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Those known to have served with 1st Battalion, Kings Royal Rifle Corps during the Second World War 1939-1945. - Ashford Wilfred George. Rflmn.
- Bartlett James Blake. Sgt.
- Carran Harry John. Cpl. (d.30th Apr 1943)
- Cleaver Stanley. Rfmn.
- Cleaver Stanley. Rflmn.
- Field William John. Rflmn. (d.24th October 1942)
- Hurd George Edgar. L/Cpl.
- Kennedy James Francis. Rflmn. (d.1st Jun 1941)
- Livett Herbert Arthur. C/Sgt
- Mitchell Ivor S.. Sgt.
- Morley Leonard. Rflmn. (d.15th Sep 1941)
- Phillips Walter George. Rfn (d.26th April 1941)
- Redworth William.
- Rundle Stanley Maurice. Sgt. (d.12th Nov 1943)
- Stubberfield Edward James. L/Cpl.
- Turner Austin Reginald. Sgt. (d.26th October 1944)
The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed,
please
Add a Name to this List
Records of 1st Battalion, Kings Royal Rifle Corps from other sources.
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Want to know more about 1st Battalion, Kings Royal Rifle Corps? There are:1363 items tagged 1st Battalion, Kings Royal Rifle Corps available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War. |
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Sgt. James Blake Bartlett 1st Btn. Kings Royal Rifle Corps My late father was a prisoner in Stalag 383. His name was Sgt James Blake
Bartlett of the KRRC 1 QVR's. He was captured at Calais 23.5.1940 and according to his army record first went to Stalag XXA in 1940 then to XXB in 1941 and to Stalag 111C which was renamed Stalag 383 in November 1942 where he stayed until release on the 11.5.1945. I can still remember his home coming even to this day, our mum woke us up to say this is your Dad, as I was only 3 when he went away and now I was 8, so did not remember him all that much. He passed away in 1992 and never spoke much about his time as a POW.
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Rflmn. Stanley Cleaver 1st Btn. Kings Royal Rifle Corps My uncle Stan Cleaver was captured at Sidi Rezegh on 22nd of November 1941. He was sent to Italy as a prisoner of war and escaped on 10th of September 1943 by bribing the sentry with two bars of soap. He went through the wire and headed towards the Allied lines. He was in civilian clothes, and at Lentella he was made to dig slit trenches for the Germans with other civilians. This was in the German front line near the River Trigno. He crossed the river on the night of November 1st and made his way to the British lines at Montenero to meet the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Just in time apparently to be inspected by General Montgomery!
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Rflmn. James Francis Kennedy 1st Btn. (Rangers) Kings Royal Rifle Corps (d.1st Jun 1941) My father James Kennedy was killed in the Souda Bay raid. His body was never found. I was 6 years old. My father's name is on the war memorial in Athens. I am also named James Francis Kennedy and am now 84 years of age.
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Rfn Walter George Phillips 1st Btn Kings Royal Rifle Corps (d.26th April 1941) Walter Phillips was my mother's first husband. During WW2 he served with the King's Royal Rifle Corps. He drowned on 26th of April 1941 when a pinnacle belonging to HMAS Perth got submerged and 50 drowned on their way back to Perth a mile from the shore.
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Rfmn. Stanley Cleaver 1st Btn. Kings Royal Rifle Corps Stanley Cleaver, joined the 1st Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps. Stanley was reported missing on 22nd of November 1941. He was held at Campo 65, then Campo 70 at Monturano, Fermo. He escaped on 10th of September 1943 and was later interviewed in Switzerland.
His responses are recorded in the MI9 reports on escapers and evaders through enemy lines in Italy 1943-1944, held in the National Archives.
My wife and I lived in London in the late 1960s in the same flat as my mother's sister and her husband, Stan Cleaver. In 1969 we went on a camping holiday with Stan and my aunt to Italy, (we knew nothing then of his wartime experiences).
My wife was taken ill in the north of Italy, and this delay prevented us travelling any further south, which is where Stan wanted to go. We found out much later that he wanted to see the POW camps he was held at.
Stan died in 1975, never mentioning anything of his war service to us.
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L/Cpl. George Edgar Hurd 1st Btn. Kings Royal Rifle Corps George Hurd initially enlisted in the Army on 21st Jan 1932 and saw service in Burma until 1939. He was called up as a first reservist in 1939 and was part of the BEF in France. He was captured at Dunkirk whilst fighting in the rearguard in 1940 and spent the rest of the war as a PoW in Stalag 9b.George met his one and only wife Ena, at Folkestone upon repatriation. He passed away peacefully in 1987 aged 76. I have two splendid photo albums of his time in Burma and his two 39/45 medals, cap badge and army record book, which I look at from time to time.
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Sgt. Austin Reginald Turner 1st Btn. Kings Royal Rifle Corps (d.26th October 1944) Austin Turner was born 23rd September 1915 to Ewart Harry Turner and Beatrice Turner nee Huddy. Austin joined the KRRC on the 22nd November 1933 signing for 7 years and then 5 in reserve. His first posting was to India in 1935, then Burma in 1937 and Egypt in 1938. He returned to the UK in December 1939.
He married Eileen Betty Louise May in 1940. Their first child Pamela was born in June 1942.
In March 1944 he was posted to Italy.
In October 1944 his daughter Barbara was born and 17 days later he was lost in action at the Ronco River, Forli. His body was never found. His death is commemorated on Monolith 10 at Cassino.
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Sgt. Ivor S. Mitchell 1st Battalion Kings Royal Rifle Corps Letter written by Sgt Ivor S Mitchell about his rescue from the desert by Wyndam Jones, 8th Kings Royal Irish Hussars to Wyndam's wife in 1944
6896348 Sgt I. S. Mitchell
C.O. Sgt's Mess
1st 175 BTN
KRR
Winsall
Yorks
1-8-1944
Dear Mrs Jones
When I last saw your husband on the 31st May 1945, I asked for his home address in the event that either of us reaching England. I asked him for the address in Tobruk, two days before it fell to the Germans.
I was a wounded stretcher case at the time, your husband had been wounded in the leg, but could with a great effort, walk about.
Had he not made that effort, I and two others would have been left on the desert with severe wounds to God knows what fate.
On May the 27th 1942 the Germans made a heavy attack prior to their push back to El Alamein, after they had swept over us and driven the 8th Army back, there were many wounded lying on the field. Your husband was one and I was the other who eventually found themselves picked up by the Germans and piled into their ambulances.
The Germans left us for two days until the third morning they took us out of the ambulance and laid us on the ground to dress our wounds.
During the operation the whole German column was startled by something, they hurriedly repacked their vehicles and after placing many of the wounded back into the ambulances they left.
Leaving the two of us lying on stretchers on the ground, neither of us could get up, the other nine men with us had shoulder wounds etc, but could stand up.
It is a long story but that party of eleven after being machine-gunned and strafed, dwindled down to four, of which your husband was one.
Now this is where your husband in my eyes and in the eyes of the other members of the quartet, did a gallant deed, if it had not been for him, God knows what would have happened to us.
Although suffering with a bad wound in the calf of his leg, on the second day after we had lain out there, he set off without compass, food or water for we had none. We saw his figure for hours painfully trekking across the desert until he disappeared.
How long he was gone I couldn't say but it seemed like years. I know it was just after dawn when he left us there, one of the three of us was too far gone to understand what was going on around him. Well into the day we saw a speck of dust on the horizon, it grew bigger and bigger until we could make out a vehicle coming in our direction, at first we thought it was the Hun.
Believe me men do cry, I saw tears in the other men's eyes and I had tears in mine, for the vehicles turned out to be six carriers and a 15cwt truck. In the back of the truck was your husband. He had tramped across the desert with pain in his leg and had bumped into a column and had directed this truck and six carriers back to us, which isn't an easy task with no compass.
By his devotion three wounded men were rescued and brought back to safety. I mentioned the whole escapade to the Major of the column, when we were taken back, but like so many brave deeds which occur in action, only a few ever become recognized.
In my eyes your husband was easily worth the M.M. and more besides but there as I say only a few have these deeds recorded back at home, that makes it all unfair.
God be with your husband wherever he may be
Your sincerely
Ivor S Mitchell
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Rflmn. Leonard Morley 1st Battalion King's Royal Rifle Corps (d.15th Sep 1941) My great-uncle Len Morley was killed serving with 1st KRRC in the Western Desert. He was 21 years old. He is buried at Sollum in Egypt, near the Libyan border. His younger brother John was wounded on 7th June 1944 in France but survived the war, despite regular returns to hospital, until he died in 1991.
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Cpl. Harry John Carran 1st Btn. Kings Royal Rifle Corps (d.30th Apr 1943) I have only just come into possession of a number of letters written by a Lieut.J Millbourn and Capt. J.B. Cunningham to my aunt informing her of my uncle Harry Curran's death and I was impressed by the humanity and barely concealed sadness and exhaustion behind the words. Our family had not been aware of how and where he had died as he had married shortly before his death and we have no knowledge of what happened to his wife. However, I like so may of my generation, am immensely proud of my uncle and the part he played in the war and I want people to remember him
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