Thread: The Northamptonshire Regiment

What can you tell me about the Long range desert group of 1942 middle east and their conection to northampton shire unit ?

The long range desert group were the forerunners to todays SAS. Mainly using jeeps as transport they would drive behind enemy lines and cause mayhem by ambushing convoys or blowing up important insulations such as airfields, stores and ammo dumps. They also used to gather information and send it back via radio. I can't find any connection that they may have had with a Northamptonshire Unit. The first LRDG's were made up mainly of New Zealanders though later some South African and British units supplied some volunteers but not from any Northamptonshire unit.

Sniper

Sniper,
I have found out that the Northamptonshire unit fought in Halfaya Pass Egypt. I beleive that maybe grandpa fought with this unit at this Helfaya Pass ? He was with the AIF and did have a Northampton shire badge in his belongings. Would you know of any roll that I can look up ? As grandpa's file on his Middle East movements were lost I have no coppy or unit to look up. The only other colour patch I have for the ME is Port Docking detachment unit.
Also would you know about shell Warf at port Twefik, I'm still looking for transit camp 157 and now know that it was a 3 1/2 mile walk along the Cairo Suez road from Shell Wharf would you know of a map?
Kind Regards
Kerri

Halfaya Pass was the operation known as Operation Battleaxe and this area is a few Km's along the coast from El Salloum.

To read about the battle follow the link or copy it into your browser.

Operation Battleaxe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kerri, I have a few questions to ask you which may lead us to the answer you are looking for. Firstly what did your grandpa do for a living when he returned home? And secondly, do you know if he was in contact with anyone in the UK after the war, such as letters or visits?

Sniper

Hi Sniper,
Not long before grandpa died he cut the letter heads off letters and burnt a lot of papers and his dog tags. As far as I know no one was in correspondence with him and I don't think he had any visits from overseas, I know that he was fighting the Defense department to try and get medals he was entitled to but even back then paper work was missing from his file mainly his Middle East deployment , he got very upset about this and burning everything was a response to this we think. When Grandpa returned I think he went into Dairy farming but he was a hairdresser by profession.
Regards
Kerri

Kerri,

I'm thinking that he did not have an attachment to the Northamtons but he met and became friendly with someone from the Regiment and they may have swapped cap badges as a sign of the friendship. I know this went on quite a lot, especially between people from different commonwealth countries. I am sorry that he was not recognised as being deployed into a theatre of war and not getting the medals he was entitlred to. This happened to someone i knew. He was supposed to of served in the theatre for a certain time and he was short of the time by one week when the war ended, hence he was not entitled to the South Atlantic Medal.

Kind regards
Mike

Hello Mike,
I think you may be right about the badge. Thank you for you help.
Cheers
Kerri