4th Indian Division Royal Artillery

Finding myself with some time on my hands I decided to do a little family research. Now my family lived in India for a long time prior to WW2 and my uncle joined the British Indian Army also prior to WW2. He has long sinced passed and I have almost no information on his WW2 activities.

I have found that my uncle served in the 1st Field Regiment RA of the 4th Indian Division and received The Military Medal for his actions at Sidi Omar on November 25th, 1941. I also have two 25pdr shell casings that have the regimental logo attached and are engraved with the engagements they took part in (and a very impressive list it is to). I can upload a photo of those if anyone is interested.

Firstly, thanks for those that have put information on this thread and secondly, if anyone knows of anywhere else to look for photos, war diaries, reports I'd be very grateful for pointers as I'm new to this research lark.

 

I, for one, would be interested in seeing the shell casings.

Concerning your research:

1) Do you have the citation for your uncle's military medal? (I probably have it if you don't)

2) I have (low-quality but readable) scans of The Tiger Strikes, The Tiger Kills (the divisional histories). The third part, The Tiger Triumphs, is available online here: The Tiger Triumphs. The Story of Three Great Divisions in Italy. 1946. Foreword. Table of Contents. Message me an email address if you'd like me to send copies of the first two.

3) How long did your uncle remain with 1 Fd Regt after 1941? I have the diaries for 1944, but none other. If he was still with them during Feb to April 1944, I have transcribed their diary for their time at Monte Cassino here: 1 Fd Regt RA at Cassino - March 44

4) The War Diary references are as follows:

1939-40:
Royal Artillery: 1 Field Regiment (Fd Regt) | The National Archives

Jan to Apr 1941:
British Troops Sudan and Eritrea: Royal Artillery: 1 Field Regiment (Fd Regt RA) | The National Archives

May to Nov 1941:
Royal Artillery: 1 Field Regiment (Fd Regt RA) | The National Archives

1942:
Royal Artillery: 1 Field Regiment (Fd Regt) | The National Archives

July to Dec 1942:
East Africa Command: Artillery: 1 Field Regiment | The National Archives

1943:
Royal Artillery: 1 Field Regiment (RA Fd Regt) | The National Archives

Jan to July 1944:
Field Regiments: 1 Fd. Regt | The National Archives

Aug to Dec 1944:
Field Regiments: 1 Fd. Regt | The National Archives

1945:
Field Regiments: 1 Regt. | The National Archives

July to Sept 1946: ??
1 Field Regiment | The National Archives

July to Sept 1946: ??
1 Field Regiment | The National Archives

I Suspect the label is inaccurate on the first of these two for 1946.

 

Aitch.

1 Fd Regt RA were one of three artillery regiments in 4 Indian Division who provided fire support. Two other regiments were cap badged Royal Artillery in the Division - one provided Light Anti Aircraft defence and the other providing anti tank gun support.

Each of the Fd Regts was allocated to an Infantry Brigade. 4 Indian Division controlled 5 Indian Infantry Brigade, 7 Indian Infantry Brigade and 11 Indian Infantry Brigade. 1 Fd Regt RA was allocated to 5 Indian Infantry Brigade.

This meant that whilst the Regt’s guns, and the men who manned those guns, were at the disposal of the whole of the Division, 1 Fd Regt RA specifically provided fire control parties to the infantry battalions of 5 Indian Infantry Brigade. This gave the infantry battalions the ability to get artillery fire support very quickly because the embedded fire controllers, who had radios or telephone wires direct to their gun lines, were up with them and saw everything before them.

Fire Control Parties were provided by 1 Fd Regt RA to 1/4 Essex, 1 R FUSILIERS, 1/9 Gurkha Rifles and 1/6 Rajputana Rifles.

4 Indian Division were at the Second and Third Battles of Monte Cassino in Feb-Mar 44 and then fought the Battle for the Gothic Line at Rimini in Sep 44 before being moved to Greece to suppress the Communist Insurgency.

Regards

Frank

 

1/6 Rajputana Rifles?

 

Excellent orders of battle here.

Courtesy of this excellent site:
Docs – Middle East 1930 - 1947 – Indian Formations - British Military History

 

James.

Sorry, fat fingers. 1/6 Raj Rifles.

F

 

Charley,
Thankyou very much for your very informative response.

1. I do have my uncles citation (Bmdr John Bell) and a copy of his entry in the London Gazette.
2. I will take you up on your very kind offer of scans of The Tiger Strikes and The Tiger Kills, thankyou, and I will message you an email.
3. As far as I know he was with the 1st for the duration of the war but I am not 100% certain. I intend to get his army records (if I'm able to) which should answer that.
4. Thankyou for the links to The National Archives. The site says they are not taking orders at the moment so I will get a quote from them when the lockdown has lifted.

The engraving on the attached photos is quite difficult to read but I'd be happy to list them if required.

 

Ooops, I meant to attach these photos.

Edit - Which I obviously still haven't magaed to do!

 

Thankyou for that reply Frank. That is all new and very interesting information to me.

 

2. Haven't received a message/email address from you yet.

4. Don't order from the National Archives. Their costs are astronomical. Everything is on hold for now, but as soon as they reopen, there are two members here who will copy diaries at much, much more competitive rates.

Your uncle's field regiment was firing in support of my grandfather's brigade for much of the time between 1942 and 1944. He was with 1/4th Battalion, The Essex Regiment, part of 5th Indian Infantry Brigade.

There is a modern reprint of the single-volume unified Divisional History available here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/FOURTH-IND..._title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1586936895&sr=8-1

It doesn't have a huge amount of specific information about 1 Field Regiment R.A., but it is an excellent guide to the movements and battles of the whole division and very readable.

 

2. I have now sent my email address.
4. Thanks for the advice on the National Archives.

I'd been trawling Facebook and a few WW2 forums and had seen The Essex Regiment mentioned a couple of times. I am repeatedly amazed at how much information is 'out there' considering the limitations of the equipment available to recored the events.

 

Aitch.

If you ever want to go to Cassino and see for yourself what you uncle got up to then do get in touch through www.cassinobattlefields.co.uk

Normally, without Covid 19 in the way, I am there 8-10 times a year. It is an absolutely fascinating place.

Regards

Frank

 

Hi Everyone

Has anyone got a copy of Gunfire Target: Six Years with the Royal Artillery by Edward A. Oates?

I am trying to find information about 11 Fd Regt RA's time in Patras, Greece and in particular how 825554 Sgt John Stanley Parker got his MM



Gus

 

Dont overlook Farewell Screw Gun by Wilf Goldstein his is the story of the 85th Mountain Regt An Essex TA Field Regt converted to a Pack Artillery Regt in Palestine,
part of 4th Indian Division. Armed with the 3.7 Howitzer capable of being dismantled and carried by mule train in the mountains of Italy
from Monte Cassino to Monte Grande on the Gothic Line.

 

Sgt Parker was a Bombardier at the time he won his MM. It was awarded for the action at Krioneri where he was the regimental medical orderly.Under heavy mortar fire he had repeatedly gone forward to bring wounded gunners to safety.

I will post more later when I have had time to read the relevant parts of the book.
Derek

 

Thanks Derek, Much appreciated.

A gallantry award for operations outside Athens and Piraeus/Faliron during this period is quite rare.

Also Sgt Parker is one of my 'missing' , see Missing Award Recommedations - WO 373

So it will be nice to resolve another mystery.

Regards

Gus

 

Jack Parker gets several mentions in "Gunfire Target" in the company of the author Edward Oates. The first one is some 6 weeks after the final battle of Alamein when they were on leave in Alexandria. They met a Cpl of 1/4 Essex who spoke to them about the fighting on Kidney Ridge. He insisted on buying them a beer as a thank you for the superb artillery support they had. Every round on time & target.

The next mention is the two of them being invited to have dinner with a rich Egyptian businessman. He invited parties of 6 OR's, including junior NCO's, at a time to have dinner with him. They arrived at the man's estate in the early afternoon and were met by uniformed servants. They met their host who told them that all the facilities of the estate were availble for their use. These included an Olympic sized swimming pool, tennis courts, miniature golf course and riding stables. Jack & Oates decided to go to the stables where a groom produced 2 horses for them. After a pleasant ride around the estate they joined their companoins in the pool. They met their host again for dinner at 7 pm and after the meal retired to the library for cigars and drinks. After a friendly discussion on the differences in marriage customs between westerners and muslim, the group returned to their unit.

Next instalment later.
Derek

 

The invitation to dinner could be related to:

Post 90 in the current Sledgehammer thread

 

In December 1942 the Regiment was on the Med coast at El Imiyid when Jack & Oates go on 10 days leave together to Palestine. They stayed in a small hotel in Tel Aviv. The pair later had a days sightseeing trip into Tripoli in March 43. In May 44, now in Italy, the pair befriended 2 Italian girls. As a medical orderly Jack was able to scrounge tea, sugar, salt & tinned milk for the girls. After several weeks of this they were invited by the girls parents to come to supper. They only found out later that what they had taken for rabbit stew had in fact been cat!

There is a 7 page section in the book on the regiment's time in Patras. I will precis this section hopefully sometime tomorrow.
Derek

 

PATRAS FORCE (PATFORCE) Tac HQ Sitrep -15 Dec 44



Gus