Lieutenant-Colonel Hoss Herdon
&
Major R.G. Kreyer2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment

He was a well thought of chap. Hoss Herdon they called him, that was his name I think or his initials, I don’t know … I understand he’d been killed by machine gun fire … I think all the officers were very well respected. No question about that, I think. I think this was proof of maybe a regular battalion … more respect for their officers than the one that was sort of called up into active service.

(Russell King, IWM, 21 Sep 1998) https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80017285

Born in British India on 16 November 1905, Hugh Owen Seymour Herdon was the son of an Indian Army general and commissioned officer with Royal Warwickshire Regiment since 1925. He was promoted to captain in 1936 and then major in 1940. By 1941, he was a general staff officer with the War Office. He assumed command of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment in September 1943.

Herdon led the battalion ashore at Sword Beach on 6 June 1944. A soldier assigned to act as the CO’s bodyguard later stated of the landings, “It always seemed a joke to me afterwards. We had expected a lot of trouble and there was none. People were just standing about in groups looking bewildered.” The next day while leading an assault through thick woods, Herdon was gunned down. A fellow officer quoted in the regimental history described the fallen colonel, “Tall, elegant and gallant, he was a charming and gifted leader whom I would have followed anywhere.”

Second-in-command Major Robin Grey Kreyer took over. He was a cricket and rugby player born in Punjab, British India on 17 April 1910. He was commissioned in 1930 and served with the 1st Battalion, Prince of Wales’s Own) (Sikhs) on the North West frontier in India. He resigned his commission with the India Army in 1940 to return to England, where he enlisted with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Kreyer was granted a new commission in February 1941 and joined the 2nd Battalion. One year later, he was second-in-command.

For his leadership reorganizing the battalion and pressing the attack after Herdon’s death on 7 June 1944, Kreyer received the Distinguished Service Oreder. The replacement CO, Lieutenant-Colonel D.L.A. Gibbs, arrived four days later. Kreyer was subsequently wounded but rejoined the 2nd Warwicks at the end of July 1944. He remained second-in-command for most of the North West Europe campaign.

At the end of March 1945, he was assigned to be commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, Cheshire Regiment, which recently joined the 159th Infantry Brigade in the 11th Armoured Division.

Kreyer died on 16 October 1987 in Barton Mills, Suffolk.