67 Field Regt RA

Just checked: that is a 1 Inf Div Flash (White Triangle) there might be a coloured strip below it possibly red & blue for RA.
A lot of the guys with the trucks have them.
Generally worn on duty like the time they guarded POW's at Medjez or did guard duties at Div HQ Sousse.
Could of course be Italy but Tunisia is my favourite.
They are wearing white webbing, smacks of guard duties or fatigues but after they have finished, not smart enough to be going on duty. Typical TA, Regulars would probably have a BSM down their neck for not getting changed.
Must be an unexpected or casual occurrence in or near their own lines justifying the photo.
RA wear webbing blanco shade 303 a khaki colour.
Any Tropical or KD experts on site. Never served abroad.
One day someone will prove me wrong on what & where!

 

Anyone a connoisseur of entertainers or war correspondents maybe the guy in the shorts and socks is from ENSA or the media.
Another possibility is Colonel Hobson who went back after "retiring" from active service as OC 67th as a guest, or Captain Bullivant who left the Regt for staff college.
I will have a dig through A History and Noel Beadles letters for clues.

 

A few memoires, a few errors of memory but generally very interesting from those who were there.

Dunkirk BBC - WW2 People's War - Dunkirk 1940

For North Africa see: BBC - WW2 People's War - North Africa Campaign

For Anzio: BBC - WW2 People's War - Anzio Landing

But the 1 Div Artillery did not go to Pantellera at short notice due to shortage of landing craft only 1 battery of 2 Field Regt landed and returned after a short stay.

 

There are also accounts by Jonathan Raban of his father Peter Raban's activities at Dunkirk one "Belts boots and spurs" and one "Dunkirk".
You can find them on search engines but felt it best not to post the links here after reading your notes ref newspapers and copyrights.
no probs finding.

Tom Averill was with 266 Bty 4.5 Howitzers with the BEF, left with 67 FR on HMS Worcester after spiking guns when ammo ran out at Bray Dunes.
Peter Raban with 265 Bty 18 pounders, after holding the canal in Dunkirk left on HMS Esk.

 

Uncle Target, it is quite interesting to read what you have said on the above! What do you mean by flogging memorabilia? Also, what is wrong with it being a swap shop? Over the years I have exchanged a shed load of (information for free!)
In the mean while, one has paid a vast amount of money in obtaining War diaries, Divisional & Regimental Histories. I don't have a book to sell. Make of that what you will... I'm interested in anything to do with the British First Infantry Division..

Regards,
Stuart.

 

Understand your motives just wrong footed on the first date.
I was waiting to ask you what your interest was as you seem to be an authority on 1 Div.
Is there a family connection.

 

As for the book having looked at the suggested options I dont think it will happen.
I am thinking of putting excerpts from the letters on this site but not sure how far to go with it.

My mission is for people to read and appreciate the stories written not from memories but written at the time from a man who did not come back to write a his memoires like many of his colleagues did.

So far I have had a few "likes" but this is an open forum so viewable by all and sundry not just members.
I am not sure that I want to do what I was considering which was to serialise it for the membership who would appreciate it for free and not copy and abuse it.
I will wait a bit longer and see how it goes.

 

Uncle target, I'm not a authority on 1 Division. My Grandfather served with the 2/7 Middlesex Regiment. I do take a interest on any Regiments that served in this splendid Division. You have been at this job longer than me! Respect to yourself. I think you may well have paid a cheaper price when you obtained material in years gone by?

Regards,
Stu.

 

Not sure if you have mentioned what your book is called? More than willing to pay the cost.. Others can please them selves.

Regards,
Stu.

 

The book has never been published for sale although It is pdf published to prove copyright.
Called When the Guns Fire, there a few bits of intro on this site on the Artillery forum but I don't know how you will find them, you've been here longer than me. I've posted over 60 items this week some about HAA firing as Artillery in Florence as detailed in the book and A History of 67th Field Regiment.
I sent a copy of the book to the Imperial War Museum for assessment and got a good response as an historical record and placed a copy in Worcs Archives. My cousins have copies and a few ex army friends.
Some like it some not.
Noel was what they would call a trendy lefty, his parents called him a Red.
The Avitar icon is a self drawn caricature from the cover of his scrap book.

My army friends don't particularly like him because of his politics, he disliked Churchill and Chamberlain and saw the Labour Party as the only hope but too weak to take power. He hated Nazism having been on a cycling holiday to Germany in 1937 and being arrested for taking photo's.
My female cousins like his letters to his mother, he sent her pressed flowers and fresh lemons which went mouldy in the post.
I have two editions one includes his letters to his mother and one without.
Reading his letters its amazing how many people were supporters of the Russians as they were the ones fighting Hitler the hardest.
If you want to see what the Regiment thought of him read the War Diary for 2nd September 1944 it covers two pages.

I will print out a copy for you and stick it in the post but need your address, if Scot has it he can email it to me.
I still have some spare A5 paper and low cost ink for my old printer. It wont be perfect but should be OK.
I could print you A History of 67th Field Regt its over 100 pages of A4 but I think I can manage to do you a copy as well.
I lost the files when my computer died. Its still not back yet.
It will take a while to get the printing done.

I met Scot elsewhere and tried to help him with his grandads pics.
He was in 266 Battery the same as Noel.

 

The attachment below is taken from the book of Lt Col Howard N.Cole, OBE, TD, FRHistS. Arms & Armour Press.

 

I should have included this one below in my last post.

 

My uncle Charlie was in the desert and Italy from 1941 to 1945 with no breaks,
Served with 4 and 3 Air Formation Signals on 10 line Section. Connecting Army and Airforce positions.
He was mainly with underground cables which needed replacing due to tanks and shellfire.
During the battle of El Alamein he was in the Qatara Depression grafting a new cable onto one laid in WW1 from Wadi Natrun to Mersa Metru.
The badge was similar but without the star the aircraft was a Beaufighter background top half blue bottom half green.

 

Re Noels German holiday

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German Gendarme saying goodbye the morning after their arrest the chap on the bike is Noels brother Graham, Noel took the photo.
They were stopped the day before by a Hitler Youth lad when taking photo's of the countryside (without realising that they were in an area of strategic interest not far from the Siegfried line) he wrote a report in his notebook. At the next town they were arrested, interrogated and banged up for the night. Their films were developed one pic was of a British Bomb on a memorial probably a bit sensitive to the locals.

 

To complete the story, lets go to the Rhineland 1937

​

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And where they were arrested

From the holiday album by Noel Beadle 1937

 

Noel sent his mother a few souvenir's the best went to his wife but these were in the bag with the books and letters.

Nothing special he said just bits picked up along the way.
Now in Worcester.

 

Cap badge found in bag with letters.

 

Peter Mennell was my grandfather. I have just started investigating. He died when I was 4. I was the last person he spoke to. Please where can I see these diaries. I have never heard that they exist. My grandmother who is still alive and very much with it knows very little about his war. They met in Cairo in 45 or 46.