The King's Regiment (Men-at-Arms)

Product Information

I did however find his Medal Index Card (Figure 4) and although it only confirmed what I knew already, it was encouraging to find the first new evidence of his service. In September 1952 1st King's, after acclimatising in Hong Kong and Battle Training in Japan, deployed to Korea under command 29th Infantry Brigade Group. The Companies deployed into defensive positions at the beginning of October. The war was in stalemate and much like the Great War, with the men in deep trenches under constant harassing fire. The average age was 19 and many of the men had been brought up during the Blitz so they did not consider the conditions too bad, and the food was better than at home. Offensive activity was limited to patrolling, until May 1953. I believe heserved with the King's Regiment during World War I and was given a Military Funeral due to the fact that no funds were available to bury him in anything other than a Paupers grave. Her Majesty The Queen Consort was made Regimental Colonel of the Grenadier Guards in December last year, and she joined the King for the second Colours presentation ceremony.

But it occurred to me that it might be possible to reconstruct his missing record using digital technology once sufficient information became available online and indeed, with the increasing pace of digitisation in recent years, that has proved to be the case. Kate Thaxton and staff at the Royal Norfolk Regiment Museum for access to the Norfolk Regiment Casualty Book, which provided the last and most important piece of the jigsaw. The 12th (Eastern) Division was relieved by the 27th American Division and the next day they left the Somme front and began the 25 mile journey north towards Arras to occupy a trench line between Lens and Oppy, and I think it likely that it was at this point, whilst they were regrouping for the final advance, that my Dad re-joined the Battalion. The King’s Company guards the body of the Sovereign in life and even after death. Few will forget the sight of members of The King’s Company standing vigil by and then bearing Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin at Her funeral in September 2022.During all the operations the Mortar Platoon had been engaged and although the Command Post had received a direct hit the platoon had suffered no casualties but had gained a terrific reputation for both accuracy and speed of response. The post action report noted that the Battle of The Hook ‘called for immense volumes of accurate and rapid fire from the Mortar Platoon, and the platoon excelled itself’. Almost 2000 men had served in 1stKing'sin Korea, with some 200 recorded as casualties.” The weather in Korea varied greatly between seasons. To receive the new King’s Company Colour, Royal Standard of the Regiment, is a special day for the Company, but also Regimentally. We are absolutely delighted to have both His Majesty The Company Commander granting the colour to His Company, and to have Her Majesty The Colonel attending to recognise this important day Regimentally All nine service records indicated birth dates between June and September 1899 and origins mainly in north Cheshire and south Lancashire. My father fits neatly into these criteria, having been born in Liverpool on 30th June 1899 and resident from the age of eight in Wallasey, Cheshire. When my Dad referred to his 'mates' he must have meant the lads he'd trained with - and of the 30 casualties that night eight were 'Liverpool boys'. Formed from YS companies of 10th (HD) Bn King's and 8th (HD) Bn Cheshire Regiment, September 1940 [1]

There were some missing Kings Liverpool Regt. numbers among the 30 names, but I knew that my Dad, Tom Robinson had been in that regiment - his photograph proved it. Now it was clear from the numerical sequence that his Kings Liverpool number, although missing from the medal index card, must have been 96003. Both of our fathers joined their local home guard in WW2 and both men had the rank of 2nd Lieut. It seems to have been common practice to commission ex-WW1 soldiers, in recognition of their active service experience. My father must have developed flu symptoms whilst billeted in Raches, five miles north of Douai, before 5th November, the date that his battalion was moved east to Landas. On admission to 42nd CCS he was assessed as "Dangerously ill". [xxvii] It was almost as if I'd stumbled on the equivalent of the “Rosetta Stone” - the ancient Egyptian slab on which a text had been recorded in three different languages - the discovery that led to the decoding of Egyptian hieroglyphics. In my case it was a triple data sequence, so that gaps in any one sequence might be filled by reference to the other two, and I hoped it might lead to decoding my Dad's war service. I've been astonished at the results. Beginning with very little hard evidence, it has been possible to build a comprehensive and detailed narrative of my father's wartime service that goes far beyond my expectations at the start of the project.Transferred to the Royal Artillery, February 1942 and became 184th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery [1] Transferred to the Royal Artillery, November 1941 and became 101st Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery [1] The message came from Keith Marshall in Clitheroe Lancs. who was also researching his father's WW1 experience. The analysis technique was exactly the same as that used for the Norfolk regiment, except this time searching the TNA database (see Figure 5) with "Liverpool" in the [Corps] box and "9591?", "9601?" etc. into the [Regt. number] box. These searches tied up the loose ends.

Fostering the esprit de corps among serving and former members and keep them in touch with each other. Prior to the firefighters' strikes of 2003, the regiment received basic firefighting training to provide emergency cover. The battalion operated in the Greater Manchester area during the strikes as part of Operation Fresco.

Announcements

Like most of the men who took part in WW1, my father was reluctant to talk about it, but when I was a young lad, maybe around 13 years old, he took me to see the film "All Quiet on the Western Front". It was unusual, "going to the pictures" was normally a family outing at that time but this was different - the only time my Dad and I went on our own and it made a big impression on me, as I guess he intended. Even now, over 60 years later, I still remember where we sat in Wallasey’s "Capitol" cinema and images from the film are burned into my memory, especially the final butterfly scene. Placed in "suspended animation" on 21 March 1946; re-amalgamated with 5th King's 1 January 1947 [1] [3] At that point his war was finally over. In just 214 days in France one in every four of his mates had been killed, and at least 57 had been wounded. My Dad celebrated his 19th birthday in a frontline trench in Aveluy Wood, just north of Albert, relatively undisturbed. The war diary for 30th June 1918 reads :- In 1970 the Regiment regained its own identity, still as the King's Regiment, with a cap badge of the Hanover horse superimposed over the Manchester's fleur de lis.