The Household Cavalry at War: The Story of the Second Household Cavalry Regiment

By Roden Orde and Eric Meade-King

The Second Household Cavalry Regiment’s war was a short and exciting one, from Normandy in July 1944 to Germany in May 1945. In the vanguard of the Guards armored Division, 2 HCR, an armored reconnaissance regiment, was continuously on the advance and rarely out of contact with the enemy. Sometimes progress was slow and grinding, while at other times it was with exhilarating speed. Written shortly after the War, this book draws on the recollections of those who were in the thick of the action; the young troop leaders, their corporals-of-horse, and troopers. Roden Orde has taken great care to weave an accurate, balanced and readable account, the story of an entire regiment, from the commanding officer to the youngest trooper. This inclusive style was ahead of its time, with a narrative that has a contemporary feel to it. The story cracks on and Sir Winston Churchill later described it as ‘the best regimental history I have ever read’. The book is well illustrated with many contemporary photographs, hand-drawn maps, and wonderful paintings and drawings, some of which have not been seen for many years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Release date: Mar 8, 2024
• ISBN: 9781399073363

Roden Orde

Roden Orde, the author, was born in 1910. He served in the Second Household Cavalry Regiment, as an officer, during the Second World War, and was later an official observer at the Nuremberg trials. After leaving the army he became a stockbroker. He was commissioned to write the wartime history of 2HCR by his former commanding officer, receiving plaudits from Sir Winston Churchill, Lieutenant General Sir Brian Horrocks, and many former members of 2HCR. He died in 1985.

Book preview

Part One

Training in England

Chapter I

Windsor and Knightsbridge

War declared—Mobilization—Composite Regiment formed—Invasion threat—Training Regiment given operational tasks—Lack of equipment—"Cromwell"—Horses given up for duration—1st and 2nd Household Cavalry Motor Battalions formed—Increased establishment of motor battalions—Exercises under 20th and 30th Guards Brigades—Guards Armoured Division formed—2nd Household Cavalry Motor Battalion becomes 2nd Household Cavalry Regiment (armoured cars)—Bulford

At a quarter past eleven on the morning of Sunday the 3rd of September, 1939, the inhabitants of Great Britain switched on their wireless sets and learnt from Mr. Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, that the nation was once again at war with Germany. To all but a few confirmed optimists the Munich autumn settlement of 1938 had been but a postponement of the inevitable, and as he spoke to the hushed millions, Mr. Chamberlain’s firm but sad voice seemed to echo the mood throughout the land. Outside the sun was blazing down from a clear blue sky which, in spite of an air raid warning, was to remain void of enemy planes for many days to come.

Mobilization schemes have always been the bane of peace-time adjutants and orderly room staffs, but when at the end of August 1939, the order had been given to mobilize, although one might have thought it would have been organized chaos, things really went extraordinarily smoothly.

The Life Guards were in London and the Blues at Windsor. The plan envisaged the immediate formation of three composite regiments made up from regulars and reservists. One regiment was to take its place in the Cavalry Division and was to mobilize at Windsor. There was to be a Reserve Regiment in London, and a Training Regiment at Windsor. Initially, however, the Life Guards mobilized at Knightsbridge and the Blues at Windsor, and it was some days before the Life Guards’ portion of Regimental Headquarters and of Headquarter Squadron and the Life Guards Sabre Squadrons moved to Windsor. The Life Guards Sabre Squadrons were billeted at the Royal Ascot Hotel and at the Eton Country Club. The stabling used was the Ascot and Windsor race stables, respectively.

Meanwhile, horses had been arriving at Windsor from all parts of the country and those men not looking after horses were fully occupied building sandbag walls and blast protection in barracks and at the Castle.

The Composite Regiment was commanded by Colonel E.J. L. Speed, M.C., the Life Guards, the Reserve Regiment by Lieutenant-Colonel R. Fenwick Palmer, the Life Guards, and the Training Regiment by Lieutenant-Colonel the Lord Forester, Royal Horse Guards.

The Composite Regiment mobilized as a regiment of cavalry (horsed as opposed to armoured) and did a certain amount of training, but, of course, most of the time was taken up in conditioning and September training remounts. In September it moved to the Newark area. The manner in which the Composite Regiment was mobilized meant that the Blues Regimental Headquarters, composed of active and fit personnel, was left behind with the Training Regiment, while the rest of that Regiment was made up for the most part of reservists, and recruits.

The winter of 1939–40 was for the Training Regiment at Windsor a dull and somewhat tedious time, as indeed it was elsewhere during the phoney war. Nothing much could be done except steady training of recruits and remounts; equipment, practice ammunition and stores were very short and transport was practically non-existent. It is questionable whether, apart from rifles, the Regiment had any effective weapons. The Hotchkiss and Vickers machine guns were certainly DP models, and there were no Brens. Recruits were still being taught dummy-thrusting, and their bible remained Cavalry Training (Horsed). Little tactical training, even of the simplest kind, could be attempted because of the pressing need for individual training.

At the beginning of February 1940, the Composite Regiment, having been brought up to strength by drafts of all available trained men from Windsor and London, left with the Cavalry Division for Palestine.

In March and April 1940, came the quickening of the war when the Germans invaded Norway and Denmark. However, owing to the lack of equipment and to purely training duties, the Training Regiment did not have an operational role. It was still thought that horse cavalry drafts would be required, and it was not until the fall of France that any change in this attitude was made.

After the invasion of Holland, when it was seen that the Germans were making great use of parachutists, the possibility of invasion by air was considered. The Training Regiment was given operational tasks immediately and some small amount of equipment was issued.

At Windsor, the Regiment’s regular jobs were to form a mounted Troop with a twenty-four-hour tour of duty at Cumberland Lodge, with the Troop patrolling the Great Park at dawn and dusk; and there were also dismounted positions to man at the vital Metropolitan Water Board reservoirs at Staines and Laleham, where it was thought that the enemy might land in seaplanes. For the latter job, a few Hotchkiss guns (without butts) were issued from Woolwich!

The Regiment was also issued with six motor coaches with civilian drivers subject to no order or military discipline whatsoever. Should the need arise, these coaches were to be used to move what fighting troops the Regiment could muster to defend Langley aerodrome, where the Hawker fighter aircraft were manufactured.

From this time onwards little real interest was taken in horses or horse training and the Regiment had bi-weekly schemes on foot with long route marches. Colonel Robert Laycock, Royal Horse Guards who had returned from France, where he had been Gas Officer at G.H.Q., became responsible for dismounted training until the formation of the first Commandos in July 1940, when several of his Troops formed initially at Windsor.¹ A Household Cavalry platoon was formed in the Commandos under the command of Lord Sudeley², who had been Adjutant of the Training Regiment up to this time, when he was succeeded by Captain A. J. R. Collins.

Throughout the late summer and early autumn of 1940, during the Battle of Britain period, the Training Regiment carried on with the operational roles which have already been mentioned, but it would have been desperately badly armed had an invasion taken place. Although it could have mustered some 350 men, there were between them but six automatic weapons!

It was on the 7th of September, 1940, that Home Forces issued the code word Cromwell, which meant that invasion was imminent, and Captain Collins returned to Combermere Barracks to find that the Grenadier Guards Duty Officer from Victoria Barracks had come to find out what the word meant as his code was locked up in the safe. The Duty Squadron was turned out and moved with all speed to Langley airfield, where the only incident of note was that a Troop Leader, Lieutenant Bowes Daly, an officer of some seniority, who had seen service in the First World War, after failing to get an answer to his challenge to some dim form that grunted in the darkness, fired his revolver and found that he had shot a cart horse.

Throughout the autumn, infantry training went on hard and the Regiment received great help from the Grenadier Guards, who lent them every sort of instructor. To even the most loyal and biased cavalryman, it had now become apparent that there was no room in the present shape of things for a horsed cavalry regiment. One detects a note almost of desperation in Lieutenant-Colonel the Lord Forester’s appeal to Field-Marshal the Lord Birdwood that the Regiment might surely be used as a Cavalry Machine-Gun Regiment (Vickers guns) on the lines of the old M.G. Squadrons of the last war. The Regiment, he continues, could be used in France in marshy country where mechanized vehicles could not be used. However, in spite of a sympathetic reply, it was not to be, for although the C.I.G.S. seemed entirely in favour of the proposal, it is not feasible because we have not at present the necessary guns, equipment, etc., to carry this out. The fate of the blacks was therefore sealed, and in September and October they were sent away for the duration of the war to Melton Mowbray, to which place, certain sections of the daily Press seemed convinced, the rest of the Regiment had followed, also for the duration.

The anti-parachute patrol of the Great Park was hereafter carried out unglamorously on bicycles, and the Troop Officer was allotted an Austin 7 for the performance of his duties. The Regiment was now entirely occupied in its operational roles and in dismounted training.

On the 19th of November 1940, orders were received that a change of role was to take place. The Composite Regiment in Palestine was to become the 1st Household Cavalry Motor Battalion; the Training Regiment, the 2nd Household Cavalry Motor Battalion; and the Reserve Regiment, a Motor Training Battalion. Like so many other orders, before these could be carried out they were cancelled, but they were renewed, very little altered, on the 12th of December. This meant that all fit officers and men in the Reserve Regiment were moved immediately to Windsor.

The plan was that the 1st Household Cavalry Motor Battalion should have a Life Guards Headquarters with two Life Guards and two Blues Companies and that the 2nd Household Cavalry Motor Battalion should have a Blues Headquarters, equally with two Blues and two Life Guards Companies. It was envisaged that as soon as shipping became available, the 2nd Household Cavalry Motor Battalion would be moved to the Middle East and that the Regiments would then re-form as Life Guards and Blues. In England these orders, which were only regularizing what had practically been the case for the last six months, were put into force immediately. In Palestine they were not received until the end of the following January. The 1st Regiment there did not lose its horses until March,1941 and although one Squadron had been mechanized in the autumn of 1940, the remainder were not to be issued with trucks until a week before being thrown into the Iraq and Syrian campaign at the end of April and beginning of May.

* * *

In England, the formal change-over to the new War Establishment was a great blessing. It meant that long-delayed promotions among officers and men could now be made. In addition, the Regiment was almost made up to the new increased strength of a motor battalion by drafts from 3rd and 5th Horse Cavalry Training Regiments at Welbeck and Shorncliffe, which were then being disbanded.

As usually happens in the Army when a War Establishment is granted, more equipment and transport flowed in than could be absorbed. Particularly was this the case with regard to 15-cwt. trucks, Bren carriers and Bren guns. Naturally, although all this equipment was disgorged for training purposes, it had to be instantly available for the anti-invasion operational roles allotted to the Regiment.

Up to this time all schemes (and since the fall of France there had always been two regimental schemes per week) were carried out on foot, and officers and men were undoubtedly fitter than they had been at any other time in the war when either horses or, later, cars were available to carry them. Of course, the area in which training could take place had been necessarily restricted because of lack of transport, but there was no part of the Windsor area, Burnham Beeches, or Chobham ridges with which everyone did not become thoroughly familiar. The Copper Horse, well-known landmark in the Park, came in for more than its share of rough handling, being the focal point of innumerable assaults by both the Household Cavalry and the Grenadier Guards by night and by day.

It has been said that the Training Regiment was not quick enough to give up its trained men for the Composite Regiment, but it must be remembered that the invasion scare was a real one, and the fact that it was recognized that the Training Regiment would turn itself into a motor battalion was a clear sign that the War Office was prepared to admit that the Household Cavalry could form two active-service regiments at an early date.

The change-over enabled the difficult problem of provision of officers to be tackled more firmly since the officer War Establishment of a motor battalion was considerably larger than that of a horsed cavalry regiment. Boys of school-leaving age who were not prepared to take up the dying prospects of the cavalry were more prepared to come forward to join a motor battalion. Apart from the understandable reluctance of boys to join the cavalry, there were two other important factors governing the problem. Firstly, the Household Cavalry had in peace time no organization in force to deal with the officer problem and was therefore at a disadvantage when competing with the Foot Guards, the Rifle Brigade and the K.R.R.C. (60th). Secondly, the more so at this time of the struggle, the glamour of the Royal Air Force and its achievements, as opposed to the (to date) somewhat drab results of the Army, was a great attraction to the Public-School boy. Not until 1943 at the earliest did the problem of officer reinforcements begin to sort itself out. At the next change-over from motor battalion to armoured car regiment in September 1941, the question was to become acute.

The original War Office plan envisaged that the 2nd Household Cavalry Motor Battalion should be moved to the Middle East as soon as shipping space became available. But in spite of the strongest representations, this move never materialized, and in the early spring of 1941 the question of placing the unit in a field formation arose. It had already been inspected by the then Director of the Royal Armoured Corps, Lieutenant-General Sir G. Le Q. Martel, and the G.O.C., London District, Major-General Sir Bertram Sergison-Brooke, but so far no collective training had taken place. Every exercise, apart from a few anti-invasion ones in conjunction with the Grenadier Guards Training Battalion, stationed in Victoria Barracks, had been on a purely regimental footing. The overhanging threat of invasion also meant that the Regiment, like so many other units at that tense period, was obliged to undertake regimental exercises long before individual training was anything like complete. We were trying to run before we could walk.

On a wider front, the Motor Battalion now formed part of London District Mobile Reserve; the primary duty being that of a counterattack role in the defence of Fighter Command Headquarters, located in Bentley Priory, Stanmore. There were also counter-attack plans in force for possible enemy raids on aerodromes to the north and west of London.

In March 1941, the Regiment moved to Pirbright Camp (Stony Castle) under canvas. Both for training and operational purposes it was placed under command of 20th Guards Brigade (Brigadier W. A. L. Fox Pitt), with headquarters at Woking. One motor company, as these were now called, was to be changed every fortnight and left at Windsor to form part of the Windsor garrison. Ground forces in 1941 were far more air conscious than they were towards the latter part of the war. Bitter memories of the Dunkirk beaches were still fresh in many instructors’ minds, and so all tents were pitched under the cover of pine trees in the darkest, dampest and most insect-infested parts of the Stony Castle area. The tents were sunless and miserable and we had still a lot to learn about making ourselves relatively comfortable out of doors. The camp, however, was close to barracks, and an extremely good half-hourly train service to London was some sort of solace to the Windsor regulars, who rather viewed the sojourn at Pirbright as their exile in the wilderness. Proximity to barracks also enabled attached personnel, such as Captain Brown, R.A.M.C., who liked his creature comforts, to give the men the benefit of his medical knowledge and yet sleep in the luxury of his Combermere bedroom.

Driving instruction and route marches now came to the forefront, and officers and men were introduced to the still unfamiliar No. 11 wireless set by Lieutenant the Lord Maitland³, who had succeeded Captain T. Clyde as Signals Officer.

Captain Gerald Balding ran the Carrier Company, a much-coveted job, for only he and his immediate entourage escaped with any degree of certainty from the route marches which were daily radiating from the camp in ever-lengthening numbers of miles.

In May two and three-day exercises were carried out under command of 20th and 30th Guards Brigades. A significant fact was at once apparent. Although the Regiment was as yet only partially equipped and trained as a motor battalion, the tendency was to use it in the role of reconnaissance. Possibly this tendency was encouraged because of the then great lack of Bren carriers in the infantry battalions of both brigades and the fact that the Regiment could muster two fully equipped platoons of twelve carriers apiece. Whatever the reason, the return to the employment of the Regiment in its old cavalry role in a new shape was foreshadowed.

During May rumours that the 2nd Household Cavalry Motor Battalion was likely to revert to a cavalry role as the armoured car regiment of a new Guards Division about to be formed were translated into fact. On the 29th of the month, Lieutenant-Colonel the Lord Forester attended a conference at London District Headquarters at which the impending formation of a Guards Armoured Division was formally announced. The 2nd Household Cavalry Motor Battalion was to become the new division’s armoured car regiment. Simultaneously came the announcement that in future the establishment of an armoured car regiment was to be increased to a headquarter squadron and four sabre squadrons.

War Office approval was not immediately forthcoming for this change; nevertheless training on the new lines started at once. A considerable number of officers, non-commissioned officers and troopers were sent off on courses all over the country. Cross attachments were arranged between the 2nd Household Cavalry Motor Battalion and the armoured car regiment of the 1st Armoured Division, the 12th Lancers. Potential tradesmen⁴ were dispatched not only to military training centres but also to civilian firms, such as courses at the Humber works at Birmingham and the Daimler works at Coventry. These were very popular, as were the rarer courses in London. Lecturers and instructors were assembled, and from the beginning of June onwards, until the end of the year, the Regiment was greatly reduced in strength owing to so many key persons being engaged on courses.

The Royal Armoured Corps Wing at Sandhurst Royal Military College arranged a series of two months’ officers’ courses. These embodied general principles of wireless (the first sight of the No. 19 wireless set), driving and maintenance, and gunnery (the 2-pdr. anti-tank gun, the 7.92-mm. and 15-mm. Besa machine guns). The course was primarily intended for officers of the future tank battalions of the new armoured division and therefore did not really cater for the armoured car Troop leader. In fact few instructors had ever seen an armoured car—one even going so far as to introduce his lecture by saying that Lawrence might have liked to play about with them in Arabia, but they are not made to blend with the complexities of a modern armoured division. This remarkable statement nevertheless summed up a view widely prevalent at the time, because it must be emphasized that in spite of the magnificent work of the 12th Lancers in France during the 1940 campaign, and later on in the North African desert of the Royals and the 11th Hussars, the idea that armoured cars were a somewhat unorthodox and expensive luxury was to die slowly.

At Bovington, spiritual home of the tank, the instructors at the Armoured Fighting Vehicles School responded nobly to the new calls made upon them and in due course a steady stream of Household Cavalrymen was to pass through their hands, although here again it should be stressed that the armoured car part of training was still almost a closed book and no specific provisions for training such personnel had yet been provided.

The general plan for the Guards Armoured Division, before its actual formation, was to dispatch to the various training units as many officers and senior non-commissioned officers as could be spared. These would in time develop into unit instructors. The division was to form in September 1941, by which date, it was hoped, individual training could begin. As events proved, because of there being no specialized trainers for armoured car work, the time forecast was a trifle optimistic. In the meantime, until unit instructors should become available, such progress as was possible with limited resources of men and equipment at once began.

In order to facilitate this object, the 2nd Household Cavalry Motor Battalion returned from Pirbright to Windsor on the 12th of July.

The 12th Lancers obligingly lent two officers and four noncommissioned officers, and classes started for driving instruction and the general principles of the internal-combustion engine. Two old Guy armoured cars were dug out, and by the time these vehicles had passed through several hundred pairs of hands, more accustomed to bridles than to steering wheels, they had undergone their fair share of collisions and ditchings.⁵ The quantity of other transport now flowing into barracks was proving, in view of general inexperience, to be an embarras de richesse.

On the 11th of July 1941, Colonel the Lord Forester was due to finish his term of command of the Blues, and Major Henry Abel Smith, then with the 1st Regiment, had been ordered to return and take over. However, when he landed on the 23rd of July his Middle East news was already out of date. Fully expecting to command a motor battalion, to his great surprise he found an armoured car regiment already established at Combermere Barracks.

Almost his first action on assuming command was to lay on a Maintenance Parade, due to take place on the day after his arrival. The term Maintenance and what it portended was as yet imperfectly understood at Combermere Barracks and the chief victim of this parade turned out to be Captain Hubert Duggan, Conservative Member of Parliament for Acton, who, still attired in service dress instead of the newly issued denim overalls, found himself at pains to explain the meaning of a large cobweb linking the back axle of the office truck to the stable wall. Thenceforth Maintenance Parades were to become a stern daily chore, with an especially rigorous inspection at week-ends; while Captain Duggan, wisely bowing to the inevitable, decided in the national interest to attend as many secret sessions of the House of Commons as military duties permitted.

* * *

On the 15th of September 1941—the same day as the official formation of the Guards Armoured Division—the Regiment, reinforced by four more Guy armoured cars, moved off to a hutted camp at Bulford Fields on the edge of Salisbury Plain. The new camp was on the site so often occupied in peace time by the Regiment of the Household Cavalry when on manoeuvres. Thus ended, after an existence of ten months, the 2nd Household Cavalry Motor Battalion.

With a copy of the Special Order of the Day dated the 22nd of September 1941, and signed by Major-General Sir Oliver Leese, this chapter, giving briefly and barely the story of the nucleus from which sprang the 2nd Household Cavalry Regiment, may fittingly be ended.

SPECIAL ORDER OF THE DAY

By MAJOR-GENERAL SIR OLIVER LEESE, BART., C.B.E.,

D.S.O.,

Commander, Guards Armoured Division

The following message has been received from His Majesty The King:

BUCKINGHAM PALACE.

The General Officer Commanding

Guards Armoured Division.

The formation of the Guards Armoured Division is a landmark in the history of the Household Brigade, and I am proud to think that my Household Troops are to take their place among the most powerful units of modern warfare.

I am sure that it will not be long before they have acquired in their new role the fame which they have rightly enjoyed as Infantry for centuries past, and I send to all ranks my best wishes for success in the tasks which lie ahead.

GEORGE R.I.

19th September 1941.

The following reply has been sent to His Majesty The King on behalf of all ranks by the General Officer Commanding Guards Armoured Division:

His Majesty The King,

Buckingham Palace.

All ranks of the Guards Armoured Division present their humble duty and wish to thank His Majesty for the gracious message received on the formation of the Guards Armoured Division.

It will be the endeavour of all ranks to carry out the tasks which lie before them in a manner worthy of His Majesty’s trust and of the high traditions of the past.

O. W. H. LEESE, Major-General,

Commander, Guards Armoured Division

22nd September 1941.

(Signed) DEREK SCHREIBER, Lieutenant-Colonel,

General Staff, Guards Armoured Division.

1. Robert Laycock later succeeded Vice-Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten as Chief of Combined Operations, 1943-1947.

2. Lord Sudeley died at sea, 26th August, 1941.

3. Lord Maitland was later killed in action in North Africa after he had transferred from the Blues to the Lothians and Border Horse.

4. Tradesmen: an army term denoting specialists—e.g., wireless operators, vehicle mechanics, etc.; they receive extra pay.

5. Major M. A. Little, later killed in action in France, was not endowed by nature with a mechanical turn of mind. He never managed to negotiate the entrance gates of Combermere Barracks and they bear marks to this day.

Chapter II

Bulford and Trowbridge

Problems of armoured training—Shortage of instructors—General war background—Bumper—Individual and Troop training—Inspections—Changes in command within the Regiment—Rommel—Linney Head ranges—Trowbridge—H.M. The King inspects Guards Armoured Division—Armoured cars to become Corps troops—Further changes in command within the Regiment

Retrospect shows the move to Bulford to have been a complete break from the old to the new—an exchange from the permanency and comfort of Combermere Barracks and London weekends to the dreariness of wind-swept Nissen huts on the Plain. It was to be a new division and another role—a role which, let it be said, was frequently criticized adversely. Many affirmed that it was too bold an experiment, doomed to failure from its inception. Infantry-trained Guardsmen would not fit into turrets, nor could Household Cavalrymen accustomed to horses be expected to imbibe the necessary mechanical knowledge to fit them to take their place in a modern armoured division.

There were others, however, who viewed the problem free from unreasonable professional prejudice. Lieutenant-General Sir G. Le Q. Martel, during a distinguished career, had always been closely associated with armoured warfare. As far back as 1916 he was consulting with Major-General Sir Ernest Swinton about tanks before their use in France. Subsequently, he was mainly responsible for producing the models which led to the development of the Cromwell tank and the heavier Matilda and Churchill models. When the 2nd Household Cavalry Regiment became an armoured car regiment he was Commander, Royal Armoured Corps. This is what he wrote in after years when discussing the formation of the Guards Armoured Division:

"In April we began to consider our future expansion. Our five armoured divisions and three army tank brigades (21st, 25th and 31st) were well launched and we could now expand further. The first problem that arose was whether we should form these new formations ab initio on cadres supplied by existing Royal Armoured Corps units, or whether we should take existing infantry formations and convert them into Royal Armoured Corps formations. We pressed for the latter, because we did not consider that the existing Royal Armoured Corps units could spare any personnel suitable to send as cadres.

"This principle was adopted. The first decision arrived at was to form a Guards armoured division, but it was not reached without a good deal of trouble. The War Office wanted to insist that the Guardsmen should leave the Guards and join the Royal Armoured Corps. We could see no necessity for this. We all agreed that the Guards go to extremes in these matters. Men belonging to the Grenadier Guards cannot go into the Coldstream Guards, etc. etc. In this way they handicap themselves unnecessarily. But there was no reason why the Brigade of Guards should not supply Guardsmen to form Guards armoured regiments. The War Office, however, remained completely opposed to forming a new armoured division from the Guards unless they became part and parcel of the Royal Armoured Corps. They would obviously make a magnificent armoured division and that was all that really mattered, but we had considerable difficulty before we obtained War Office sanction for a Guards armoured division which would always be supplied and manned by Guardsmen. As soon as this had been settled, the Guards went to work with their usual enthusiasm and efficiency. Major-General Sir Oliver Leese was selected to command them. There was great competition to be in the Armoured Division and they got their pick. They started going to our training regiments in June. It was quite exhilarating to see the intense keenness with which they attended these classes. The Guards were, of course, determined to have the best armoured division. Anyone who did not seem to be grasping the work was changed, and they had plenty of excellent material to pick from. In this they had, of course, a great advantage. There was never any doubt as to the future success of this division. When they had found their feet, the Guards formed their own training centre for their recruits. This relieved the pressure on our own training centres. The logical course would then have been to form a holding unit of Guardsmen trained in Royal Armoured Corps work who could flow to any Guards armoured regiment, but this was resisted. The esprit de corps of the regiment was greater than that of the Brigade of Guards."¹

This was the carefully considered opinion of the Commander, Royal Armoured Corps.

* * *

The new establishment of officers was a considerable increase in numbers, jumping from 33 to 48; the establishment of other ranks remained constant in the region of 800. Senior officers on arrival at Bulford were:

* * *

It was soon discovered that, with the limited number of instructors upon whom to call, a serious blunder had been made over the question of the Regiment’s driving and maintenance instructors. An assurance had been given that as the unit had been a motor battalion its non-commissione officers would be immediately available in a teaching capacity; in fact, the Regiment had not obtained enough vacancies on courses to make this even remotely possible. The calculations of London District and Headquarters, Royal Armoured Corps, were based upon this supposition, and the 2nd Household Cavalry Motor Battalion (as it was then) was, therefore, never allotted such courses in the original planned distribution. Notwithstanding the most strenuous efforts on the part of Colonel Abel Smith—for the weakness of the original calculations was only too well realized by him—he never succeeded in getting it entirely corrected.

* * *

At this stage, a glance at the general war situation will not be out of place. Compared with the corresponding period in the 1914-1918 struggle, the plight of the British Empire was infinitely worse and although the United States, with all her war potential, was veering more and more towards open friendliness, we were nevertheless alone in the fight; nor had Russia, deeply embroiled in the folds of her treacherous treaty with Hitler, yet fallen out with her Nazi ally. It is still barely possible to hazard a guess at what must have been the secret torments tearing at our Prime Minister’s indomitable heart.

The naval burden in the Mediterranean was crushing. British forces in North Africa, weakened through having to dispatch an expeditionary group to the aid of Greece, were savagely man-handled by Rommel and driven back from Benghazi to the Egyptian frontier. An anti-British revolution broke out in Iraq², and in April Germany, disgusted at the ineffectiveness of her Italian ally, launched herself at Greece and a divided Yugoslavia. When Athens fell on the 27th one more melancholy evacuation had to be completed with the help of the Royal Navy, though not without considerable loss in military personnel and ships.

Grim looking as was the horizon, all was not wholly black. July saw the closure of the Syrian (Vichy) campaign, and in August Mr. Churchill and President Roosevelt, meeting in the closest secrecy out at sea, published the Atlantic Charter.

But in the meantime an event had occurred which was to prove to be one of the turning points in our island’s struggle for survival. At dawn on the 22nd of June, Germany leapt at the throat of her erstwhile Russian friend on a front of over a thousand miles. Who of those millions who heard him will ever forget the Prime Minister’s broadcast that night? It rallied the Empire and the occupied countries as never before and steered the United States into all but open warfare on the side of the Allies.

It was hinted darkly by the knowledgeable within the Division that the Russians will only last six weeks, and when after a series of lightning thrusts the Germans had attained the banks of the Dneiper by the beginning of July and, following swiftly in a series of gigantic battles, had torn away vast slices of territory up to the gates of Leningrad and Moscow, it certainly appeared as if those irrepressible prophets might for once be right.

Against this momentous world background, the Regiment prepared to wrestle with the problems of internal-combustion engines and electrical circuits, which latter, Bovington assured us, now flowed from left to right and not from right to left. Lieutenant van Cutsem still wearing riding breeches started a muttering campaign against the wearing of the new beret, while, to the great disappointment of newly joined officers, the Adjutant announced that only those of field rank and himself would be permitted to wear embroidered badges on that same debatable headgear. Meanwhile, intent on playing his full part in the new mechanical age, Major the Hon. M. Dillon threatened to put a man in the book for reporting that the big end of his motor-bicycle had gone.³

* * *

It is now common knowledge that at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation not more than one fully trained infantry division was available for the defence of the British Isles. Yet somehow, by early autumn of 1941, four armoured divisions as well as other troops were standing by prepared to take part in Bumper, the largest military exercise in the country to date. Bumper roamed over the southern and Midland counties for ten days. The weather was fearful and the Regiment’s small part consisted of providing twelve officers on motorcycles, suitably equipped with notebooks and a sense of direction. They were to act as umpires and follow the moves of the 2nd Derbyshire Yeomanry (armoured cars). The exercise brought out the decisive influence of armoured formations on the field of battle. Returning enthusiasts stated that the tanks could almost be handled like a pack of hounds, but, said the authorities, there was serious lack of reconnaissance and observation at times. There were cases of tanks charging home against unlocated guns and without artillery support.

Some armoured cars had overturned in the course of the exercise, and an order came out that car commanders would henceforth keep all but head and shoulders inside the turret—no mean feat with the attendant clutter of map boards, Slidex code cards, and the monstrous Lakeman mounting of the turret ack-ack Bren gun.⁴

Captain Collins used to shout warnings from the steps of the Orderly Room as troops went out on their training runs, but not until the day that Regimental Headquarters in toto decided to explore the countryside from their own turrets was the regulation relaxed.

Those who had imagined that individual training would leave the Regiment on a peaceful island of self-sufficiency, for a few months at least, were soon disillusioned. Officers and non-commissioned officers who had been sent off early in summer on Armoured Conversion Courses began to trickle back from Yorkshire, the Midlands, and the Home Counties by the beginning of October. Another batch of some 350 junior non-commissioned officers and troopers was sent off to Bovington and up to Catterick in Yorkshire.

Already, Lieutenant J. H. D. Ward had taken part with his Troop in a demonstration in the area of Spettisbury Rings in connection with the Divisional Commander’s Study week. The month of October went by in a spate of inspections because everyone wished to see for himself the War Office’s latest venture in armoured warfare, the Guards Armoured Division.

On the same day that His Majesty The King approved of the new name, 2nd Household Cavalry Regiment, Her Majesty Queen Mary graciously visited the camp, watched training and honoured the Regiment by staying to lunch in the Officers’ Mess. Further visits from the Major-General commanding London District, Lieutenant-General Sir Bertram Sergison-Brooke, and from the Secretary of State for War, the Right Hon. David Margesson, followed. The latter was shown an example of armoured car Troop drill, of which up till then no set form was known to exist, and the Minister was presented with a curiously complex mixture of Caterham and Weedon, plus echoes of the D. and M. Wing⁵ at Bovington, which strangely enough worked.

One show piece deservedly never failed to impress the casual or official visitor. It was the mechanical model room. Collected together by Captain W. Writer, temporary Technical Adjutant, who had been lent to the Regiment by the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars, it was the result of numerous skirmishings amidst the surrounding W.D. and civilian car dumps. Embodying a comprehensive assortment of broken-down parts, this catalogued scrap iron was instrumental in forming a solid groundwork of knowledge for the drivers and future fitter mechanics upon whom, as time progressed, more and more vital work was to devolve.

The arrival of twenty armoured cars, both Daimlers and Humbers Mark I, foreshadowed the day when exercises would be staged on the Plain. Already divisional weekly signal schemes down to and including Squadron rear links had taken place in skeleton form, and exercise Hotspur, a Southern Command performance covering the counties of Wiltshire, Somerset and Dorset, gave the embryo operators on the No. 19 wireless sets a taste of just how tiring three days’ continuous operating could be. Great was the excitement when someone in camp reported receiving a faint message from the top of Beacon Hill, less than three miles away! We were not yet very good, but we were learning and there was plenty of enthusiasm.

Up to the present an acute shortage of B vehicles⁶ under the new establishment had been staved off by using the old Motor Battalion lorries, but when the new Fords and Bedfords materialized it was found that they had spent several days at the bottom of the River Mersey, from which place they had been recovered from the holds of a bombed ship. They appeared, however, to have come to little harm as the result of their immersion.

* * *

There had been several changes of command within the Regiment during the past twelve months. Major T. Philipson had left to become Officer Commanding Guards Divisional Training School at Weston-Super-Mare, and temporarily, until the arrival of Major Walter Sale from the Middle East on 22nd December, the post of Second-in-Command was to be held by Major A. W. Stanley. Major M. A. Little left to take up a Staff appointment, and he was succeeded in A Squadron by Major D. Bowes Daly. Captain the Earl of Lewes was soon to join him as his Second-in-Command.

The Medical Officer, Captain J. Brown, R.A.M.C., had remained behind at Windsor, and his place had been taken by Surgeon-Lieutenant R. U. F. Kynaston, R.H.G. He was, he admitted, very new to Army life and routine.

"I joined on a Saturday afternoon at Windsor in September 1941. There was not a soul about and I was astonishingly frightened, the more so because a War Office Medical Brigadier had told me that it was a plum job in the Army. At last I found the anteroom and with growing confidence I inquired from a solitary figure behind The Times how I might find my room. The Times lowered. ‘I should press the bell,’ said Archie Little, with obvious irritation. Up went The Times again and I retired to my room so shattered that I dare not emerge till dinner."

Roger Kynaston was a most conscientious officer, particularly so where the men’s medical welfare was concerned, which was to result, soon after he had joined the Regiment at Bulford, in an unforeseen encounter with the Second-in-Command.

I had a number of ‘problem men’ and so formed up to the Colonel to do what I could for them (the Colonel and Walter Sale shared an office in the orderly room at that time). One was a trooper who had grown restive, for he had been in charge of some 150 Wall’s ice-cream barrowmen before the war and now found himself permanent barrack road sweeper! I suggested to the Colonel that perhaps he might be given the chance in some more responsible position, whereupon Walter jumped up in a fury and inquired how it was that I was so grossly abusing my position as to suggest to the Colonel how he should run the Regiment. Shaking at the knees, I replied that I conceived my duty to lie not only in the physical but also in the mental welfare of the Regiment. I saluted and retired. Walter appeared at my M.I. Room the next day and apologized, and we were the greatest friends thereafter.

Roger Kynaston soon became very much part of the Regiment in every way. Life to him, especially the war part of it, was a perpetual surprise, which attitude frequently earned him a leg-pull, but he was always where he was most needed in a crisis, calm and efficient and very understanding. Most popular with fellow officers and men alike, all came to know his sympathetic greeting in moments of stress and action, My poor friend, and how is the world treating you? He was the best and most painless jabber of the hypodermic needle in the British Army.

* * *

Although the United States of America had entered the war on our side in December 1941, following the treacherous attack on her fleet in Pearl Harbour by the Japanese, the New Year was to open in the full gloom of Far Eastern disaster. Hong Kong had fallen on Christmas Day. Singapore was shortly to follow suit. The entire Indian subcontinent was in peril and the Americans were about to experience another heavy naval defeat in the battle of the Java Seas. Even if Russia’s absorbent immensity kept swallowing up entire German armies, there were but few rays of light to brighten the Home front. Yet we still grumbled at the cuts in railway transport and the curtailment of forty-eight hours’ leave passes, for, after all, everything is relative.

The weather was arctic—January 1942 was the coldest for fifty years—and in the middle of the worst spell, exercise Rommel took place. We always blamed Colonel Laycock for Rommel. In the latter part of 1941 his Commandos, raiding the North African coast behind the German lines, had nearly cost Field-Marshal Rommel his freedom, if not his life. It was a daring incursion resulting in the gallant death of Colonel Keyes. For his part in the operation, Colonel Keyes, son of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, the leader of the Zeebrugge raid in 1918, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

Some restless spirit at home believed that a German reprisal on similar lines and directed at an important British Headquarters was a distinct possibility. Hence exercise Rommel. All headquarters in the district were warned that they might be attacked by men masquerading as friends. All outsiders were suspect and store sheds and magazines enfolded in coils of Dannert wire. With the thermometer well below zero and a blizzard raging over the Plain, the entire Regiment patrolled and guarded, listened, and shivered. Around Bulford, posses of cavalrymen, led by Major Bowes Daly with a cosh, sought out dark corners of woods for possible enemy concentration areas. No person slept or lived in his normal abode. Colonel Abel Smith moved from hut to hut heavily guarded, while a disguised Orderly Room, next to the cookhouse, grappled with urgent or suspect telegrams. To fox the enemy someone had the bright idea of turning night into day, and at every corner of the camp armoured cars, their turrets humming in the vibrant cold, waited for the call to action. The climax came on the second night. Through some unguarded chink, enemy disguised as friends slipped into the camp. When dawn came it was found that Captain Collins had been shot dead at his adjutantal post, blaming with his dying breath lax security precautions of the Intelligence Officer, Lieutenant Haskard. The echelon subalterns, who it was thought had come off best by having been ordered to guard dumps of vulnerable stores in the centre of the camp, were also liquidated, and, as corpses, were sleeping in comfort amidst piles of spare blankets. The person responsible for the outrages had penetrated the camp posing as organizer of the scheme. It seemed unfair, but cautious inquiries at other centres elicited the information that the Foot Guards had suffered even worse chaos. As the result of lessons learnt at the post mortem, the fate of officers’ wives, until then permitted to be domiciled locally, once more trembled in the balance for security reasons.

In spring, after nearly six months of classroom work on the 2-pdr. antitank gun and the Besa machine gun, the Regiment prepared to test theories and marksmanship on the Linney Head Ranges in Pembrokeshire. Now up to full strength both in armoured cars and scout cars, there would be no shortage of ammunition, nor of guns—a welcome change. One half of the Regiment made the two days’ journey by road, staying the night at the Royal Welsh Infantry Training Centre in Cardiff. The other half travelled by train to Pembroke non-stop, Major Williams contributing to military history and shaking Movement Control to the core by refusing to sign for safe receipt of the locomotive and carriages!

Before departure, Captain Cyril Falls, The Times Military Correspondent, visited Bulford, and a few days later came the news which revealed to the general public that Guards Armoured Division was in existence.

Linney Head was a great success. Stacpoole Court, a rambling and ugly house, accommodated the Regiment with ease, although its bare, unheated rooms had not the comfort of the near-by modern Belisha Camp at Merrion which was to harbour the Regiment on its next visit. The time spent here, away from the boredom of routine training, was a great mental rest for officers and men alike. The town of Pembroke was near and for those who had the energy to make the journey, Tenby, an attractive little coastal town, was a few miles farther in the opposite direction. The ranges engaged everyone for most of the day, however, and, if any form of training is tiring, range firing with its continual noise and demands on alertness is so in the highest degree. Most people after breathing the strong sea air all day were only fit for bed.

The tanks, whose range this primarily was, had all been put through a Troop run towards the end of their stay. In conjunction with the Gunnery Officer, Captain Profumo, and the Range Officer, Colonel Abel Smith devised a variation for armoured cars. The run of some three miles long produced a variety of targets. These were by no means easy to pick out, especially, as so frequently happened, with a sea fret haloing the late afternoon sun in the car commander’s eyes. One innovation brought in was a loop intended to test the Troop Leader’s control of the rear half of his Troop.

If successfully negotiated, the loop brought the Troop together again near a derelict farmhouse filled with Hun effigies, at which Besa machine-gun fire, Sten guns, pistols and hand grenades were directed in quick succession. It proved to be good practice for the close country which was to be met in Normandy; it was also fun to meet foes with so little idea of taking cover.

The finale came with the order to gather the Troop in extended line for a cavalry charge over a Pembrokeshire stone wall, at the other side of which popped up yet more targets lining the cliffs. The successful tackling of the wall was a magnificent advertisement for the Daimler suspension, which took the shuddering impact without a murmur.

The Signals Officer, Lieutenant C. H. Waterhouse, had erected a cruel contraption enabling Colonel Abel Smith to tune in to the participating Troop Leader’s car on a loud speaker. With this set-up the commanding officer listened-in with unconcealed glee to the tortured accents of his officers attempting to deal with two wireless sets, the driver’s intercom, the controlling of the corporal-of-horse’s loop, the spotting of targets and the loading and fire orders for the 2-pdr. gun, all while trying to avoid the weapon’s violent recoil mechanism. Never was war half as bad!

The run was on a competition basis, and a point-to-point atmosphere reigned throughout. Inevitably, Major Fairhurst made a book on the back of old bits of paper, while Lieutenant van Cutsem glided shrewdly from target to target assessing current form from the range personnel. Lieutenant Hanbury’s Troop, with orders cut to the basic minimum, carried the day.

Plans were now afoot to move the Regiment to a new location, for Bulford, with its unusually good gliding and dropping zones, was required by Major-General Browning’s new Airborne Division, the same one which was later to make the first landing of Allied troops to capture the Orne bridgehead in the early hours of D Day, 1944. We were therefore not to see Bulford again, and the Regiment moved direct to a new camp at Trowbridge after a night spent in Cardiff on the way. On the second day the route lay past Badminton, where Her Majesty Queen Mary was staying as guest of Captain the Duke of Beaufort. On hearing that the Regiment was to pass, Her Majesty expressed a wish to see the armoured cars. The arrangement was entirely spontaneous and the first of its kind since turning over to armoured cars. Her Majesty took the salute on the march past with Lieutenant-Colonel Abel Smith and Major Ward in attendance.

* * *

To retail all the exercises and milestones in training which followed would be boring and serve no useful purpose. Suffice it to say that slowly but surely, often imperceptibly to those concerned, the building up of an armoured car regiment progressed. Month by month, wireless distances increased. Map reading improved noticeably and drivers began to get the feel of their engines, and mechanical failure due to the ill-usage of inexperience became rarer.

There were night drives through the pretty but narrow lanes of north Wiltshire, where a misread map spelt chaos and wasted hours of disentangling vehicles by the light of a torch and much cursing. There were days when, to produce versatility, jobs were reversed. Car commanders became for a time operators, and drivers found themselves with the responsibility of a leading scout car corporal. These occasions were frequently amusing in retrospect. Never, wrote Captain N. Ford, shall I forget Harry Stavordale and Mick Dillon on an officers’ exercise, as driver and operator in a leading scout car. The former did not know how to turn on the wireless set and the latter how the engine switched off. It took some beating and was a good start to the day!⁷ But what really mattered was that we were making progress all the time.

* * *

In May, Guards Armoured Division was considered ready to be inspected for the first time by His Majesty The King, accompanied by Her Majesty The Queen. The Regiment was commanded to provide a Captain’s Escort composed of Captain’s car (Captain T. Clyde) and two Troops each of two armoured cars and two scout cars, commanded by Lieutenants the Hon. M. Eden and R. Wrottesley. The escort was drawn up outside Gillingham Station and escorted Their Majesties to East Knoyle. Parties of Household Cavalrymen lined the route, while the Regimental Aid Post, commanded by Surgeon-Captain R. U. F. Kynaston, was on parade at the Divisional Administration demonstration.

There now arose the question of forming a second Guards Armoured Division and, arising therefrom, a second Armoured Car Regiment. Both the Divisional Commander, Major-General Sir Oliver Leese, and Lieutenant-Colonel Abel Smith were anxious that the 1st Household Cavalry Regiment should return from the Middle East for this job, as with resources then available (particularly in officers) in the country it did not appear feasible to form another completely new regiment in England. However, the whole project fell through in its infancy because it was decided that two Guards Armoured Divisions were, owing to the manpower problem, out of the question.

June, 1942, found the Regiment moving for the first time as a complete armoured car regiment (exercise Savoy), and in July the first complete divisional scheme (exercise Cheddar) took place, with the Regiment harbouring in the picturesque country outside Cheddar and at Fonthill. In the latter place Lieutenant the Hon. E. Carson (future M.P. for the Isle of Thanet), mistaking his way in the dark and inadvertently treading on the slumbering form of his Squadron Leader, Major T. A. Fairhurst, learnt in no uncertain fashion of the value of careful movement in harbour.

Following almost immediately came the ambitious Southern Command exercise (Sarum). It started in Devonshire and finished in a welter of slaughter by the umpires on the Regiment’s own doorstep. Petrol shortage and lack of tyres had diminished its scope, and made it peter out prematurely. Throughout, the armoured cars had been in great demand for reconnaissance purposes.

One day that summer, Major Ward, in temporary command of the Regiment during Colonel Abel Smith’s absence, received an order to send immediately to London docks a mixed column of Daimler and Humber armoured cars, scout cars, a water-cart, a Gin Palace, and some three-ton lorries, twenty vehicles in all—the move to be in the greatest secrecy. It later transpired that these were required for loading tests about to be made on various types of vessels intended for the forthcoming invasion of French North Africa. I was ordered to take charge of the convoy. For some reason, no specific route had been given, which was strange, for London District was very jealous of its London thoroughfares, and I decided to travel the direct way, which was heresy, passing through the centre of London. Many of the men had never been in the capital before and were delighted at the chance of seeing the sights. The convoy passed round Hyde Park Corner, Buckingham Palace, down the Mall, under Admiralty Arch and moved somewhat jerkily to negotiate the one-way traffic of Trafalgar Square (most of the men were from Headquarter Squadron and unfamiliar with the vehicles they were driving). For some unaccountable reason, the B wireless sets chose to work perfectly, and the troopers were just being warned to stand by for a Cook’s tour description of the Houses of Parliament when a War Office conference chose at that moment to debouch its Generals into the middle of Whitehall. Their expressions repaid study as they leaped back to avoid the cavalcade, one obviously making a mental note of the convoy’s serial number. However, we gave a succession of magnificent salutes from the turret, and passed safely on to Woolwich, where the night was spent with the Gunners in hospitable comfort. Next morning the cars were driven to the King George V Docks to be loaded and unloaded from ship to ship by dock labourers, whose lunch-time breaks were the envy of all the soldiers. Apart from the water-truck which was dropped forty feet into one of the holds with a concussion which burst all tyres and shot the steering wheel through the roof, all went well.⁸

The completion of the trials happened to coincide with the early morning news of the Dieppe raid carried out by the Canadians. To a public starved of recent military successes and weary of a long series of evacuations, the chance was too good to be missed, and as the cars, dirty and battered after their handling by the dockers, passed through the East End on the return journey to Trowbridge, the citizens of London placed their own interpretation on the meaning of the scene. Wild cheering broke out which steadily grew in volume until, by the time Blackfriars Bridge was reached, a crowd five deep lined the pavements, shouting themselves hoarse. The troopers waved a disclaiming No, but this was only taken to be the deprecatory gesture of modest returning heroes and the crowd redoubled their cheers, delighting the men beyond measure. The West End was less credulous, but when the convoy reached Trowbridge the crews were greeted with surprise, so sure were their comrades in camp that they had been sent to Dieppe as reinforcements.

In September, the Division heard with regret that Major-General Sir Oliver Leese had suddenly been called away to assume command of 30 Corps in North Africa.⁹ The battle of Alamein, turning point in the Middle East campaign, was but a month away. Shortly afterwards it was decided that armoured cars were no longer to form an integral part of the armoured division but were to be Corps troops in future. Although this turned out to be but a temporary separation from Guards Armoured Division, the split was a sad one for the Regiment, and for the time being we were nobody’s child.¹⁰

Autumn came round once more, and the Regiment paid a second visit to the ranges at Linney Head. Again a great amount of shooting took place and it was found that marksmanship had improved noticeably. This time we were housed in the comfortable Belisha Camp at Merrion. The famous Troop run was revived and it was again won by D Squadron, this time by Lieutenant R. A. Bethell’s Troop.

A very sad accident unfortunately marred the atmosphere of the runs. Corporal-of-Horse Ives, a most popular and efficient non-commissioned officer, and Trooper Hammond, both of B Squadron, lost their lives when a stray ricochet shot from a 2-pdr. gun pierced the turret of their car—they were killed instantaneously.

* * *

The spectre of invasion had now faded away and, symptomatic of the easier state of affairs reigning, the Regiment was released from all home operational commitments in December.

As another year drew to its close, further changes in command took place. Captain F. E. B. Wignall, recently returned from the Middle East, after a long period of sickness out there, assumed command of Headquarter Squadron from Major the Hon. M. E. Dillon, who now became second-in-command to Major B. R. Williams in