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2/6th Battalion, Royal East Surrey Regiment
2/6th Battalion, Royal East Surrey Regiment was a unit of the Territorial Army. They went to France with the British Expeditionary Force in 1940.
28th Apr 1942 Exercise
29th Apr 1942 Exercise
If you can provide any additional information, especially on actions and locations at specific dates, please add it here.
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Want to know more about 2/6th Battalion, Royal East Surrey Regiment? There are:1320 items tagged 2/6th Battalion, Royal East Surrey Regiment 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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Pte. Edmond "Ted" Cole 2nd/6th Battalion East Surrey Regiment Edmond Cole was a POW August 1940. I would love to hear if anybody knew Ted whilst he was is in Marienburg. Sadly I was too young to know my Uncle Ted. Ted died in 1978 and I have lost track of his family
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L/Cpl. John Carter 2/6th Battalion East Surrey Regiment  My father, Jack Carter was a very private man regarding his war experiences and only once when I was about 14 did he, one night, decide to tell me about some of his memories both as a serving solider and then later when he became a POW for 5 years. I have been moved to write this short account of my father’s war years having watched the Channel 4 programme (July 2018) about the 51st Division and its defence of St Valery-en-Caux in June 1940.
His story, like so many others, is of a young man born 1916 whose best years of his life were spent under arms and in his case as a prisoner. He had come to Britain in 1937 to escape the repressive regime of Catholic Ireland where, as a Protestant, you did not have the work opportunities that should have been open to all.
He joined up in November 1939 at Isleworth Barracks Surrey and became a member of the East Surrey Regiment TA. Originally, he was in 1/6th but due to breaking his thumb in a regimental boxing match was assigned to 2/6th battalion.
He was sent to France and as a crack shot with good eyes was often used as a spotter regarding enemy aircraft. He was trained on a Bren gun carrier as a driver and told stories of learning to drive on a Sunday morning going around the Victoria Monument outside Buckingham Palace. He described his personal retreat to St. Valery with his Bren gun carrier group, carrying injured personnel and hoping for evacuation.
Evacuation never came and he was not forthcoming about the immediate days before capture. He was captured and then marched through France and finally to Holland where he was put on a barge down the Rhine, he escaped twice but was recaptured on each occasion. He ended up in Silesia where he was put to work down iron mines which he hated.
The German command insisted that you had 4 fingers and a thumb on each hand to work down the mines. His distaste for the claustrophobia of the mine was such that he got a fellow prisoner using a pick to take his left hand small finger off. The result was freedom to the surface. The war moved on and he was moved around a range of camps and took part in some of the infamous death marches, on one occasion the column were ordered to dig out a snowbound train which resulted in the loss of two toes through frost bite.
He was finally liberated by an American GI in Germany, somewhere, he never knew, but he always kept the GI’s jacket which he had been given.
My father resumed his pre-war job as a hardware salesman and lived a full life and I look back with immense pride at what he had done during those 5 years and hope that endeavour of this understated nature is recognised but equally that the world will never experience anything of this form ever again.
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Pte. George Hemblen 2/6th Btn. East Surrey Regiment George Hemblen was a lovely man who witnessed some terrible things during his time at the Stalag XXb PoW camp and the march from it at the end of the war. He joined as a driver in the East Surrey Regiment in 1940 and was captured around the time of Dunkirk. He spent the rest of the war as a POW. Its nice to be able to add him to a list of his peers who went through the same.
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Pte. Georgious Theofanous 2/6th Btn. East Surrey Regiment My grandmother went to work in a Greek restaurant in London. She met my father Georgious Theofanous who was serving with the East Surrey Regiment. From what I understand his family did not approve of the match, but they planned to marry. I am searching for a photograph of him. As my mother now 72 years old has never had any contact with his family and was raised by my great grandmother. I am searching for anyone who can help me locate a photograph no matter how small of him as I am putting together my family history as a Christmas gift to my mother.
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Pte. Douglas Bernard Pistell Queens Regiment My dad Douglas Pistell was a prisoner of war in Poland Stalag XXA for 5rs. As said many times before on here he never spoke about it. I know no more of his war years other than this. No photos or letters where he was captured. I'm sure he must have been on the long march but is a guess. As both my parents have passed away I fear I may have left it too long to find much out. I do know his P.O.W. No was 13038.If anyone could give me any Info I would be so grateful.
He may have been serving with the 2nd/6th Battalion, Queens East Surrey Regiment which had to surrender along with the 51st Highland Division when surrounded at St. Valery. But that is only one probability as there were many battalions of both the East and West Surreys.
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