59 (Staffordshire) Division in Ulster (1941 - 1943)

In crossing the Irish Sea, from Stranraer to Larne, the duty of the 59th was to take over from the 53 (Welsh) Division. This arrangement was very much to the benefit of the Welsh who took command of all of the equipment that the 59th had accumulated over the past months. Whilst the vehicles and weapons of the 53 (Welsh) were serviceable, they were a poor replacement for what had been left behind on the North East.

The troop exchange with the 53rd took two weeks towards the end of 1941. The three infantry brigades were billeted in the southern towns of Ulster close to the border with the then Irish Free State.  197 Brigade were in Newry and Keady, whilst the 177 Brigade found themselves in the coastal towns of Newcastle and Rostrevor and 176 Brigade were in the Killyleagh/Downpatrick area.

In addition to engaging in ever more realistic and strenuous exercises, part of the remit of the 59th in Northern Ireland was to prepare the region for a possible German invasion in the Southern counties of the neutral Irish Free State (coded ‘W’ plan which if triggered would have seen a British military occupation of the Free State) and maintain a wary eye on the activities of the I.R.A. with whom some conflict was anticipated in the event that the ‘W’ plan was executed.

Men of the South Staffordshire Regiment armed with 'Tommy guns' climb up onto a harbour wall during an amphibious exercise in Northern Ireland , 24 April 1942 (© IWM).

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205198316

Concerning the possibility of German landings in the Free State, the concern was not unfounded. British Intelligence interceptions of German military traffic indicated that from May 1940 plans were afoot to land in Southern Ireland (Operation Green) . If successful, the invasion would have exposed Britain’s western flank as well as providing the Luftwaffe with a base from which to harry the UK mainland and vital Atlantic shipping.

Thankfully, no such invasion took place, but the possibility necessitated careful cooperation of the 59th Divisional Commander and the Chief of Staff of the Free State Army in Dublin.

Whilst in Northern Ireland the esprit de corps was further strengthened by a multitude of inter-unit sporting and recreational competitions.

These included:

• Cross-country running
• Football
• Rugby

And even
• German speaking
• Verbal message taking (presumably military parlance for what I understand to be ‘Chinese Whispers’)

And still more bizarrely
• A one act play

Wide ranging exercises continued apace, now involving American troops newly arrived in Londonderry and Belfast.

On 5th April 1942, Sir James Steele left the Division to take up command of 2 Corps. No man had done more than he in the life of the revived 59th to shape this body of enthusiastic amateurs into an effective fighting force. He was replaced by General W.R.A. Bradshaw, who continued Steele’s work in a similar vein.

Major General W.R.A. Bradshaw

In June of that year, the Division played host, albeit very briefly, to the King and Queen.

As a result of the Division coming under the command of a U.S. Headquarters, V Corps, the 59th participated in the first British and American combined exercise named Atlantic. Another notable exercise at this time was called Penguin, this pitched the 59th (in the capacity of would be invaders) against the Ulster Home Guard.

Changes in the command structure were also a feature of this period in the Division’s history. Brigadier Hawkins of 177 Brigade since 1939 was replaced by Brigadier Ekins.

Some of the training at this stage brought infantry and artillery into close cooperation in order to cement a relationship that is so crucial in the field. In one exercise called Punch, in which the 59th opposed 61 Division and 72 Independent Brigade on an around the Sperrin mountains in awful conditions of cold and rain, men of the Division were lost by drowning in a night time river crossing and in an explosion in one of the unit armouries.

The opening months of 1943 saw the last exercises in Northern Ireland which were carried out amidst rumors of a move back to England for the Division. Once confirmed at the start of February, the transfer itself took the form of another exercise (Exercise Boonton) which involved rail transportation of the entire Division from the six counties to Kent.

It Was 70 Years Ago Today..........

James Kitchener Heath

14th September 1914 - 7th February 1995

On this day (26th) of June 1944 my Grandfather, James Heath, realised the culmination of four and a half years intensive training across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom when he and his comrades in the 5th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment landed on Gold beach in Normandy.

This was the first day of ten months of active service in which he experienced fierce close quarters combat with the 5th South Staffordshires and thereafter with the 11th Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers. He was involved in the fighting which saw the Allied forces break out of Normandy and subsequently drive the Germans back across France, through Belgium, into Holland and eventually into Germany,

I wanted to mark this landmark anniversary today and I raise a glass of Pinot Grigio to my Grandfather, to each and everyone of his fellow soldiers of the 5th South Staffordshire Battalion and the entire 59 (Staffordshire) Division on this their day of reckoning.

As a follow-up formation, he may have been overlooked in the recent commemorations of the 6th June, but the contribution and the sacrifices that were made by the soldiers of the 59th in the cauldron that was Normandy is recognised and appreciated.

From Baker's Assistant to a battle hardened solider of the British Army, Jim Heath fulfilled that dread task of any generation and took up arms for King and Country. In doing so, he played a small but vital role in the monumental task of ridding Europe of Nazi tyranny. It is thus with great pride that I am recounting this 'fragmented' history in 2014, a very poignant year that sees both the 70th anniversary of D-Day and the start of the liberation of Europe, but also what would have been his 100th year.

More details of the immediate preparation for embarkation and the landing will follow tomorrow.

‘Halt Or I’ll Fire!’ – The 59th Protects*

With the Divisional structure stabilising, it was the role of such Territorial formations to take on the responsibility of ensuring the security of so called ‘V.P.s’, a military acronym for ‘Vulnerable Points’. These included locations such as ports, power stations, railway hubs and other sites deemed to be essential to maintaining the country’s ability to fight a war.

In the first months of the war, the 176 Brigade found themselves in the Liverpool-Birkenhead area guarding the vitally important dockyards. The 177 Brigade remained in Staffordshire undertaking specialised training when not safeguarding V.P.s in the counties of Staffordshire and Cheshire.

At the end of April 1940 the entire 177 Brigade transferred to the east coast of England to defend the port towns of Hull (2/6th South Staffords) and Grimsby (5th South Staffords). Only the 1/6th South Staffords were in absence since they had progressed to France to join with the B.E.F. (British Expeditionary Force). Their fighting (up until the Allied Invasion) concluded with the evacuation from the beaches of Dunkirk, a bitter memory that they took back to the continent when they returned to Normandy in June 1944.

Whilst in the environs of Grimsby, training continued, including instruction on the use and maintenance of weapons which the Brigade had yet to see. The kitting out of the Brigade was slow from the outset, a situation that was hugely compounded by the aforementioned evacuation of the B.E.F. from Dunkirk, as a result of which, huge quantities of amour were left behind.

After Dunkirk, the situation looked extremely bleak for Britain, with British forces depleted of weapons and armour and back in England. The Battle of France concluded with the signing of an armistice on 22nd June 1940, which consequently saw Britain standing alone in Europe against the so far triumphant armies of the Third Reich. 

With the regular army in a state of disarray in the southern counties, the 59th (Staffordshire) Division faced up to a possible, if improbable, invasion across the North Sea from occupied Norway. The Staffordshire men rose to the task of defending the eastern shorelines against such a seabourne threat. Miles of trenchworks were dug and concrete roadblocks and pill boxes were constructed and positioned at strategic locations under the watchful supervision of the Royal Engineers (R.E.). At the same time, night time ‘war games’ exercises were taking place to improve the readiness of the Division in the event of a north east coast invasion.

With the reincorporation of the 1/6th South Staffords, bloodied but unbowed after the ordeal of Dunkirk, the summer witnessed numerous visits to Divisional units in the north east by the great and the good of the Establishment, including then Secretary of State for War, Anthony Eden, the Duke of Gloucester and none other than old Winnie himself.

On 23rd June 1940, the Division was brought back up to the full complement of infantry brigades with the addition of the 197 Infantry Brigade, comprising the 1/5th and 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers and the 5th East Lancashires in terms of infantry and other supporting units. Also at this time, some units of the Division suffered early fatalities as a result of Luftwaffe night time bombing raids targeting the coastal towns where they were stationed.

The first full year of the war saw the 59th (Staffordshire) Division beginning to undertake duties and functions as a fighting body of men in the face of great inexperience and extreme shortages in equipment, not least weapons, but with a full store of enthusiasm to take the fight to the enemy.

In the unofficial history of the 59th, the activities of the Division throughout 1940 are summarised as follows:

a) Mobile reserve for 10 Corps

b) Anti-parachutist duties

c) Counter-attack on aerodromes

d) Aid to the civil powers

e) Defence of the coastline from Filey to Blackhall Rocks

In October of 1940, 59th Division left the coast and moved into winter quarters and training continued into the first months of 1941.

The appointment of a new Divisional Commander on 15th February 1941, one General Sir James S. Steele, was to have a profoundly positive effect on the preparedness of the Division as a Field Force.

General Sir James S. Steele

Steele brought the weight of his forceful personality to bear on the Division and in doing so rose their profile and placed them firmly on the map. 

A flavour of his methods and that ‘forceful personality’ can be gleaned from the wording of his first Training Instruction in which he laid out his aspirations for the 59th (Staffordshire) Division.

To this order he added with measured pragmatism,

‘I do not expect all this to happen at once, but we must get a move on.’

To achieve these lofty targets, the focus of the Division had to change and thus it was that the security function of the Division gave way to intensive training, this was accompanied by a parallel scaling down of the administrative work involved in the running of the Division. Focus on training was also facilitated in February 1941 by the taking up of east coast defensive duties by the newly established Northumbrian, Durham and North Riding Divisions.

At this point in time, the Divisional strength was 679 officers and 15,260 other ranks.

Training was interrupted by further stints of coastal defence in order to relieve other troops for training purposes.

In the summer of 1941, the Commander-in-Chief of Home Forces, Sir Alan Brooke, inspected the Division and in an Order of the Day, the Divisional Commander recorded that Brooke had ‘sensed atmosphere’ and an ‘eagerness in the eyes’ observations which showed the Division ‘to be on it’s toes’. Things were shaping up very well for the 59th (Staffordshire) Division.

The summer of 1941 saw continued movements of all three of the Division’s infantry brigades, progressing around the north east of the country once more, participating in exercises and strengthening the defences in the region further still, again under the watchful eyes of the R.E.

On the subject of exercises, ‘The 59th Division – Its War Story’ at this point records a fantastic example of improvisation that could easily have been scripted by Perry and Croft for an episode of ‘Dad’s Army’! In the absence of thunderflashes the task of simulating the noise and confusion of battle befell appointed ‘umpires’, distinguished by a white armband, whose responsibility during exercises was to manoeuvre across the ‘battlefield’ in order to surprise soldiers with vocal  imitations of machine guns, mortar fire etc etc. Ludicrous as these arrangements undoubtedly were, the aim of these exercises (to prepare the men for the real combat experience that all knew lay ahead) was deadly serious.

In October 1941, the 18 month stay by the Division in the North East of England came to an end as the entire 59th Division decamped to Northern Ireland.

*In this post I have focussed on the known movements of the 5^th South Staffordshire Regiment (as part of 177 Brigade). It should be noted that at this point my Grandfather had yet to be transferred to the 5^th South Staffs. That transfer from the North Staffordshire Regiment occurred on 10^th June 1940. However, his activities between arriving at Lichfield I.T.C. and the time of transfer are unrecorded. Therefore, I have included known information about the movements of the 177 Brigade in the months prior to his transfer.

The Troubled Rebirth of the 59th (Staffordshire) Division

Disbanded after the Great War, as part of the demilitarisation in the UK, events in Europe and the inevitability of new major conflict saw the resurrection of the 59th (Staffordshire) Division. However, the evolution of the Division to the structure that landed in Normandy as a  follow-up formation in 21st Army Group in June 1944 is highly convoluted. This post covers the situation up to June 1940, the make up of the Division by D-Day was somewhat different again.

I’ll be honest and admit that the complexity of the recreation makes my head spin, but I have tried to put together a summary as I understand it from the unofficial history. I apologise in advance for any omissions or inaccuracies and I am happy to be corrected should anyone read this and know better than I.

What this complexity testifies to is the extent to which the General Staff was tripping over itself in its need to bring some structure to the British Army and its reserves in the last weeks of peace in the late summer of 1939.

The driving forces that shaped the 59th (Staffordshire) Division were a heady mix of logistics, shortages, tradition and regional pride.

The story begins with the creation of new battalions specifically equipped to defend the nation against invasion and aerial bombardment. After the World War I, which saw Zeppelin raids over many British towns, including London, advances in aviation came along on an exponential scale, to a large extent driven by recognition of the potential of aircraft in warfare. So it was that the nature of any future conflict was fairly well understood and air power was to be the key.

In recognition of the rapidly changing face of warfare in this modern age, in the inter-war years, existing Territorial Army (T.A.) artillery regiments were converted to Anti-Tank, Anti-Aircraft and Searchlight Battalions.

Those T.A. infantry divisions depleted by this reorganisation were disbanded and the remaining units were reallocated to other formations. As a consequence of this early redeployment, the 46th (North Midland) Division T.A. and the 139th (Staffordshire) Infantry Brigade T.A. ceased to exist. Remaining units were transferred to the 55th (West Lancashire) Division. Of the disbanded 139th, the 5th and 6th South Staffordshire Battalions and the 6th North Staffordshire Battalion were incorporated into the 166 (South Lancashire and Cheshire) Infantry Brigade, a part of the 55th (West Lancashire) Division. The shortage of reserve soldiers to fill the ranks of the reordered divisional units necessitated a deviation from the traditional structure of a Division. Thus it was that 55th (West Lancashire) Division (along with two other T.A. divisions) were designated as ‘Motor Divisions’, the difference from a standard division being that such mobile divisions had two of everything (infantry brigades, field artillery regiments and so forth) instead of the usual three.

In April 1939 with knowledge that conflict was unavoidable, the Territorial Army received an order to duplicate itself and so ‘duplicate’ divisions were created and manned. Clearly, with only the structure of divisions duplicated, great gulf existed  in terms of staffing, training and experience, between ‘original’ and ‘duplicate’ divisions. In August 1939, the 55th (West Lancashire) Divisional Commander insisted that the make up of the Division actually reflected its geographical designation (i.e. the Division would include only West Lancastrian units) and as such the 55th would be made up of units drawn from both the ‘original’ and ‘duplicate’ divisions. In likewise fashion, the Staffordshire units would form the duplicate 59th Division with the geographical ‘Staffordshire’ designation. This proposal was to have far-reaching consequences for the future 59th and other T.A. divisions.

Opinion of this demand was very much divided as one drawback of the proposal was obvious. In the event that the outbreak of war came quickly, rather than having one trained and one untrained division, the proposal if carried through would result in two divisions that due to the influx of ‘duplicate’ units would necessarily be considered to be untrained. Despite the logic of the argument the wishes of the 55th Divisional Commander were accommodated and the split was made along regional lines.

The 59th (Staffordshire) Motor Division came into existence.

At some point prior to August 1939, the 166 (South Lancashire and Cheshire) Infantry Brigade (itself within the 55th (West Lancashire) Division) changed its regional designation and became the 166 (Staffordshire) Infantry Brigade, then on 1st September, whilst on annual camp on the Gower peninsula, the 166th split into two infantry brigades, namely the 176 (Staffordshire)  and the 177 (Staffordshire)  Infantry Brigades. The infantry battalions that made up these two brigades are shown in the diagram below.

On 4th September, the day after Britain declared war on Germany, the transfer of all Staffordshire units from the 55th (West Lancashire) Division to 59th (Staffordshire) Division was affected.

That is not the end of the story though. On 23rd June, the incorporation of a third infantry brigade with its supporting arms, the 197 Infantry Brigade (transferred from the 66 Division, a duplicate of the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division) transformed the 59th from a motor division to a standard infantry division. The addition of 197 Infantry Brigade once again changed the its nature, moving it once again away from the regional division promoted by the 55th Commander the previous year, for the 197th comprised of the 1/5th Lancashire Fusiliers,  the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers and the 5th East Lancashire Battalions.

One further geographical anomaly warrants explanation. How was it that a Staffordshire division was home to men of Norfolk in the form of the 7th Royal Norfolk Battalion? A unit of each regiment serving with a second line formation was turned into a draft-finding unit to ensure that a flow of trained reinforcements into the Field Force units. However, as a consequence of the earlier split along regional lines, the 59th was no longer a second line division and the North Staffordshire Regiment had no battalions serving in a second line division. Therefore, in October 1942, 7th Battalion North Staffordshire Regt,  the junior battalion,  was transferred to a Lower Establishment division and replaced by the 7th Royal Norfolk Battalion. At the same time, the 1/5th Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers was replaced inn 197 Infantry Brigade by 1/7th Battalion Royal Warwicks.

This then is how, at least to my understanding, the infantry units of the 59th (Staffordshire) Division looked at the point where they crossed the Channel Normandy bound in June 1944.

And there you have it, I told you it was complicated. I am going for a lie down!

The Longest Day…. 6th June 1944

Before sharing some of my recent experiences in Normandy, it goes without saying that I paid keen interest in the events of last week that marked the 70^th anniversary of the execution of ‘Operation Overlord’. Much of the footage I have to admit, I had to watch on my own, on account of welling up with each new tale that was told.

But one special mention needs to be given to Mr Bernard Jordan who absconded from his care home in Hove, East Sussex when he realised that he was too late to get there via an organised trip in order to be with comrades for possible the last time.

It’s a great story and one which in a rather unusual way captures something of the spirit of the men who first made that same perilous journey in 1944. Mr Jordan has vowed to be there next year too, I trust that a limo will be laid on for him this time around!

His adventure is recorded here.

D-Day Commemorations

British trrops landing on Gold Beach 6th June 1944

Last month in an attempt to avoid the June rush, a friend and I made the trip over to the Normandy beaches, to generally explore the landing sites, monuments and bunkers in the area of Caen. More specifically, I went to see first hand (and for the first time) the places where my Grandfather first experienced the war at the sharp end.

I do not intend to post information specific to L/Cpl Heath until 25^th June which coincides with his own D-Day when he landed with the 59^th (Staffordshire) Division. Nevertheless, it is wholly appropriate that I post other D-Day material here, much of which predates his arrival in France. Whilst he missed the slaughter of the first assault, the SS Panzer Divisions, which the 59^th came up against one month later, were kind enough to hold back plenty of ordinance in reserve to make their reception very lively indeed…… but more of that later.

Grave Disorder Tackled

This weeks Bank Holiday gave the family an opportunity to travel to my home town of Burgess Hill in West Sussex for a bit of sea air in Brighton and to spend some time with the parents/grandparents.

In addition, with a very personal trip looming this week to trace the steps of my grandfather in Normandy, I thought that this would be a great moment to show my children the final resting place of their great grandparents in the graveyard of St Andrews Church, also in Burgess Hill. This would also be the time to offer some much needed TLC to the memorial stone.

Starting at 11.30 on Sunday morning to the accompaniment of the church organ winding up another Sunday service, myself, Gunta, Rudi, Ramona and my Dad set to the task of reversing nature's recolonisation of the plot in order to give my grandparents a visible name once more.

Here's the before:

With the attention of scissors, trowel, water, bleach, scrubbing brush, black paint and a few bags of gravel over a 4 hour period I think that we put them back on the map!

I did my best with the task of filling in the rather weathered lettering, but any thoughts of a career change into monumental masonry may be somewhat premature.

The involvement of our children in the overall effort to make this plot once more presentable would I am sure have been highly appreciated by my grandparents, who sadly never had the opportunity to meet the next generation. Part of the lettering was also completed by Ramona which was a nice touch.

Apologies here are due to my grandparent's nearest neighbour, Stella Willis (mother of my friend) for kneeling on her stone in order to paint the tricky bits.... I am sure that she would not have minded.

And after......