大象传媒

Birmingham鈥檚 Forgotten Regiment

In 1938 the 293rd (Birmingham) Battery was formed, and compromised clerks, shop-assistants and factory workers. There was a cadre from the 20th Battery, who fought in WW1, and we became the 95th regiment RA. We were all Territorial soldiers.

At the outbreak of war we were based in Coventry, but in January 1940, were posted to Scapa Flow and were, I think, the first regiment to encounter mass German air raids.

In October 1940 we were ordered to our base in Coventry just in time for the massive air raids on the city.

In January 1942 we were posted overseas, originally bound for Singapore, but it fell whilst we were on our way. We landed in Durban, but Monty had enough artillery so we headed for Colombo, but were diverted to Bombay. It was decided we would provide the Air defence for Calcutta on the other side of India.

We were there until march 1944. by then the Japs were close to invading India, so all white, mechanised units were disbanded and we were converted to infantry. We became Sherwood Foresters and after eight weeks training most of the 204 and 293 Batteries were transferred to the East Yorks Regt. However, the Foresters offered about a dozen of us who had done well in training a job as instructors.

In April 1945, the Foresters relinquished their operations as a Training Regt, and were transformed to a jungle camp to train for the invasion of Japan. We had practically finished our training and we understood that the joint operation of British, Indian and USA forces would be costly in casualties. However the H bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the war was over. Tragic how those cities were devastated, but the loss of life was far less than those anticipated by our invasion of Japan.

We were rather a lucky Regiment. In 1939 our colonel was offered the choice of either going to France or Scapa Flow. He chose Scapa because he had enough of France in WW1. So we escaped Dunkirk.

As previously mentioned Singapore fell before we could get there.

When I say Birmingham forgot us, we never received any comforts from them. Yet when we were transferred to the Sherwood Foresters it was only a few weeks before we received comfort parcels from the lasses in Nottingham.

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