4th Bn Royal Welch Fusiliers, '39 to '43

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to piece together my father's service with the RWF between 1939 and 1943. He was posted from the 102 Training Battery of the Royal Artillery to the 4th Battalion RWF after only 10 weeks of a 6 month training posting. He served in this Battalion until his medical discharge in '43.

His name was Sergeant James Simmers from Aberdeenshire.

Any information on where and when this Battalion was located during this period or any additional information about him would be greatly appreciated. I guess there may not have been too many Aberdonians in the RWF.

Thanks for reading this post.

Dougie Simmers

Hi Dougie,

the 4th RWF were part of 158th brigade (4th, 6th & 7th bn RWF) and moved to Northern Ireland in late 39, based in Lisburn Co. Antrim near Belfast, until December 1940 when they moved to barracks in Belfast. there were troubles during 1940 in Belfast including in May two members of D company being attacked. Shortly after this the 4th RWF moved to the Western shore of Strangford Lough. Following brigade exercises during August and September the brigade during November and December were mostly engaged in digging and wiring the Newry defence line against invasion from the South. During the spring of 1941 the brigade practised assault boat landings at Downpatrick and filed firing in the Silent Valley of the Mourne Moutains, followed in June by a Divisional exercise and by more exercises until November 1941 when the brigade moved to Lichfield in England, at Whittington barracks. More exercises followed including scenarios for Libya or France. 4 months later the bn moved to Kent as part of SE command and took part in more exercises. At the end of 1942 the brigade moved to the Kent/Sussex border taking on an anti invasion role, with the 4th RWF based at Hawkhurst and more exercises took place until September when they moved to East Anglia. In October they moved to Maidstone in Kent and stayed in that area carrying out exercises into 1944 and on to their deployment in France after D Day.

I should add that during the 4th's stay in Ireland the 53rd Welsh div were there as well for some of the time and my Father would have been there with them as part of the Div Signals.

Three war diaries at the National Archives in London you should consider getting: WO 166/4626 4 Royal Welch Fusiliers.1939 Sept.- 1941 Dec; WO 166/8929 4 Royal Welch Fusiliers 1942 Jan.- Dec; WO 166/12764 4 Royal Welch Fusiliers 1943 Jan.-Dec.

Thanks to those who have replied. This is starting to put actual places to what I knew already although my knowledge was a bit vague, info I had was Northern Ireland and Kent rather than Lisburn etc.

Still looking for any additional information, all appreciated.

Dougie

Drew,

How do I go about getting copies or access to these diaries?

You can either go to the National Archives in London and view/copy them with a camera or ask the Archives to copy them for you - They charge around a £1 per page though which makes them very expensive. On another forum dedicated to all things WW2 I offer forum members a copying service of files and diaries at 10p per page. A bit cheeky of me advertising seeing as I've only just joined (I came here purely for a some specific 1940 info) and noticed some of the threads were interested in certain Bns and no one had mentioned war diaries at Kew. By the way can you tell me how you get to do a new line on your message? When I hit return nothing happens.