4460740 Pte John Edward WILSON, 16th DLI

Discussion in 'Durham Light Infantry' started by Andrew Marsh, May 25, 2020.

  1. minden1759

    minden1759 Senior Member

    DLI were recruited largely from Durham county. The British Army’s Infantry has been based on counties since the reforms of the late 1800s that dropped numbers - 9th Foot, to county titles.

    Most Regiments stuck to their county links but also dropped this in war time. Lots of Geordies joined the Black Watch and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders although I have never worked out why other than those Regiments were short.

    Regards

    Frank
     
  2. Mr Jinks

    Mr Jinks Bit of a Cad

    After 1940 recruits came from various regiments/corps and from all areas. The Black watch took the 12th DLI ( The Black Watch Royal Highland Regiment) and became 1st Tyneside Scottish, On 1st Feb 1940 the battalion transferred en-mass to The Black Watch it may explain the number of `Pit-yakkers` and `Mackems` (not Geordies) in their ranks :) Its an old boundary thing :)

    Kyle
     
    Last edited: May 31, 2020
  3. Andrew Marsh

    Andrew Marsh Member

    Im a Geordie and I had to google pit yacker haha.

    So I want to sign up in 1943... I go to my local recruiting office? Who send me to somewhere for basic training? I complete that then from there I am assigned a regiment? I assume they would only assign regiments at that time that were down in numbers and needed bodies? Then I'd be shipped out?

    Was there something called drafting?
     
  4. Mr Jinks

    Mr Jinks Bit of a Cad

    Hi Andrew,

    Its strange to read that Gateshead was once part of Co Durham ! I read once about an encounter where a DLI battalion and a Northumberland Fusiliers battalion met up and the officers took ages to get them moving again because they stopped to have a bit craic.

    General Service Corps then to a regiment or Corps by 1943 . Pre war it was determined which regiment was at `Home` in Fenham the NF and DLI shared the depot before the DLI moved to Brancepeth . Local depots like 4 ITC supplied recruits to the DLI and later Duke of Wellingtons Regt. :)

    Kyle
     
  5. Andrew Marsh

    Andrew Marsh Member

    I absolutely love the thought of that!! Any idea where that meeting was?
     
  6. Cpl Hadaway

    Cpl Hadaway Active Member

    'So I want to sign up in 1943.....'

    Better still, put yourself in your great uncle's shoes: it's early 1940, the era of the 'Phoney War'. The 'Blitzkrieg' conquest of France and the Low Countries is still yet to happen.

    He has a choice: be a volunteer and aim to get into the service he wants: Army, (specifying his preferred regiment or corps, which he may just get if he's very lucky) Navy or Air Force.

    Or he can wait for that standard conscription letter from the King which will put him into wherever branch of the service the military bureaucracy has chosen.

    Let's assume he's a conscript. He passes 'A1' in his medical, gets his call up papers for the Army and reports to Fenham Barracks to join the DLI. (I don't think Brancepeth was fully up and running at this stage in early 1940), gets assigned the number 4460740 as one of a batch of 300 or so raw recruits arriving at the same time and does his three months or so of basic training, either at Fenham or Brancepeth.

    He's trained by the Regiment at the Regimental Depot.

    But don't confuse the Regiment, with the operational units of the Army: every infantry battalion is badged as belonging to a regiment, but operationally, every Battalion is part of a Brigade (which could be three battalions of the same Regiment as in the famed 151 Brigade (6, 8 and 9 DLI) of 50 Division.

    OR three battalions of different regiments (139 Brigade of 46 Division, which in 1943 was 2/5th Leceisters, 5th Foresters and 16 DLI). More on 46 Division here:

    46th Division Units and Structure

    The conscripts are predominantly from the North East and Yorkshire, but there are also probably significant numbers from London and most other parts of the UK and, possibly, more than the odd volunteer from the Irish Republic.

    By now it's after Dunkirk, the three territorial DLI battalions, the 6th, 8th and 9th, are back in the UK, much depleted, refitting and in great need of new trained men. As are their duplicates, the 10th, 11th and the former 12 DLI, 1 TS, the Tyneside Scottish. The influx of replacements to these battalions, some old hands, some newly-trained, from all manner of regiments and corps, steadily dilutes their local identity as the war progresses.

    The brand new 'Dunkirk Battalions' the 14th, 15th and 16th DLI have just been formed in June 1940 with several huge intakes of conscripts, the last with most of its initial NCOs, including future 1/44 Silver Star recipient Tony May, drafted in from the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regt.

    The Beds and Herts men never do discover what quirk of fate threw them into the 16th DLI--'the exigencies of the service', is how one history wryly records it, but they include some superb soldiers. Similarly the group of 50 or so King Own Scottish Borderers who are drafted to join 8 DLI in October 1939 prove to be some of their best men.

    At the end of this period, mid to late 1940, Pte Wilson, 4460740, is a trained Durham Light Infantryman, but that doesn't necessarily mean he stays with the regiment. He and his colleagues will be assigned to wherever they are needed. Which could be to a DLI battalion, but not always..... That's where his story begins.....

    Reinforcement drafts go out from Brancepth and the British-based DLI battalions to those in the frontline throughout the war: to 1 DLI, who are in the desert from 1940; 6, 8 and 9 in the Middle East from 1941; 2 DLI in the Far East from 1942; and 16 DLI in Tunisia from early 1943. Newly trained DLI drafts are also sent out to other units in the front line and these men are re-badged, as West Yorkshire Regiment, Inniskilling Fusiliers, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, King's Liverpool Regiment and a host of others.

    14 DLI and 15 DLI never go aboard into the frontline and remain feeder battalions for the entire war. 16 DLI itself supplies several reinforcement drafts to 6, 8 and 9 DLI in the desert in 1942, before heading for the front itself, in Tunisia, in 12/42.

    10 and 11 DLI (and 1 Tynside Scottish) serve in Iceland and the UK before taking part in the Normandy invasion. 6, 8 and 9 DLI are there for D Day, but via a long, gruelling detour, through the Desert War and Sicily. 1 DLI fights in the desert in 1941-42, is in Malta in 1942, is sent to the Aegean in 1943 (where it is virtually destroyed) and then, after reforming with all manner of reinforcements from all manner of units (including men coming back from wounding and illness, who had previously served in 6, 8, 9 and 16 DLI) fights in Italy in 1944-45.

    Pte Wilson was certainly with the 16th DLI in 1/44. But where was he for the four years beforehand? Only his service records will tell you the full story.

    A/U/Cpl H
     
  7. Cpl Hadaway

    Cpl Hadaway Active Member

    Correction! 1 DLI in Desert from 1940. Must learn to type more accurately.
     
  8. Andrew Marsh

    Andrew Marsh Member

    good job you put yourself right there or i wouldve done it for you! haha :)

    that is exactly what i wanted, thank you so much for all of that. i feel like from John being someone who the family didnt speak about because of grief, all of you have breathed life into his story for me and its amazing.

    i think my next stop is to get hold of his service record is it isnt in the paperwork. mam tells me she has medals of his somewhere so she'll dig them out and 1 photo of him in uniform so once i have it, i'll get it on here.

    mam informed me that Johns sister (my nanas other sibling) Josephine went to the Cassino memorial with her daughter in about 2005. Nana couldnt go because she had broken her hip so they took lots of photos for her including 4 of the memorial itself with his name on it. They didnt check the photos until they got back to the hotel and when they did, all 4 were blurred or out of focus. Nana said at the time, he was always a bugger, he probably was saying why hasnt she come herself!!
     
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  9. Cpl Hadaway

    Cpl Hadaway Active Member

    Another correction: I completely missed out the 17th DLI, another Dunkirk battalion, formed in 1940, that stayed in the UK....Just for completeness: 70th DLI (Young Soldiers) and 18th DLI ('Beach Brick'), some men definitely came to 16 DLI from the latter after 9/43 and Salerno.
     
  10. Andrew Marsh

    Andrew Marsh Member

    Hi all.

    Abit of an update on great uncle john. Mam found some photos and his medals. So hes on the left on this one. No.idea of where or when.

    20200618_125040.jpg
     

    Attached Files:

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  11. Andrew Marsh

    Andrew Marsh Member

    On this on he is second right front row 20200618_183058.jpg
     
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  12. Andrew Marsh

    Andrew Marsh Member

    Last one
    He is 2 right of the captain (I assume) in the back row...peeping over the left shoulder of the lance corporal.

    It's amazing for me to see a group of lads like that. Amazing. Quite upset seeing it actually thinking about the lives extinguished.

    Unfortunately there are no names or dates or places on any of them.

    Cheers
    Andy

    20200618_183112_resize_76.jpg
     
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  13. Cpl Hadaway

    Cpl Hadaway Active Member

    The last photograph especially is a classic. There's so much history there, if only we knew who the rest of those men were. And the identity of their officer too, of course. Someone, somewhere must have the identical photo, so now it's up on here more information might emerge.

    I can't quite make out the shoulder insignia at this resolution, but to me it does look as though several men at the front are wearing the 46th Division 'Oak Leaf' insignia. What do others think?

    Take a magnifying glass and have a look at their shoulders on your original photo.

    46div22.jpg

    If you can see the above that would almost certainly make this a 16 DLI platoon, possibly from 1942, though from what company?

    It would be great to have this photo uploaded again at the highest possible resolution to confirm the insignia. Group photographs of 16 DLI from this period are like hen's teeth.

    The Battalion were engaged in gathering in the harvest while in the Rye area in 1942 (at Peasmarsh farm, now owned by a certain P McCartney), so that could explain the haystacks, if indeed it is 16 DLI, and date the photo as 1942. The men definitely look as though they've just put a shift in, it's not as formal as the company photos from this era, eg this one of D Company:

    D Coy 16 DLI enlarged left half

    The other group photo seems to be from a similar time frame, 1941-42, perhaps earlier. Possibly another battalion before he was posted to the 16th? Possibly not.

    The Medals are in a bit of a muddle: the Africa Star Ribbon is attached to the Defence Medal and there's no Africa Star! The Africa Star would have included a clasp, either '1' for the First Army, which included 16 DLI; or '8' for Eighth Army (6, 8 and 9 DLI). Which brings us to the two men in shorts photo. This could be Italy, post-Sept 1943. There seems to be a censor's marking out the insignia on his friend's shoulder. Or is this just a mark on the photo?

    As before, his service record will clear everything up. Until then all of the above is speculation.

    Thanks for sharing these excellent photographs.

    A/U/L/Cpl H.
     
  14. Cpl Hadaway

    Cpl Hadaway Active Member

    The more I look at that last photograph the less it looks like 1942 and the more like late 1943 Italy, with the men resting after a long spell in the frontline. The smiles, the informality and the rugged scruffiness of all concerned suggest men just out of the line....

    Expert on Italian haystacks requested....
     
  15. Andrew Marsh

    Andrew Marsh Member

    Thanks for the comments there. It wont allow me to upload anything more than 2mb so I could send you the better image of that big group via email if youd like?
     
  16. Andrew Marsh

    Andrew Marsh Member

    The officer in my last pic looks like the same chap as second right bottom row of the link to the pic you posted
     
  17. Cpl Hadaway

    Cpl Hadaway Active Member

    PM sent regarding the photograph. Regarding the officer, unlikely but just possible he's that Lance Cpl on the 1942 D Coy photo. There were four 16 DLI Other Ranks commissioned in the field in mid-1943, one was ex Sgt Major Arthur Pearson of C Coy who survived the war and was awarded the MC. The other three, ex-Cpl L W Clark, Sgt H Duffy and Cpl D R M Harrison, were all killed in action as platoon officers in the first few days and weeks after Salerno. This is an April 1944 group photo of the 16 DLI's officers. I'm useless with faces, but this might be worthy of study:

    Officers 1944
     
  18. Cpl Hadaway

    Cpl Hadaway Active Member

    Here's some enlarged versions of the second group photograph based on the bigger file Andrew sent me. Can't do much about the quality, but those do look like 46 Division Oak Leaf shoulder flashes on the men on the right. Anyway, it's on here now, so maybe someday, sometime, someone with the same photograph will enlighten us as to who the other soldiers are and when it was taken... Others separately as thumbnails.

    AOfficerJEWilsongroup.jpg
     
  19. Cpl Hadaway

    Cpl Hadaway Active Member

    Other close ups...
     

    Attached Files:

  20. minden1759

    minden1759 Senior Member

    Here is the MC citation for Lt Arthur Pearson.

    upload_2020-6-21_16-45-34.png

    upload_2020-6-21_16-46-13.png
     
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