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South
Wales Borderers Museum: Fact sheets Fact Sheet No. B20 The 1930's saw a series of international crises precipitated by the expanding power and aggressive demands of Germany, Italy and Japan. In face of an ever-increasing threat of war, reforms were introduced to bring the army up to date. In 1938 the modern army was born. The infantry began to change over from horse to mechanical transport and was issued with its first machine gun carriers. Battledress replaced the old uniform. For the men conditions of barrack life were much improved, and, for officers, the system of time promotion to field rank was introduced. Preparations for war were intensified after the Munich crisis of September 1938. In 1939, the year the Regiment celebrated its 250th anniversary, the Territorial Army was reorganised and doubled. To the Regiment this meant the loss of the 1st Battalion The Monmouthshire Regiment, which was transferred to the Royal Artillery. On the other hand, the 2nd Battalion The Monmouthshire Regiment threw off a new battalion, the 4th Monmouthshires, and the Brecknockshire Battalion, which had amalgamated with the 3rd Monmouthshires was now reformed. Then the new National Militia was called up in midsummer 1939 and Dering Lines was built to house the influx of troops. Germany invaded Poland on 1st September 1939, and two days later England and France declared war. A British expeditionary force was sent to France. After a six months period of virtual inactivity known as the 'Phoney War', Germany launched an all-out attack. She overran in quick succession the neutral countries of Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Holland and Belgium. The British and French armies in Belgium and Northern France were outflanked by German armoured divisions. This was 'total war' in which the German forces were aided by 'fifth columnists' dropped by parachute in the rear of the allied armies or recruited from the local population. German aeroplanes bombed 'open cities' and dive-bombed and machine gunned civilian refugees fleeing before their advance. The Allied forces unprepared for this new type of warfare struggled back, exposed to constant air attack along roads choked with refugees. The British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from Dunkirk in all available craft from pleasure paddle steamers to destroyers. France was occupied by the Germans and the Vichy Government made peace. Britain awaited an invasion. Italy declared war on the Allies and in September 1940, German and Italian forces attacked Egypt from Libya, threatening the Suez Canal; and in the spring of 1941 they conquered the Balkans. In June 1941, Germany invaded Russia. Japan became an ally of Germany and Italy, and on 7th December 1941, she launched her shattering onslaught on the British, American and Dutch possessions in the east. She overran Malaya, Burma, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines and the Pacific Islands and was only halted on the frontiers of India and in the Coral Sea. The fighting was now world wide. India, Australia and New Zealand were threatened with invasion. In the six years of the war the 24th Regiment rendered its country yeoman service. Its battalions fought in widely separated theatres of war and under very different conditions. It was represented in the Middle East by the 1st Battalion and in Norway by the 2nd Battalion. In 1940 after the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk when invasion of Britain appeared imminent, three new battalions, the 5th, 6th and 7th South Wales Borderers were raised. The 5th, a Home Defence unit, was disbanded in 1943 when the crisis had passed, while the 7th was eventually transferred to the Royal Artillery. The Depot played its part as the 21st Infantry Training Centre-eventually serving all the Welsh Line regiments. The Home Guards of Brecon and Monmouthshire were affiliated to the Regiment. From 1941-44 all units at home underwent strenuous training for the eventual re-conquest of Western Europe. This training was punctuated by such emergency work as helping with the harvest, clearing air raid debris and even sweeping snow from the roads. When the tide of war began to turn, the 2nd South Wales Borderers, the 2nd and 3rd Monmouths took their part in the bitter campaign which drove the Germans out of France, Belgium and Holland and back into the very heart of Germany while the 6th South Wales Borderers were amongst the forces which reconquered Burma from the Japanese. At home the Brecon Battalion was a draft finding unit and the 1st South Wales Borderers amalgamated with the 4th Monmouthshires, served as a training unit, both vital if unexciting roles. This war happily did not see such slaughter as the First World War but the men who fought it lived under a great strain, months of tedium of training and waiting gave place to the unbroken strain of months in continuous contact with the enemy, unrelieved by home leave and often living under great privations. The war cost the Regiment 1,024 casualties, but at its end all could recall with pride the part it had played, evidenced by the battle honours and the many decorations its members had so gallantly earned. NORTH AFRICA, 1942 The outbreak of war found the 1st Battalion in India where it had earned a high reputation for itself in the North West Frontier campaign of 1937. For the first two years it remained at Cawnpore on Internal Security duty but in November 1941, it sailed for Iraq. There it became part of the force protecting the oil fields against a possible attack from the north by the German armies, which were then sweeping across Russia. This threat did not materialise and late in May 1942, the battalion made a gruelling overland trip to Libya where the great German-Italian offensive against Egypt was in full swing. The battalion immediately occupied defensive positions at Bel Hamed near Tobruk, forming a 'box' with other members of 20th Indian Brigade. The British forces were now in full retreat and orders were given that this 'box' was to be held to the last man. Accordingly, the battalion laid in stocks, sent back its transport and prepared for a siege. But the very next evening, 17th June, it was suddenly ordered to withdraw 70 miles to the east. There was no transport and no time even to destroy supplies, The Intelligence Officer sent to reconnoitre the route and meet the transport was captured by a German patrol so the battalion withdrew over unknown country leaving behind a small rearguard under Major CPG de Winton and Lt. TM Stephens. This rearguard, for which no transport could be made available, was composed entirely of volunteers. They knew, before volunteering, that their only future was death or capture. The rest of the battalion marched back to their transport then set off in a convoy for Sollum, but they found the enemy had outflanked them and now lay in considerable strength with many tanks across the road. The Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel FRG Matthews decided to try to outflank the enemy by driving south and cast into the desert. In the confusion, contact could not be made with all vehicles, but most of them started off on a disastrous journey in which they had to run the gauntlet of enemy tanks and shells. Many vehicles were lost or hit and only a few trucks kept with the Commanding Officer and finally reached Sollum, after 7 hours driving behind the German forward troops. A few others found their way through separately but the battalion lost more than five hundred officers and men, most of whom were taken prisoner. Four officers and about a hundred men reorganised in Sollum where they were joined by reinforcements. The retreat continued by night along choked roads enlivened by enemy bombing. The battalion passed through El Alamein where the Germans were eventually halted, through Cairo and back to a rest area where a draft brought the numbers up to 15 officers and 300 men. They then moved to Cyprus where a German invasion was expected. There they retrained and awaited reinforcements. It came as a great shock to all ranks when, in mid-August, the battalion was disbanded and most of its members were transferred to 1st King's Own Royal Regiment. A small cadre however, was sent home to join the 4th Battalion, The Monmouthshire Regiment, which in December 1942, became the 1st Battalion, The South Wales Borderers. Meanwhile the identity of the old 1st Battalion was kept alive in captivity. Ten officers and about a hundred men were interned at Chieti in South Eastern Italy, while a further body of men were lodged in a camp at Sulmona, some thirty miles distant. The two groups joined up early in September 1943, when the Chieti internees were transferred to Sulmona, and at the end of the month a mass escape was made by members of the 24th Regiment, together with groups from other units. Of these, four officers and some thirty men of the old 1st Battalion succeeded in regaining their freedom. The remainder were either recaptured and sent to prison camps in Germany, or killed as were Captain W Wright and Lt. J Tidy and the men with them. Locations of First Battalion
Commanding Officers, First Battalion
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