Lost War diary's of 2 North Staffs Jan/June 44?

Hello to all, just recently I tried to obtain the above diary's off Andy aka drew. Its either lost, or destroyed / misplaced. When experienced chaps like Andy, & Frank de Planta tell me its not out there, then one is lost. I think its going to be a lost case. If any body knows of a Regimental book, or a Battalion one then that would be appreciated.
It has left me puzzled that a important diary has been one or the other.
Regards & thanks.
Stu.


Mod edit: See Lost War diary's of 2 North Staffs Jan/June 44?

 

Why don't you apply to the Staffordshire Regimental Museum. I see that they hold a lot of information about the 2nd North Staffs.

 

The North Staffordshire Regiment is one of the rare British regiments that does not have a regimental history. There is a Leo Cooper famous regiments history, but these are usually terse on any WWII details. It is:

Cook, Hugh C.B. The North Staffordshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales’s)(The 64th/98th Regiment of Foot). London: Leo Cooper Ltd., 1970.

I came across a microfilm history in the New York Public Library, but it was also brief:

Anon. The North Staffordshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales’s): a short history, 1756-1945. Hednesford, 1948. (NYPL Microfilm)

I did obtain two publications from the Staffordshire Regimental Museum that provides some details on the WWII service of the regiment. They cover both the North and South Staffordshire Regiment. They are:


Lewis, Brian. The Staffords Territorials. Lichfield: Staffordshire Regiment Museum, 2008. (D.Ryan)

Scott, Tony. The Staffords in World War II. Lichfield: Staffordshire Regiment Museum, 2003. (D.Ryan)

I do recommend contacting the Staffordshire Regimental Museum. They helped me obtain the publications.

 

Cheers chaps, I think I may have come across the Museum before. When I asked about the WD's with Andy, he did mention that It was a long shot that they may be mixed in with June- Dec 44.

Dryan67, I'm sure you are aware that there is a regimental history of the South Staffs, by W.L.Vale. Gale & Polden, 1st Ed 1969.
It looks like a large book, It has 516 pages. It has to be even more rare for a County to have only one regimental history.

I just needed that regiment to complete the 1st British Infantry Division either in books, or war diaries when they where part of the Fifth Army.

Regards.
Stu

 

Stuart

I had a similiar problem trying to locate a WD for the 6th York & Lancs Bn for part of 1943. Used all the usual search engines (Arcre, Discovery etc) with various inputs and turned up nothing.

In desperation i literally went through NA WO sub-divisions manually and eventually found it. It had filed/listed as just '6 Y & L' which was why none of the search engines were picking it up. Once i found it i notified the NA and they quickly changed its details/title in line with the other war diaries.

Hopefully, the War Diary you're after will turn up one day, either because it has been given a vague title or dated incorrectly.

I wish you luck on your search

 

Clanky, how does one go through the NA WO sub-divisions manually? Its something I've never done before. Will I have to log in etc?
Sorry for not being up to speed, but in the passing of time it may turn up.
What does sub-divisions mean by the way?

Thanks for the advice.
Stu.

 

i should of said sub-series rather than sub-divisions

It's a while since i did it, and the way that the NA 'Discovery' is set up has slightly changed but you basically get Discovery to display in a sort of tree view like this
for the WO series you most likely think the WD should be in (i.e WO 170, WO 169, WO 175 etc)

Then choose the most likely sub-series from the right hand side (i.e. Infantry) to get something that looks like this

Then i literally scrolled down each page (clicking 'next 30' to get next page) looking for any WD titles or dates (on the right and side) that looked vague or out of place.

It's like looking for the poverbial needle, but by looking at the WD titles sequentially sometimes things jump out at you.
i.e. i once found a WD for a 'Beach Group' i was looking for because in a sequential block of about a dozen WD's each named '#(number) Beach Group' was one right in the middle just named '4 Gp' . This was one i wanted and also why i wasn't picking it up via engine searches.

If you wanted to be totally thorough, you could systematically work your way through every sub-series (i.e. starting at allied HQ right through to Allied Commission for Austria for the WO 170 example) but you would be looking at thousands of document titles.

Also, i seem to remember someone on the forum (it might have been Andy Drew5233 ) had once linked an excel document they had created of War Diary titles etc. Not sure complete it was, but it might be easier than trawling all through Discovery

 

Found them. The excel files are on the first page of Andys http://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/anyone-require-war-diaries-or-other-files-from-the-national-archives.28717/

but some of the links are dead, and some redirect to the incorrect series (likely got muddled during the software changeover)

 

I have already gone through my Excel sheets - I suspect the diary is missing from when the unit moved to Italy

 

I have a digital copy of Vale's history I obtained a number of years back.

 

Clanky, thanks for that, but I think I'm missing something. I clicked on page one of the excel files on the WO 170 Central Mediterranean forces posted by Andrea. WO 171 came up. As far has I know, all the Infantry brigade regiments of the 1st British Infantry Division start with 170, or 169.

Not sure what Andy means by that he suspects, that the diary is missing from the time that the Unit moved to Italy. We are talking about Jan / June 44. I know Andy has the second part from June- Dec 44.

If we can find this missing diary,then I'm willing to pass both of them onto the museum .
Stu.

 

dryan67, sorry to trouble you, but could you please fill me in with what information you have on the 7 North Staffs? Where they in Italy, & which Division where they in? I've yet to ring the museum.
Regards
Stu.

 

Are you sure you mean 7th North Staffs, Stu? Here it is:


7th Battalion, The North Staffordshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales’s) (T.A.)


166th Infantry Brigade – 3 September 1939 to 4 September 1939

The battalion was formed from the 6th Battalion on March 31st, 1939 (FOC June 14th, 1939) at Burton-on-Trent. The 166th (Staffordshire) Infantry Brigade went into its annual camp at Gower Peninsula in South Wales in August 1939. The first line battalions went in first followed by the second line battalions. The 166th Brigade Headquarters was called up on August 25th, 1939. Anticipating the general embodiment of the Territorial Army, which came on September 1st, 1939, the 7th North Staffs embodied twenty-four hours earlier while still at camp. It moved at once to guard vulnerable points (VPs) in Cheshire and Staffordshire at Altrincham, Fauld, Handforth, Rugeley, Branston, and Hednesford.


176th Infantry Brigade – 4 September 1939 to 14 October 1942

In October 1939, the 177th Brigade took over the VPs in Cheshire and western Staffordshire while the 6th North Staffs took over the rest. This allowed the 7th Battalion to concentrate in Burton-on-Trent. In November 1939, the 176th Brigade took over guarding VPs and the docks in the Liverpool-Birkenhead area from the 55th (West Lancashire) Division. After a few preliminary moves, the brigade was located with its HQ at the Townsend Avenue Drill Hall in Norris Green with the 7th Battalion located at Knotty Ash. Early in 1940, the West Lancashire Area gradually took over VP duties from the brigade allowing the battalion to move from Knotty Ash to Northwich. The 59th Division was freed of all VP duties in March 1940. Now freed of duties, the brigade moved back to Staffordshire on May 1st, 1940 with the intention of doing four months of intense training at Cannock Chase. After only fifteen days, because of the German invasion of the Low Countries, the brigade moved to the northeast coast in south Durham and north Yorkshire for beach defence duties.

The brigade left the coast in October 1940 and moved into winter quarters in the same area. It was able to become involved in brigade and divisional exercises in early 1941 since the coast defence duties were taken over by the Northumbrian and Durham & North Riding Divisions starting on February 24th. This meant that the 59th Division became a Field Force formation. Its three brigades were located in the Thist, Barnard Castle, and Durham area. All of the brigades moved back to coast defence duties in July 1941 with each relieving a static brigade to train with the division. The brigade did a number of moves including Exercise Shortex that involved a brigade move from Darlington to Rothbury. More exercises took place in August and September 1941 after which the brigade was installed in Northumberland at Alnwick and Woller.

In November 1941 the 59th Division moved to Northern Ireland over a two-week period to replace the 53rd (Welsh) Division on garrison duties. The 176th Brigade started out in the Killyleagh-Downpatrick area but later moved. The battalion was located at Loughgall on October 1st, 1942. It left the brigade on October 14th, 1942 to replace the 7th Royal Norfolk.

213th Infantry Brigade – 14 October 1942 to 20 October 1942

The battalion joined the brigade in the North Walsham-Cromer area of Norfolk before being sent off to the Shetland Islands.

???? – 20 October 1942 to 3 December 1942

Unknown period.


228th Infantry Brigade – 3 December 1942 to 28 July 1943

It served with the brigade in the Shetland Islands, based at Lerwick but with many detachments including those at Scalloway and Girlsta.


207th Independent Infantry Brigade – 29 July 1943 to 2 November 1943

It served with the brigade in the Orkney Islands and garrisoned Lyness, Ronaldsay, Walls and Hackland. It then moved to the mainland.

???? – 2 November 1943 to 5 March 1944

It served in the United Kingdom after leaving the Orkneys.

25th Infantry Brigade – 5 March 1944 to 16 July 1944

The 47th Division, the parent formation of the brigade, was located in Durham and North Yorkshire until April 1944, when it moved south to become part of the marshalling organisation for the Normandy landings. The brigade was based around the embarkation ports on the south coast in the Southampton-Portsmouth area. Operation ended and the camps closed down in mid-July 1944.


183rd Infantry Brigade – 21 July 1944 to 31 August 1945

The battalion joined the brigade in Sussex and remained with it in Sussex for the rest of the war.

 

Thanks for that. I was not expecting all that information. I did not think that the 7 North Staffs was in Italy. According to
NA. WO. 170-8038 7 North Staffs Jan-June 46 was in Italy. I've taken Clankypencil advise in his post 7, & come up with this info.
It must be out there!
Edit. I think its has the wrong title.
Regards
Stu.

 

Hello dryan67, just to let you know that I have taken your advice & contacted the museum.They have War diaries, but not sure which.
The research department is only open on a Thursday. E- mail sent. Lets hope I get some joy.
Thanks for your time.

Regards
Stu.

 

Good luck, Stu. Let me know what you get.

 

Just for ref. I have a North Staffs History and it says 7 North Staffs deployed to Italy at the end of 1945

 

Andy, is that a Leo Cooper copy ? I do stay away from them. I got a reply from the museum today, no joy regarding the 2 North Staffs at Anzio. They do not have any copies of the World War 2 diaries. They seem to think that all of them are at Kew!

Cheers chaps.
Stuart. Looks like that one got lost.

 

Could that have been postwar? That is after August 1945.

 

I checked the 7th North Staffordshire Regiment in the museum booklet on the Stafford Territorials. The 7th North Staffords did deploy to Italy under 183rd Brigade/61st Division post war for administration and POW guard tasks. Like Andy, I work within a timeframe for my research (1-Sep-39 to 31-Aug-45) and that is why I missed the move.