he spoke fluent German, which was of great benefit to him during his time as a POW.
He spoke very little about the war and I only have his diary and some letters to my mother as reference. He was in Tunisia with the 1/6th Battalion and following the German surrender went on to Italy and was in the battle for Monte Cassino. I think that he was captured at Monte Camino possibly in February 1944 and then transferred to Stalag VIIB. I have only just found a record of him being at Oflag 79. His POW number was 128885. I would be grateful for any feedback although there will be few still alive from that time now.
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Sgt. Edwin Walter Bickerstaff 1/6th Btn. East Surrey Regiment Edwin Bickerstaff was posted with the BEF to France. He left his gold watch (a present from his parents on his 21st Birthday) in a shop in Rouen for repair and then were told to leave the area quickly , so never got it back. He did a 100 route march, unsure whether he was evacuated at Dunkirk, but anyway, disembarked in UK on 20th of June 1940, possibly based at Wittering?
He was then based in Chichester and by 20th of October 1940 was in Southampton which was badly bombed. From his service record, it looks as though he was injured as had 21 days in hospital (therefore didn't go with his mates to Mount Casino).
Instead, spent the rest of the war as a Sgt, NCO Instructor at 12 ITC at Canterbury. He was injured again in February 1945 and was hospitalized.
In January 1946 he receieved a notice of impending release while at Shorncliffe Barracks, Cheriton, Kent.
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Sgt. John Robertson Whyte 1/6th Btn. East Surrey Regiment (d.24th Oct 1944) My father John Whyte is buried at Forli War Cemetery and I was led to believe that he died at Monte Cassino and that his death was instantaneous, but that battle ended in the May I believe, and he died in the October. I wish to know where he fell in battle.
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L/Cpl. John Carter 2/6th Battalion East Surrey Regiment  My father, Jack Carter was a very private man regarding his war experiences and only once when I was about 14 did he, one night, decide to tell me about some of his memories both as a serving solider and then later when he became a POW for 5 years. I have been moved to write this short account of my father’s war years having watched the Channel 4 programme (July 2018) about the 51st Division and its defence of St Valery-en-Caux in June 1940.
His story, like so many others, is of a young man born 1916 whose best years of his life were spent under arms and in his case as a prisoner. He had come to Britain in 1937 to escape the repressive regime of Catholic Ireland where, as a Protestant, you did not have the work opportunities that should have been open to all.
He joined up in November 1939 at Isleworth Barracks Surrey and became a member of the East Surrey Regiment TA. Originally, he was in 1/6th but due to breaking his thumb in a regimental boxing match was assigned to 2/6th battalion.
He was sent to France and as a crack shot with good eyes was often used as a spotter regarding enemy aircraft. He was trained on a Bren gun carrier as a driver and told stories of learning to drive on a Sunday morning going around the Victoria Monument outside Buckingham Palace. He described his personal retreat to St. Valery with his Bren gun carrier group, carrying injured personnel and hoping for evacuation.
Evacuation never came and he was not forthcoming about the immediate days before capture. He was captured and then marched through France and finally to Holland where he was put on a barge down the Rhine, he escaped twice but was recaptured on each occasion. He ended up in Silesia where he was put to work down iron mines which he hated.
The German command insisted that you had 4 fingers and a thumb on each hand to work down the mines. His distaste for the claustrophobia of the mine was such that he got a fellow prisoner using a pick to take his left hand small finger off. The result was freedom to the surface. The war moved on and he was moved around a range of camps and took part in some of the infamous death marches, on one occasion the column were ordered to dig out a snowbound train which resulted in the loss of two toes through frost bite.
He was finally liberated by an American GI in Germany, somewhere, he never knew, but he always kept the GI’s jacket which he had been given.
My father resumed his pre-war job as a hardware salesman and lived a full life and I look back with immense pride at what he had done during those 5 years and hope that endeavour of this understated nature is recognised but equally that the world will never experience anything of this form ever again.
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Major Peter Henry " 'Skipper'" Mornement 2nd Battalion (d.20th Apr 1944) My father, Peter Mornement, went out to North Africa with the 1st/6th East Surrey Reg't, and was transferred across to 2nd Bn North Staffs in May 1943. He stayed with them through Tunis, Pantelleria,and into Italy. He was in charge of 'D' Company at Anzio during the defence of Carrocetto where he was wounded and taken prisoner on the night of 8/9 February on Buonriposo Ridge. He was taken up country to Mantova Ospidale Civile where he died of wounds on 28th February. He is buried in the Commonwealth War Cemetery on the outskirts of Padova. I have been able to trace and meet with many of his Bn. members, including (Cpl) James Reeder, (Pt) Stan Leese (his runner), (Pt) Bill Godfrey (stretcher bearer), (Major) Basil Crutchfield, Dr Norman Cowley (Bn. Medical Officer), (Pt) James Lee, and also one of the Italian Croce Rosa nurses who had looked after him.
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