Ernest John Marshall, East Surrey Regt, 1st Btn Royal Norfolk Reg, Yorks and Lancs, can you help

Good Afternoon everyone

As you can see from above, my name is Ian and I am keen to learn more about my family and their personal experiences during the war.

Particularly at this time info on my grandads service, Ernest John Marshall, with the East Surrey Regiment 1940-1944, Royal Norfolk Regiment 1944-1946 and the Yorks and Lancs Regiment 1946.

If anyone can point me in the right direction for any of these, that would be great. I have a few anecdotal references to tie in to the facts and help me draw up a picture, his army number and medal record (he never collected them and I want to honour that). I'm also very much interested in the nickname 'Bermondsey B@#sterds, which I believe was applied to a particular company of the East Surreys who were largely recruited from that part of London.

Thank you for anyone able to help, I look forward to the conversations and learning.

Edit: Title changed due to everyone’s help so far. Thank you.

 

Hi,

Welcome to the forum.

You really need to know which Battalion he served with in each regiment together with the dates he served there. If you already have that info please add it to the topic as it will help members to help you.

If not you need to apply for his service record before embarking on further research as that is the only official document that provides Battalion level details about a soldiers movements.

Get a copy of military records of service

Steve

 

Hello Ian and welcome aboard.

 

Welcome. Currently using his given name he does not appear on The National Archives site (TNA). That may mean his record is still with the MoD or it is with TNA being processed for release. If you follow the weblink given you can ask where it is and they will reply.

The "Bastards" appears to come from a post-war quote by a TV actor see: Windsor Davies - Wikipedia

Nothing here for "Bermondsey" + "Bastards", though the later word appears in this thread, within a poem. See: 1 East Surreys Sicily

Adding his army number and medal record can help.

During the Italian campaign the British Army had a shortage of infantry soldiers, so they could be transferred en masse, a unit was disbanded after heavy losses etc. This became even more acute after D-Day. That may explain his moves between regiments - you went where the Artmy told you.

 

Welcome Ian.

My great uncle George was in the East Surreys in WW1. Although his entry on CWGC shows him as having been in the 3rd Battalion, this was a result of his having fallen ill in France and having been sent home to hospital here, where he was transferred into 3rd Btn.

However, he actually enlisted into, and served in France with, the 12th Battalion, East Surreys. These, the 12th, were the Bermondsey boys. I don’t know whether they were called the Bermondsey “B******s”, nor if the Bermondsey connection extended into WW2, but certainly it was a Great War outfit and it may well be that battalion to which you allude.

This book is about the Bermondsey Battalion and it lists every man who served with it.

HISTORY OF THE 12TH (BERMONDSEY) BATTALION EAST SURREY REGIMENT - Naval & Military Press

Although the men of the 12th wore the East Surrey cap badge and shoulder titles, they wore collar dogs bearing the borough’s coat of arms.

A link to my thread on George over on the GWF if you are interested:

https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic...ttalion-east-surrey-regiment/#comment-3133737

 

Welcome aboard Ian.

 

Thank you for your reply, unfortunately the battalion is the key part that I’m missing, I have mad certain assumptions from family stories that put him in Italy, we know he was wounded there, lost part of an ear, wounds to the throat and lip, he always had a moustache after that to hide some of the scarring at least. From that I’m assuming 1st btn.

I have had some documents relating to his service and I’ve got his medal record which I hope will help also.
Thanks for the link, I’ll follow that through as well.

 

Thank you, some interesting angles to look at, definitely the thread on east surreys in Sicily as I think from the info I have that he may well have been there. And I’ll certainly follow up on the national archives again. This is a project that has been sitting untouched for some time I visited the archives when I started many years ago, so may well be worth going back to them.

The move to Norfolk Regt is an interesting one, potentially taking him out of Italy in time for D Day, I need to corroborate dates there, he was demobbed shortly after moving to yorks and Lancs so I suspect a move to bring him back to the uk, at least administratively.

 

Fascinating, thank you. It makes sense to have the Bermondsey boys title applied during the First World War as a result of recruiting methods. But I think they learned a lesson from losing so many from individual areas as a result of it that they stopped that in the 2nd.

definitely going to have a read of your thread though.

 

Picking pieces of information from the above are we talking about Ernest born 1 March 1916 and living in the Neckinger Estate, Bermondsey in 1939?
Enlisted 26.7.40 6149890 East Surrey Regt and transferred to Royal Norfolk 19.7.44. Wounded NWE with the 1st Bn 14.10.44.

 

Yes, that’s him. And you got me on the date he was wounded I didn’t know that specific detail.

 

1 Norfolk war diaries for October 1944 are online on Ancestry.

 

Brilliant, I’ll look it up. Thank you

 

As he was in 1 Norfolks this book might be worth getting.

Thank God and the Infantry: From D-Day to VE-Day wi... by Lincoln, John Hardback 9780750906302 | eBay UK

 

Of course, once you have found his East Surrey battalion there is this, perhaps you have already found the site:
The Queens and East Surrey Regiment Second World War Diaries

 

Enlistment Register: