1st Bn The King's Regiment, (Liverpool), Chindits.

The transfer of men from the 13th King's to the 1st battalion is causing me no end of confusion in working out exactly who took part in Operation Thursday. It seems that the Defence Medal rolls show the names of those who took part in either Longcloth or Thursday and were attached to the 1/King's at the time that the roll was prepared. Other men who took part in both operations and who had since moved to other units would, presumably, have had their Defence Medal entitlement listed on the other unit's Rolls.

Men sent to both the 13th and 1st battalions, to rebuild them after the losses of both Longcloth and Thursday, seem to be in the Dehra Dun photographs alongside 13th & 1st King's men who had taken part in both operations but who had not yet been allocated to new units or were awaiting discharge. These men would of course have been an essential cadre of experienced men for the reforming 1st battalion.

The picture is further confused by the disbandment of the 13th battalion and the transfer of men to the 1st battalion at Dehra Dun which seems to have occurred on the 29th November 1945. As most of the names listed as being transferred on the 29th November have eight figure Army Numbers few would seem to have been original Longcloth members and fewer, if any appear in the photographs.

If only the Glider manifests had survived..........

 

There are a few such listings and nominal rolls I wish were in existance somewhere HW. You never know, one day these might turn up.

 

I assume there are things I have that you have not seen, that I photographed at Kew. I have these to hand, but am wary that I signed document that limited my rights to share these. Perhaps I can PM you with details?

 

Material copied at Kew has often exchanged hands here...

 

Of course! Really appreciate all your help, been brill seeing it all piece together!

 

In all seriousness, I work in web design and would be happy to be involved in putting together a 1KLR website

 

Paul,

it is something that we should certainly give some serious consideration to. I was thinking of something along the lines of a day by day account which would include a summary of events and a mention of those killed, wounded, taken prisoner, evacuated, etc. I have constructed my database in date of events order and it helps to put things in context and link groups of men. It does of course mean that there are a large number of men outside the day by day account as without the war diaries for March-June 1944, it is difficult to link individuals with actions or places. The website should therefore have a separate roll of honour that includes the names of all those that are known to have taken part in Operation Thursday as members of the 1/King's.

Let me know what you think.

Simon

 

I would very much like to contribute all I possess towards this project, if you gentlemen are in agreement. I think the idea of a day to day diary is great. I still have some photos of several of the men invovled and other family contributions too. The POW side of things is another area I might be able to help with.

Steve

 

Steve

I wouldn't even consider being involved in a 1/King's website without your active participation. Your help, knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject have made a massive contribution towards my own small project. I also have to acknowledge the help of a certain North British fellow vegetarian and it would be good to have him on board as well.

Simon.

 

The idea of a diary and the roll of honour sounds brill, and fairly easy to put together. The hard bit will be the content! I'd suggest using Wordpress (but hosted ourselves rather than on Wordpress.com). Unfortunately the domain 1KLR.com is already registered by someone else in Portland! Guess we first need to talk about domain and hosting, and how we communicate with each other for the project.

 

Anything I can help with, you know where I am...

 

Home town memorial of Corp. Robert Foster features in Deacs' photographs of the Wigton Memorial. Here:

Can you photograph your local war memorial?

 

So for a website, I've registered http://1klr.wordpress.com. Thought it best to build on a free platform first, then go to paid if it works! I haven't added any content yet, but give me a few weeks to try and get a rough structure and add a few example things on there! Then we can see where things take us.

Have you also seen this site, it has a good description of the second Burma campaign - https://chindits.wordpress.com/2016/06/26/return-of-the-chindits-part-1

 

Paul,

many thanks for getting the ball rolling with registering a website. I think we will need to think vey carefully about want we want the website to be about within clearly defined parameters. After an initial overview I would start by concentrating on the glider landings so that we tell the story in date order. The first few days of Operation Thursday and the establishment of the Broadway stronghold should keep us busy for a while. This would allow us to concentrate on the I/King's and the few other troops that landed by glider on the night of the 5th March. I would like to list each of the gliders by number and give the names of those known to have been aboard and their fates, where known. This will obviously be an on going project as new information is found about each glider. For example I do not yet know which glider Mike Calvert flew in.

After Broadway we have to think about how much we include about the other 77th Brigade battalions that were flown in by Dakota. Do we keep the narrative strictly to the 1/King's or do we become a 77th Indian Infantry Brigade website?

I definitely want a list of all known 1/King's Chindits which would be defined as all those who flew in by glider or subsequently by Dakota and any later reinforcements who served in Burma between 5th March and say 21st June 1944. We would of course include all those in rear area H.Q.s who were essential to the campaign.

The individual biographies of these men would come, where possible, on the date that their significant event occurred, e.g. death, wounding, capture, etc. I would hope to have a page for everyday of the campaign which would allow for a description of the day's events, a geographical location where known and individual biographies. It would also have to be divided under various headings such as 81 Column, 82 column, Air Supply, Rear HQ, Base Hospital, etc.

As you can see, I have a plan in my head and some of it may need to be modified. I can send you my email address and we can talk through some of the details off forum.

Simon.

 

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, just been trying to finish off another project which has been taking up a bit of my time! I'll DM you with my email address!

 

An old thread, brought back to life this evening. Should be of interest to you HW.

what regiment did father go to India with ?

 

Many thanks for the heads up.

 

No problem.