Cpl. John Robert "Breck" Percy
British Army 9th Battalion Royal Northumberland Fusiliers
from:Bedlington, Northumberland
My Father, John Robert Percy, never gave me much detail of his time in the Northumberland Fusiliers and never told me which actual unit he was in so there are many gaps in my knowledge which I would like to fill if possible.
I am assuming he was in the 9th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers because that fits with the stories I have. For a long time as a child I was told that he was wounded at Dunkirk but in the 1970's he finally told me, (citing the 30 year rule as by then he was a civil servant in the MOD and a signatory to the Official Secrets act) that he was actually wounded in a friendly fire accident in England while the unit was dug in on the south coast. Because of this he was in hospital when they were sent to Singapore and he fortunately missed becoming a POW
His tale is that he joined the Territorial Army prior to the war because as a coal miner he got no holidays and this was a way for himself and his mates to get a paid holiday away from the pit. When he was called up in 1938 (Munich Crisis) at the age of 19 he had actually moved away to the south taking his whole family with him but his call up papers took some time to catch him up as they went to the old address in Bedlington. By the time he did report to his unit he had been posted AWOL and was promptly jailed. Fortunately his unit passed the hat round and collected his fine to get him out again.
He also said that before going to France the they were all given the option of going back to the pit. They all turned it down preferring the Army. He said that when they arrived in France they had no firing pins for the machine guns. Looking at other information it seems they were light on lots of other equipment too. Stories of France are very thin, almost non existent and the only one I can recite completely is of his unit being in Arras where they had been told there were no Germans. So, they went sightseeing having left all their equipment in a cul de sac. In the process they met a group of Germans doing the same thing. While the Brits ran back to their guns, the Germans went to their tanks and were entering the Cul de sac as the Brits were moving up the road. My Father said the Commanding Officer was killed in this action and actually said it was the Duke of Northumberland!? The 9th Duke is on record as having died in 1940 but i have no other information.
He never said anything about Dunkirk itself and that is all I have, apart from his cap badge. I would be grateful if anybody can fill the gaps. He died in 1998 and would be 90 now.
