Oi ! Careful of my Combination ! (4th Battalion Royal Northumberland Fusiliers)

Discussion in '1940' started by Rich Payne, Apr 2, 2008.

  1. Welbike

    Welbike Junior Member

    Hello Alex,

    I missed your posts completely; I was on holiday at the time - apologies. 'Great then and nows'

    There are no white 2CV's, but there does appear to be a 'Duck's' ski lodge in one of shots - 3rd photo, Message # 38! :D

    Best,

    Steve.

    Steve, well I never saw yours till today, thought there was an automated messaging service here??

    Thanks for the heads up, and we'll go there soon, I'll try to get on the duck's ski lodge, but since the cold is gone, we'll not be able to walk on the ice!

    Cheers,

    Lex
     
  2. Welbike

    Welbike Junior Member

    Here is a rather grainy and dark photo of a burnt-out Dingo at the crossroads in Achicourt where 4 RNF and/or 4 RTR and/or 6 DLI covered the withdrawal after the Arras attack of May 21.


    I don't know the original source, but here is a photo of the location today. Do we know who the Dingo belonged to? There is an audio recording at the IWM from a 4RNF vet describing an incident at a crossroads - Sound Archive acc. no.18690 John Willins Brown -
    could this be it (the time sounds too early)?

    "About half-past three that afternoon a tank comes down. The blokes start firing and get rollocked again, and the tank comes …down to the crossroads and I'm second in line.
    It was dead funny because the first car was the corporal - he was in charge of the platoon.."
    "the tank comes down and stopped at the crossroads and the bloke in the turret jammed the turret [hatch] down and he opened up [fire]. It was a German tank and the first shot got my mate [the corporal] and it blew up."
    "9 got back out of 11"

    Thanks Nik,

    Seems we'll have to go there aswell!!! have been asked to do a whole article on the 4th RNF, if anyone has anymore info on the Movements on them in France and Belgium, I'd be very pleased to hear, especially pictures!

    Cheers,

    Lex
     
  3. singeager

    singeager Senior Member

    Just so you know, the photo of the dingo at Achicourt is reversed, the front of the car should be facing left & engine bay without bonnet to the right.

    This means that the building has a window added.
     
  4. Welbike

    Welbike Junior Member

    Just so you know, the photo of the dingo at Achicourt is reversed, the front of the car should be facing left & engine bay without bonnet to the right.

    This means that the building has a window added.

    Ah thanks! have the Fontaine IWM scans here too:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]


    Had to reduce them in size to post them here!

    Cheers,

    Lex
     
  5. Welbike

    Welbike Junior Member

    Ok, so we've been there!!

    We, that is Rik, Jan and me, Lex, all active on the forum, me a bit less, as I have a very narrow interest in the BEF stuff.

    Here are some of the pictures, 4 more we could not find!! more investigation is needed, with a bike or 4X4!

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Thanks to Jan for all the "now" pictures.

    And many thanks for the hospitality of the Mayor, historian, and chateau owner!!!

    Grtz,

    Lex

    ps, there was no more time for the Achincourt pictures, but have to go back anyway.
     
    Owen and Za Rodinu like this.
  6. LondonNik

    LondonNik Senior Member

    Deleted
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2017
  7. Steve Mac

    Steve Mac Very Senior Member

    Great 'then and nows' Lex.

    I've never seen the last 'then' before; a lot of those lads would have been KIA, WIA or POW by the time the remainder of the 4th Bn Royal Northumberland Fusiliers returned to the UK.

    Then on conversion to 50th Recce a lot of those that survived their time with the BEF would have been caught up in the Gazala and Knightsbidge debacles in June 1942.

    Those lads had a hard war!

    Many thanks for posting and look forward to the next instalment.

    Best,

    Steve.
     
  8. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Great photos, good to see them after all this time.
    Thread started in April 2008.
    :)
     
  9. Rich Payne

    Rich Payne Rivet Counter Patron 1940 Obsessive

    Great photos, good to see them after all this time.
    Thread started in April 2008.
    :)

    :p

    In April 2008, all we had was the incomplete name 'Fontaine'. The war diary helped but it wasn't until Lex was off sick and sat with Google Street View for days that he found the locations. Don't forget as well that this was an international effort. A Dutchman, a Belgian and an Englishman all had to get up at some unearthly hour and meet up close to the Belgian border.

    We're going to do it again with Big 4 sidecars and my 16H but that is going to be even more of a logistical nightmare and struggle to find a date for...anyone got a Mk1 Dingo and wants to come along ?

    We had a a fascinating day out, doing, when in France, what the French do - drinking Ricard at lunchtime on an empty stomach and all just across the courtyard from the coach house where 4RNF's battalion office was located for those few weeks of 1940.

    My favourite 'vanity' picture is standing in front of the small church holding the original 18th April 1940 copy of 'Motor Cycling' with the photograph taken on that spot on Wednesday 20th March 1940 - seventy-two years ago today !

    [​IMG]

    Lex had done his homework well and we had plenty of period photos to work from.

    [​IMG]

    I cant wait to go back. Not least because the mayor said that we can ride the green-lanes and I do like getting motorcycles muddy. :)
     
    Owen likes this.
  10. Welbike

    Welbike Junior Member

    Regarding the Dingo at Achicourt, just south of Arras, have just seen why I went wrong, Singeager mentioned that the picture was a mirror image, and I thought this can't be true, (looking at the building) and last tuesday, while being in the neighborhood, I took the comparison picture,

    But now I noticed the Dingo's escape hatch, and there's only one on the left/near side!! so now I have to go back again!!

    Well looking again at the picture from streetview, and the reversed b/w picture now I can see that I was totaly wrong

    Sorry about that:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    WRONG PICTURE, SEE BELOW!!!

    Cheers,

    Lex
     
  11. Welbike

    Welbike Junior Member

    Ok, and another year's gone!!! but I visited Achicourt on the way to Normandy about a forthnight ago, and took the right picture:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Due to the traffic it was dangerous to experiment with different angles, guess in 1940, there were not that many cars around!
    The Dingo was not in the garage on the right, what a shame.

    I've decided to go for the Fontaine then and nows in March 2015, it was 75 years ago then.
    An article in the After the Battle magazine will be written too, if I ever get to it.

    Cheers,

    Lex
     
    CL1, Drew5233, Owen and 1 other person like this.
  12. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Really enjoyed going through this old thread.
    Good work chaps.
     
  13. JCB

    JCB Senior Member

    Its a great thread , wonder where did all the Norton Combinations end up ? I have never seen one in the hundreds of German post Dunkirk photos.
    Maybe the locals stashed them away along with all the truck wheels !
    Craig
     
  14. Welbike

    Welbike Junior Member

    Hi Craig,

    From the top of my head only 4 combinations made it to Dunkirk, (from the war diaries) and they were given to the French Army, when the RNF evacuated.

    This could be one of them:

    [​IMG]

    Jan knows where the location is.

    [​IMG]

    All the others were lost in the fighting in Belgium, and subsequently used by the Germans, they however did not like the left hand sidecar, and used them mostly as solo's.

    [​IMG]

    Most bikes were taken to collection points, and reconditioned etc. a lot in local French workshops, and re-issued to the Wehrmacht etc.

    Cheers,

    Lex
     
  15. LondonNik

    LondonNik Senior Member

    Deleted
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2017
  16. Rich Payne

    Rich Payne Rivet Counter Patron 1940 Obsessive

    We don't actually know how many Sidecar-wheel-drive Nortons were with the BEF. 4 RNF's establishment is recorded clearly as 99 machines and they mention 17 still being usable by 1st June. It seems doubtful that 8 RNF had been issued any as they were on labour duties with 23rd Division (if Drew has the diary for this battalion, perhaps he could check to see if there is any mention).*

    1 Queen Victoria's Rifles didn't take theirs to Calais (they were left in the U.K.)

    There is photographic evidence indicating that a handful may have been issued to some Divisional Cavalry units. There were none on the establishment of a normal infantry battalion.

    In addition, 2nd Division Provost's diary for April 1940 mentions that they were to receive 13 outfits with box sidecars for road signage duties. These could have been 16Hs but are more likely to be swd Big 4s as they were certainly being used for the role later in 1940. However, the diaries don't indicate if these were ever received, so probably not.

    My feeling is that there were no more than 150 or so Big 4s with the BEF which is not much more than half a percent of the total motorcycles. Bearing in mind that very few made it to the coast and that most German photographs were taken there after the fighting stopped, it's perhaps not surprising that pictures are few and far between.

    It would also seem reasonable to assume that the Germans' first priority whilst the fighting continued was not the collection of abandoned vehicles so the suggestion that the locals had time to hide them away is perhaps not far off.

    * Having looked further at the BEF shipping returns, it is shown that 4 RNF's vehicles included 99 combinations but there is no mention of this with 8 RNF and they were considerably under strength. Their road party comprised only 46 vehicles (none shown as combinations) and 12 motorcycles when they travelled between 14th and 20th April 1940.
     
  17. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    No mention of bike's or sidecars ect with 4 Battalion, the diary is quite thin but there is a interesting entry that states 80 OR's from 1 Queen Westminsters joined them on the 18th April to proceed overseas with them.
     
  18. Peter J Dixon

    Peter J Dixon Member

    I wish my Dad was still alive to see all this. He is on the Fontaine Bonnelieu photograph. From the front, third motorbike ,he is the pillion passenger. All you can see is his tin hat. He was Fusilier Cecil Dixon , Y Coy. No 4273311. Thank you to the chap that posted the Today photo's.Boy! Interesting !
     
  19. Welbike

    Welbike Junior Member

    Peter, It would have been an honour to have had him in the sidecar!!!

    Do you have any pictures of him to share??

    Best regards,

    Lex Schmidt, Holland

    ps, send me an email if you want a high res. scan of the picture, and how do you know it is him on the picture??

    welbike(at)welbike.net
     
  20. Peter J Dixon

    Peter J Dixon Member

    Thank you Lex. I have the photo in Dad's old copy of C.N.Barclay's History of the R.N.F.in W.W.2. He marked the bike he was on as pillion passenger behind the driver,not in the side car and remembered all about the film being taken that day. I think he told me the horse and carts and the horse in the pond were set up for the film but I'm not sure it was years ago now. He didn't talk about the war much quite a lot of his mate's didn't make it. He got left behind at Dunkirk when the 4th got out as some of Y Coy. assisted the 9th D.L.I. who were taking a hammering at the canal. They stuck it out until early June 2nd and joined the French on the beach.Some ships were sent back to pick up the French troops ,lucky for Dad and his mates, he arrived back in England june 3rd. He was a P.O.W. from 6th june 1942 after the R.N.F. got a bit of a battering at Knightsbridge. One of the Boxes there was Peter [Dad was in Paul ] My Godfather called his son Paul, I got called Peter. Still makes me smile when i think about it. I'll dig around , I think there's a photo of Dad on a motorbike at Blandford after Dunkirk. Hope this is of interest. Best Regards.
     

Share This Page