43rd Wessex Division

Lt-Col. A.W.N.L. Vickers

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Lieutenant-Colonel Bill Vickers
1st Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment

If you’re going to go and indulge in a war, you’ve got to be trained for it. And it is no use being heroic and going off fighting the 16th Panzer Grenadier Division with bows and arrows. You’ve got to have the equipment to do it. Provide you’ve got adequate equipment and provided you’re properly trained, and you’ve got a good command structure, and through your training your morale is high because you believe in your own fitness and prowess and you have pride in your unit, then I reckon you are ready for war.

(IWM interview, 6 Mar 1986)

Born on 19 January 1914 in London, Arthur William Neville Langston Vickers was a Regular Army officer, cricket player, rugby player and boxer. He attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was commissioned with the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in 1934. He spent several years in India and Burma during the late 1930s, until being recalled on the eve of the Second World War. He served as a company commander in the 1st Battalion, KOYLI in France until April 1940, when his brigade was assigned to operations in Norway.

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Lt-Col. R.E. Osborne-Smith

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Lieutenant-Colonel R.E. Osborne-Smith
1st Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment

I was brought before the Colonel (R.E. Osborne-Smith) and accused of ill treating an officer POW. I was questioned and explained exactly what had happened. The Colonel listened carefully and then said, ‘I reprimand you for ill-treatment in the field, to a prisoner of war’. He then got up, shook me by the hand and said ‘Roy, why didn’t you shoot the bastard?’

(Quoted from Lt. Roy Humphreys in Rex Fellows, Fragments of Battle, 92)

Born on 18 July 1908 in Saint Helier, Jersey, Robert Edward Osborne-Smith was a cricket player and commissioned officer in the Northamptonshire Regiment since 1929. During the 1930s, he played cricket for the Indian Army, the Egypt national team and the British Army. He became adjutant in 1937 but by 1944 he had been posted 4th Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment as second-in-command.

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Lt-Col. A.R. Harrison

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Lieutenant-Colonel Roy Harrison
1st Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment

Before joining the Battalion, I went to a Transit Camp … and found myself sharing a tent with Lt Col Roy Harrison – who was on his way home having been evacuated suffering from battle exhaustion. At the time I was extremely fit and yet Roy insisted that I went jogging with him for miles every day! I was glad to be sent forward to the Regiment as quickly as possible!”

(Quoted from Lt. Peter Hall in Rex Fellows, Fragments of Battle, 10)

Born on 30 April 1909 in Morecambe, Lancashire, Antony Roy Harrison was a solicitor, cricket player and prewar Territorial Army officer. He was commissioned with the Worcestershire Regiment in 1924 and transferred to the reserve list in 1934. After being recalled to active service in September 1939, he mobilized with 10th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment and became later second-in-command.

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Lt-Col. G. Taylor

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Lieutenant-Colonel George Taylor
5th Battalion, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry

[I] experienced a deep feeling of gratitude to my officers and men. I looked upon them as my sons. They had never failed me, and thank God, they can go back in due course to their families.

(Quoted in Daily Telegraph, 25 Jul 1994, 21)

Born on 17 September 1905 in Blundellsands, Lancashire, George Taylor formerly worked on the Liverpool Cotton Exchange and belonged to the Territorial Army officer before taking a regular commission with the West Yorkshire Regiment in 1929. He participated in the failed Norway campaign of 1940 and afterward served as a staff officer in Madagascar and India, which he regarded as “wasting the war.”

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Lt-Col. F.G.W. Lane Fox

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Lieutenant-Colonel F.G.W. Lane Fox
43rd (Wessex) Reconnaissance Regiment

They were quiet and for the most part cultured young men, very different in their outlook from the robust horsy officers of their fellow regiment, the Life Guards. Except, possibly, for the second Colonel, Joe Lane-Fox, whose only advice to me on joining the regiment was “Don’t mix port and champagne and don’t have your wife in the morning, In case you meet somebody more interesting in the afternoon.”
(Somerset De Chair, Morning Glory, 136)

Born on 14 October 1899 in London, Francis Gordon Ward Lane Fox was a graduate of Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was commissioned in Royal Horse Guards in 1919. Born with the last name Jackson, in 1937 he adopted Lane Fox by deed poll. In 1929, he had married the daughter and heiress of George Lane-Fox, 1st Baron Bingley and niece to Lord Halifax. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1937.

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Lt-Col. R.W. James

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Lieutenant-Colonel Richard James
5th Battalion, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry

No fewer than twelve counter-attacks had been delivered and repulsed, and it was becoming apparent that the final exhaustion of the battalion in the face of such odds could only be a question of time when Lieutenant-Colonel James, who had been such an inspiration in the whole conduct of the defence, was shot out of a tree from which he had been directing fire by a machine-gun burst and killed instantly. So perished a very able and gallant officer.

(Ernest Gordon Godfrey, The History of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, 1939-45, 234)

Born in 1915 in Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Richard Whitfield James was a cricketer, rugby player, solicitor, and Terriorial Army officer. He was commissioned with the Somerset Light Infantry and mobilized with the 4th Battalion at the start of the Second World War. In January 1944, he became second-in-command of the 5th Battalion, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry in the 43rd Division.

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Lt-Col. M. Crawford

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Lieutenant-Colonel M. Crawford
8th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment (MG)

As we got over London bridge and into the city more people about and when we got to the East End, such places as East Ham, East Sheen etc there was the most wonderful demonstration by the people of London, all the poor people rushing out giving us tea, buns, potato chips, cigarettes and soap … It was very touching and made me feel that the spirit of the Country is very good at heart and that one should not believe what the Daily Mirror writes.

(Quoted in Ben Kite, Stout Hearts: the British and Canadians in Normandy 1944, 321)

Born on 9 July 1901 in Cork, Ireland, Mervyn Crawford was commissioned into the Middlesex Regiment in 1921. He was posted to the Far East, serving in Shanghai in the late 1920s and in Hong Kong in the late 1930s. By 1938, he had been promoted to major and took command of the 1/8th Middlesex Regiment in May 1942. The next year, it was redesignated the 8th Battalion, the machine gun unit attached to the 43rd Wessex Division.

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Lt-Col. J.W. Atherton

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Lieutenant-Colonel Jack Atherton
5th Battalion, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry

It was a tragedy that one of the first casualties that the battalion was to suffer was their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Atherton, a Territorial soldier of the highest quality. As already related, he was killed while acting as loader to an anti-tank gun with point-blank range of one of the German tanks. During his six months in command he had impressed his personality most vividly on the battalion and his loss was hard to bear.

(Ernest Gordon Godfrey, The History of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, 1939-45, 225)

Born on 7 July 1906 in Kingston, Cambridgeshire, John Winn Atherton was a lawyer, solicitor, and Territorial Army officer, having been commissioned with the Dorsetshire Regiment since 1926. He mobilized for active service and within four years had risen to acting lieutenant-colonel and commandant of a division battle school. By January 1944, he had been appointed to command the 5th Battalion, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry in the 43rd Wessex Division.

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Lt-Col. C. Brooke-Smith

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Lieutenant-Colonel C. Brooke-Smith
7th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry

At Bn “O” Gp O.C. Y Coy Major Brooke-Smith put forward a useful suggestion which some of his men had adopted. Two Sten mags were firmly bound together with adhesive tape, one was inserted in the gun, and when empty, the man merely turned the double mag round and inserted the other half. This got rid of the dangerous delay of fumbling in pouches. Both mags would bot fit in a basic pouch.

(2nd KSLI War Diary, 10 Oct 1944)

Born on 10 August 1915 in Larne, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, Cuthbert Brooke-Smith was commissioned into the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry after graduating from RMC, Sandhurst in 1936. With the 2nd Battalion, KSLI on garrison duty in Jamacia, he was stationed with a company in Bermuda at the start of the Second World War. He returned to England with his new wife in early 1942. He was assigned to the Reconnaissance Corps but would rejoin the 2nd KSLI in April 1944.

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Maj. EJ. Bruford & Lt-Col. J.W. Nicol

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Major E.J. Bruford
&
Lieutenant-Colonel J.W. Nicol
7th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry

On arrival of his battalion on the start line, he found that about 50 of the enemy with three machine guns were still in the area. He quickly took charge of the situation and having eliminated this opposition, proceeded with his task … Throughout the operation he showed outstanding personal courage and capacity to command in the face of heavy resistance.

(Nicol, D.S.O. citation, 21 Dec 1944)

Within weeks of landing in France in late June 1944, the 7th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry of the 43rd Division suffered heavy casualties would lose a series of commanding officers. Lieutenant-Colonel R.G.P. Besley was wounded and evacuated on 3 July, Lieutenant-Colonel G.C.P. Lance was killed on 10 July. The third CO, Edward Jeffries Bruford was born on 4 July 1900 in Cheddar, Somerset. He was a football player and civil servant with the Ministry of Agriculture. A Territorial Army officer, he was commissioned into the 5th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry in 1925. Just three days after replacing Lance, Bruford was killed alongside the CO of the 7th Hampshires, Major J.R.C. Mallock.

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