4986524 Private Ernest SANDERS, 5 Sherwood Foresters: 18/03/1943

Looking for any information please on;
Private 4986524 Ernest Sanders 5th Battalion Sherwood Foresters died of wounds on Thursday 18th March 1943 aged 25.
Ernest is buried in Bone War Cemetery, Algeria.

Regards Richard


https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/938746/ernest-sanders/

 

Richard,

Welcome aboard. The definitive answer should be found in his official Service Record, held normally by the MoD and possibly in transfer to the National Archives. Details on how to apply via a PM in a moment.

There are very few threads here on the 5th alas. I did find in a quick search that:

From Post 16 in: 5 Corps or 1st Armoured Division WD for Sept 44?

Their successor regimental museum has a very small history of the formation (as 2/5 & 5th:

From: Sherwood Foresters WW2 | Museum of the Mercian Regiment

Wiki has another slim entry:

From: Sherwood Foresters - Wikipedia

It appears the 5th were in a counter-attack on 17/3/1943, in Tunisia. From: 5th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) in the Second World War 1939-1945 - The Wartime Memories Project -

There are a couple of clues on where and you may find the place names here:

From: BBC - WW2 People's War - History of the Sherwood Foresters

Enough to start reading and time to go. Enjoy! Others may be along to help.

 

Thanks David, that gives me a good starting point.
Regards Richard.

 

Past Postings Sherwood Foresters

sherwood foresters (nottinghamshire & derbyshire regiment) | WW2Talk

 

The thread on #4 above lists all postings for the Sherwood Foresters.
Some of the members on these threads are very knowledgeable regarding the 5th Battalion and may be worth contacting.
I am aware of one member who I know is writing their history. He mentions this on the Austria titled thread.
I dont think this new enquirer will be able to start a conversation so I will PM him
I am aware of the movements of the 2nd Battalion who arrived in Algiers circa 9th -12th March 1943.
I am not sure if there is a connection to their arrival and this enquiry regarding Bone.

 

Looking at past thread in link above, a member has posted in April 2022:
"I thought members may like to know that The Museum of the Mercian Regiment can provide information on a Sherwood Foresters soldier.
It costs £20 and is supposed to take up to six weeks. Mine came back on the next working day. Very impressed".
(See link in #2)

Most members would advise that you apply for his Service Record via MOD or TNA whichever is now holding them.
They are the official and generally comprehensive records from enlistment to discharge.
This might not be very long in this case.

I will leave it to others more up to date with the application procedure to go further on this.

 

Hi Richard

As Uncle Target says I am writing a history of the 5th Foresters. I have had a quick look at my analysis of the battalion's casualty records and although there is no exact date for when Ernest was wounded, the casualty list he first appears in would indicate that it was probably during the Battle of Sedjenane, around 2-3 March 1943. This was the battalion's first major action in which they lost heavily fighting veteran German troops. There are several personal accounts of the battle in the Nottingham Archives, and in the IWM sound archive.

When I get home next week I will see if any of the personal accounts I have mention Ernest and will be in touch.

Mike Somerville

 

Richard,
Just giving your thread a "bump" (keep it on the New Threads list) while Mike is away I have looked up the battle that he mentioned.
There are three entries on search engines, one from Wiki , one on BBC Peoples War and one from WW2t.
The Peoples War story is by Fred Hirst who you will see in the article wrote a book.
It is available online but somewhat expensive, depending where you look.
I have not tried it but assume that the link to Fred on the ww2t link might not work after all this time..
It was mentioned on this forum in 2005.
Whilst the book mentions the battle in which he was captured, it seems to be primarily about his time as a PoW so possibly not what you are looking for. Though it might provide good background knowledge about the events leading up to his capture experienced by your man.

Battle of Sedjenane - Wikipedia.

BBC - WW2 People's War - Fred Hirst's Part 2 Serving with the Sherwood Foresters in Tunisia 1943 and Capture by the Germans

A Green Hill Far Away By Fred Hirst

Mike is very well informed regarding 5SF so he might just pull something of interest out of his files.

 

I have looked a bit further into Ernest Sanders. Unfortunately I’m not able to be very specific about his service. None of the personal accounts I have mention him by name, so I’ve not been able to determine his company. His Service Number would seem to indicate that he was called up early in 1941 – the full service record from MOD would verify this – if so he was 23 at that time, this might mean he was originally in a reserved occupation at the start of the war that delayed his call up?

He appears in two casualty lists, 1093 where he is reported as wounded but with no date and 1101 where he is reported to have died of wounds. The date and burial location (Bone) suggests he died in the 70th General Hospital, but can’t be certain of that.

The 2/5th battalion fought three battles in March 1943, the first around Sedjenane on 2-4 March, the second and third around Tamera on 13 and 17-18 March. All of the other casualties on list 1093 are dated 4/3/43, this and the time required to evacuate to the coast makes it highly likely Ernest was wounded at the same time (I’ve attached the 1093 list, they can be found on findmypast.co.uk). This date was when the battalion was finally pulling back from Sedjenane to Tamera, during which it was hit by German mortar fire. This is my best guess at the circumstances of his injuries, as it would also explain how Ernest was successfully evacuated to the hospital. The front line companies on 2 March had been overrun, so evacuation of seriously wounded would have been very difficult. The problem is that without knowing his company (which is not recorded in service records) it is very difficult to be more precise.

There is very little on these operations in published histories – never more than a paragraph or so on the 2-4 March battle. There is a 1946 history of the 16 DLI (which was in the same brigade as the Foresters), by Lawrence Stringer on of its officers. Fred Hirst’s autobiography that Uncle Target mentioned has about four pages on the battle but is prohibitively expensive online.

However, there is lots of material in the Nottingham County Archive. This includes a collection of first-hand accounts of the battle titled Memories of Sedjenane, plus the original of Fred Hirst’s book and a number of other accounts, as well as numerous photographs of the area taken by veterans of the battalion on visits in the 1980s. The Imperial War Museum sound archive also has several interviews with veterans of the 2/5th and other battalions participating– some of these are available to listen to online others you have to visit the museum. Search the IWM collections for ‘Sedjenane Foresters’.

There was also an Albert Sanders who died at Salerno, was he any relation? There are no details of Ernest’s parents on the CWGC records.

If you give me your email I can also send you a draft of my current narrative of the battle.

Hope this helps

Michael Somerville