Royal Norfolk Regiment
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| Royal Norfolk Regiment | |
|---|---|
| Active | 1881 - 1959 |
| Country | United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland |
| Type | Infantry |
| Role | Infantry |
| Nickname | The Holy Boys, |
| March | Rule Britannia |
| Anniversaries | April 25, Battle of Almansa |
| Commanders | |
| Ceremonial chief | HM The King |
The Royal Norfolk Regiment, originally formed as the Norfolk Regiment, was a regiment of the British Army. The Norfolk Regiment was created on 1 July 1881 as the county regiment of Norfolk. It was formed from the 9th (the East Norfolk) Regiment of Foot (formerly the 9th Regiment of Foot and covered the local militia and volunteer infantry. It became the Royal Norfolk Regiment on 3 June 1935. The Royal Norfolks were amalgamated with their neighbours, the Suffolk Regiment, to become part of the 1st East Anglian Regiment, which in turn became the Royal Anglian Regiment of which "A" company of the first battalion is known as the Royal Norfolk.
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[edit] Service
[edit] First World War
A total of twenty battalions of the Norfolks were formed during the First World War.
[edit] In the East
Among them the 2nd Battalion of the Norfolks fought in the Mesopotamian Campaign. The treatment of prisoners after the fall of Kut al Amara mirrors that that would later befall the Royal Norfolks in the Far East during the Second World War. Territorial battalions served in Gallipoli. Among these was the 1/5th which included the "Sandringham Company" made up of servants from the King's estate at Sandringham. The Sandringham company was wiped out at Gallipoli. A story grew up that they had advanced into a mist and simply disappeared. A TV film All the King's Men starring David Jason was based upon the incident.
[edit] France
The 8th Battalion as part of the 18th (Eastern) Division was present on the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916. They got beyond their initial target and had by 5 in the afternoon reached the German trenches known as "Montaubon Alley". Over one hundred men and three officers had been killed.
[edit] Second World War
Five members of the Royal Norfolks won the Victoria Cross in the Second World War:
- David Auldjo Jamieson
- John Neil Randle at the Battle of Kohima, April 1944
- George Gristock
- Sidney Bates
- George Arthur Knowland
[edit] Le Paradis Incident
During the Battle of France as part of the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940, members of the Royal Norfolks were victims of a German war crime at Le Paradis in the Pas-de-Calais on May 26.
The 2nd Battalion was one of the units of the 4th Brigade covering the retreat to Dunkirk. They were holding the line of the La Bassee Canal. Units became separated from each other. Their HQ company had formed a defensive position based at the Duriez farmhouse. they carried on their defence until the afternoon by which point many were injured and the enemy were shelling the farm. Making a last stand in the open they were outnumbered and surrendered to a unit of the 2nd Infantry Regiment of the SS 'Totenkopf' (Death's Head) Division. The commander was SS Obersturmfuhrer Fritz Knoechlein. The 99 prisoners were marched to some farm buildings on another farm where they were lined up alongside a barn wall. They were then fired upon by two machine guns. 97 of them were killed and the bodies buried in shallow pit. Privates Albert Pooley and William O'Callaghan had hid in a pig-sty and were discovered later by the farm's owner, Mdme Creton, and her son. The two soldiers were later captured by a Wehrmacht unit and spent the rest of the war as prisoners of war.
The bodies were exhumed in 1942 by the French and reburied in the local churchyard which now forms part of the Le Paradis War Cemetery. The massacre was investigated by the War Crimes Investigation Unit and Knoechlein was traced and arrested. Tried in a court in Hamburg, he was found guilty and hanged on January 28, 1949. A memorial plaque was placed on the barn wall in 1970.
[edit] Far East
The 4th 5th and 6th Battalions served in the Far East, as part of the 18th Infantry Division, in the defence of Singapore and Malaya against the Japanese advance. The battalions ended up as prisoners-of war when Singapore fell in February 1942 . They would remain so until August 1945 during which time they were used as forced labour on projects such as the Death Railway.
[edit] Normandy 1944
The 1st Battalion of the Royal Norfolks formed part of the initial landings on D-Day. They were part of the 185th Brigade in the 3rd Infantry Division alongside the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and the Kings Own Shropshire Light Infantry. The battalion landed on Red Queen Beach (on the left flank of Sword Beach) at 07:25. On the 6 August 1944 at Sourdevalle, Sidney Bates won his Victoria Cross. The 7th Batallion of the Royal Norfolks was part of the 59th (Staffordshire) Division, one of the follow-up units.
[edit] Post War
The Norfolks served in the fight against EOKA in the post war period.
[edit] Traditions
The Norfolk Regiment held an anniversary on 25 April for the Battle of Almanza which they inherited along with the regimental nickname of the "Holy Boys" from the 9th Regiment of Foot. The story of the nickname is that it was gained it from a misidentification of their cap badge (which was of Britannia) by a Spanish soldier for the Virgin Mary.
The history of the Norfolk Regiment and its predecessors and successors is recorded at the Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum, at the Shirehall, Norwich having moved there from the regiments former home, Britannia Barracks, now part of Norwich prison and at the Royal Anglian Regiment Museum based at the Land Warfare Hall of the Imperial War Museum Duxford.
[edit] Battle honours
On top of the battle honours inherited from the 9th Foot the (Royal) Norfolk regiment gained the following before amalgamation:
- Second Boer War:
- Paardeberg,
- South Africa (1900-02)
- The Great War:
Mons, Le Cateau, Retreat from Mons, Marne 1914, Aisne 1914, La Bassée 1914, Ypres 1914 '15 '17 '18, Gravenstafel, St. Julien, Frezenberg, Bellewaarde, Loos, Somme 1916 '18, Albert 1916 '18, Delville Wood, Pozières, Guillemont, Flers-Courcelette, Morval, Thiepval, Le Transloy, Ancre Heights, Ancre 1916 '18, Arras 1917, Vimy 1917, Scarpe 1917, Arleux, Oppy, Pilckem, Langemarck 1917, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Poelcappelle, Passchendaele, Cambrai 1917 '18, St. Quentin, Bapaume 1918, Lys, Bailleul, Kemmel, Scherpenberg, Amiens, Hindenburg Line, Épéhy, Canal du Nord, St. Quentin Canal, Beaurevoir, Selle, Sambre, France and Flanders 1914-18, Italy 1917-18, Suvla, Landing at Suvla, Scimitar Hill, Gallipoli 1915, Egypt 1915-17, Gaza, El Mughar, Nebi Samwil, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Tell 'Asur, Megiddo, Sharon, Palestine 1917-18, Shaiba, Kut al Amara 1915 '17, Ctesiphon, Defence of Kut al Amara, Mesopotamia 1914-18
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum
- Norfolk Museums Service
- Royal Anglian Museum
- Norfolks in the Great War
- WW2 Re-enactment Group
- Sandringham Company history
- Diary extracts relating to Kut 1915
- Britannia and Castle - online regimental journal
| Preceded by: 9th Regiment of Foot |
(Royal) Norfolk Regiment 1881–1959 |
Succeeded by: 1st East Anglian Regiment |
