2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry

Ron Forbes was interviewed by the IWM.
Prior to converting to Comets he was the driver in a Sherman Firefly named 'Annsmuir'.

Forbes, Ron (Oral history)

 

Thanks for that.... I’ve heard the IWM interview but didn’t know about Ron’s earlier history. Bob Haines was with 42 RTR A Squadron in N Africa before joining F&FY in 1944...

 

I've managed to find out so much more from this thread so many thanks. My connection is a 2nd cousin, Tpr 14327081 Charles Thomas (Scampie) McLaren, Born: 14 May 1924, Died: 7 Aug 1944
Enlisted: 5 Nov 1942 and posted to: 59 PTW (Primary Training Wing)
16 Dec 1942: Posted to 60 Trn Regt. Royal Armoured Corps
11 Nov 1943: Transferred to Bn: 2nd The Fife + Forfar Yeomanry, P Sqn
10 Dec 1943: Transferred to 137 TDU
29 Jan 1944: Transferred to 270 FDU (Forward Delivery Unit?)
13 Feb 1944: Transferred to 2nd F+F Yeo
20 Jun 1944: Embarked
7 Aug 1944: Died of Wounds (service records show KIA), Basse-Normandie, France
Cemetery: Bayeux War Cemetery

I've attached the only photos we have of him, one of which is next to his tank which looks like it has the name 'ANSTRUTHER' painted on the front. If I've read it correctly then this is a small coastal town in Fife. The other two I am presuming are the rest of the crew.

 

Hi 8RB,

Thank you for the post on the 'Taurus Pursuant' as I think my relative Tpr 14327081 Charles Thomas (Scampie) McLaren, Born: 14 May 1924, Died: 7 Aug 1944 is shown on the third image (pg 9).

The location is shown as Sourdevalle which is the first reference I have seen to place as all other references just show
Basse-Normandie. He was KIA on 7 August 1944 with limited detail shown in the War Diary.

We have a picture of him with a vehicle 'ANSTRUTHER' although I don't know if this was the one he was in at the time he died. Is there anyway of finding out?
Also is there anyway to know what role he had? I have his service records which have very limited info;
Enlisted: 5 Nov 1942 and posted to: 59 PTW (Primary Training Wing)
16 Dec 1942: Posted to 60 Trn Regt. Royal Armoured Corps
11 Nov 1943: Transferred to Bn: 2nd The Fife + Forfar Yeomanry, P Sqn
10 Dec 1943: Transferred to 137 TDU
29 Jan 1944: Transferred to 270 FDU (Forward Delivery Unit?)
13 Feb 1944: Transferred to 2nd F+F Yeo
20 Jun 1944: Embarked
7 Aug 1944: KIA

Any clues would be appreciated.

Phaedra

 

Hi Phaedra,

I'm afraid I don't know that much about 2FFY. Quite possibly others in this thread will be able to answer some of your questions. The only thing I can add, which might be of interest to you, is a part of the 2FFY's War Diary you'll find below. Good luck with your search.

Regards,

Ronald (8RB)

 

Thanks Ronald, very much appreciated. I'm working though the diary at the moment.

 

Just finished copying the 1944 war diary for 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry.
Many thanks Jeroen Koppes from tracesofwar.com for sharing them.
11th Armoured Division - 2nd Fife & Forfar Yeomanry

 

11th Armoured Division: From Normandy to the Baltic : I am posting the document that was forwarded to me by Valerie Donaldson
Robert Curtis have the ongoing project to locate as many photographs as possible of these 930+ men of The 11th Armoured Division who died during the Normandy Campaign 6-6-44 to 31-8-44.

THESE PHOTOGRAPHS BRING THE TOTAL FOUND SO FAR TO 92.
THERE IS CLEARLY A LONG WAY TO GO -
I WOULD ENCOURAGE ANYONE WITH ACCESS TO UNSEEN PHOTOGRAPHS TO PLEASE EITHER POST THEM OR MESSAGE HIM - THANKYOU.

Here is a full list of the 92 men whose photographs he currently hold on file:
1st Battalion The Herefordshire Regiment
- Richard Paul Barneby 63916, Charles Vincent Bell 4041611, Joseph Alfred Curtis 4036562, Sidney Horace Evans 4039307, Wilfred Gavin Finikin 4038567, Reginald Millward 4105859, Frederick Glyndwr Williams 13045954.
2nd Fife & Forfar Yeomanry
- John Sharp Adamson 421419, William Bayliss 7923094, Harold William Bilsland 7924495, Thomas Brooksbank 7878393, Joseph William Coulton 7935884, Frederick Christie 7892604, James Christie 7886405, Edward Patrick Crowley 14215259, Matthew Cruickshanks 421429, John Whitmarsh Fisher 14215288, Edward Arthur Griffiths 14313984, Hugh Patrick Hutton 7892695, John Keightley 7906965, Charles Patrick Ketteridge 2390778, Bertram Charles Lackie 7491845, James Hay Robertson Low 558557, William Kenneth Mathewson 88244, James McEwan 7894497, Donald Molyneux 7957812, Kenneth Robert Paskell 7957236, David John Patterson 7938863, Cecil Pritchard 311622, Clifford Rawlinson 7909574, Peter Reagen 7957245, James Bernard Scott 7891927, John Leslie Frederick Smith 7956170, David Sutherland 7894622, Stanley Thompson 7891937.
2nd Northamptonshire Yeomanry
- Richard William Addington 5779408, Alfred Ernest Bayliss 7886652, Ronald Albert Edward Bradshaw 7892004, Mervyn Henry Burgess 7887310, William Edward Stephen Coveney 7883566, Walter French 4541356, Peter Augustus King 14401341, Norman Perkins Sharpe 276063, Ernest Henry Smith 7918794, John Leonard Smith 7888046, Norman Alan Spence 7896270, Frederick Walter Titcombe 7895925, John Owen Tooley 7894593.
3rd Battalion The Monmouthshire Regiment
- George William Collins 176863, Jack Davage 3976988, Charles Forrester 4080685, John Henry France 105978, William Reginald Harbone 5118355, John Francis Keyes 174273, Ronald Vincent Millership 14295174, Kenneth John Price 4192589, Bert Kenneth Reynolds 69848, Howel Foster Richards 64041.
8th Battalion The Rifle Brigade
- Leonard Day 6921278, Albert Denney 6347854, Edward Morris Henegan 6921955, Michael Lane 232597, Albert Edward Lee 6923340, George Douglas Haig Littlepage 6969663, Walter Charles Madley 6923365, Harry William Perry 14413130, John Priestley 277438, Harry Read 6917496, Norman Arthur Reed 6969343, Soloman Rodkoff 6917264, William Alfred Steddy 6923560, Ernest Edward Samuel Sweetman 6923850, George William Tatman 6348495, Arthur Walter Taylor 6969359, Bernard Turner 6969000.
151st Field Regiment The Ayrshire Yeomanry
- Peter Sidney Yates Garrett 190754, Cornelius O'Neill 167515.
HQ 159th Infantry Brigade
- David Rhys Geraint Jones 247467.
Inns of Court Regiment
- Oliver John Sinnatt 261914, Thomas Smith 7941152.
4th Battalion K.S.L.I.
- Edwin John Davis 4037545, Samuel Herbert Gray 4037913, George Ernest Davies 4029892.
15th/19th The Kings Royal Hussars
- Brian Cornwall 14433711
3rd Royal Tank Regiment
- Denis Mathers 190646, Charles Clifford Remane 7928067
23rd Hussars
- Alfred Philip Packman 6351779, Robert Houlton Hart M.C. 237379, John Ross Webster 7927829.
117 Battery, 75th Anti-Tank Regiment
- Harold Bernard Crowther 184737, Lewis Westwood Marten 153616.
13 Field Squadron Royal Engineers
- William West Thompson 14240839

 

Hi Phaedra
The tank is a Sherman V from B Sqn. B Sqn tanks were named after places in Fife e.g. Annsmuir (Firefly), Auchtertool, Auchtermuchty (Firefly) Saint Andrews (Sir John Gilmour's tank). It looks like the photo was taken in the UK as it is uncluttered and seems to have the RAC red/white/red recognition flash painted on the centre of the transmission at the front.
I have Charles as being with C Sqn when he was killed so it's possible he started out with B Sqn then went to the 270 FDU and then to C Sqn.
The 270 FDU was re-named the 270 Forward Delivery Squadron by the time of D-Day. It was part of the 11th Armoured Division and was where reinforcement tanks and crews were kept. The crews all belonged to the 29th Armoured Brigade Regiments i.e. 3 RTR, 23 Hussars & 2FFY but they were kept separate from their parent regiments until they were called up as reinforcements.

The officer looks like he is wearing a 17th/21st Lancers cap badge so the crew photos might have been taken on a training course.

 

An account of the fighting on The Perrier Ridge by Lt Steele Brownlie, an officer with A Sqn, 2FFY

5 August
Having harboured again with B Squadron, I went out to the same defensive position, but in the afternoon was sent into Burcy. I was getting to know this village rather well. We were stonked as my tanks were getting into defensive positions: Tpr Nursey killed and Cpl Smith wounded. My operator, Ingram, had a narrow escape in one of the bouts of shelling. We liberated some bottles of Calvados from a house. One use for this was to fill cigarette lighters ‑ it burned with a clear blue flame and no smoke, unlike petrol. A Squadron and A1 Echelon passed through, making for high ground on the left front, but I had to wait to be relieved by infantry in carriers, due at dusk. They arrived at 2 am, and I took another two hours to find the regimental harbour, as it was very dark. Sleep?

6 August
Out to new positions at first light, and I was right-hand troop of A Squadron, which was watching Dump Wood. We did not know it at the time, but this Sunday was to see the Battle of Perrier Ridge, the best account of which is in Joe How’s book, Normandy: the British Breakout. I record only my own experience of it.

There was much shelling, which rose to a climax till suddenly, in the afternoon, Don Bulley’s and Cpl Newman’s tanks burst into flames, and we heard the whine of AP shot. Tanks, SP guns and infantry came towards us from Dump Wood, and C Squadron on our left reported being attacked by Tigers. Our infantry were rolling back in confusion. Obviously a big attack was coming in. Pinkie Hutchison got a Mark IV, and I got an SP, while we killed many of the advancing infantry. The Squadron, already depleted, lost four more tanks. Cpl Ives came crawling back through the corn with three or four wounded. They sheltered under my tank, and were lucky to be unhurt when a shell hit the near‑side track and bulged the armour. A shell landed on the back of Cpl Croney’s tank, which disappeared in a huge cloud of feathers ‑ he had liberated a few civilian mattresses. We were not however pushed off our positions, the attack on us had failed, and my 4 Troop was still intact.

Shelling continued till dark, when we were ordered back a few hundred yards to a regimental harbour. I squeezed as many of the worst wounded into my tank as possible, and motored round the base of the Pavee feature, fires burning everywhere. We learned something of the “big picture” ‑ our penetration to the Vire-Vassy road had interfered with Hitler’s armoured push to Avranches aimed at cutting off the Americans, so we were to be eliminated. Well, we had been pushed off the road, but still held the Bas Perrier ridge, with enemy on three sides of it. It might in fact have been four, it was later revealed.

I am surprised to see from the Divisional History that the Regiment lost only seven killed on 6 August. We must have had an unusually large proportion of wounded, and of vehicle casualties. We were so depleted that C Squadron was scrapped, chosen no doubt because its acting leader Jim Miller had caught his foot in the power traverse and been crippled. At any rate, we were reduced from three squadrons to two. It was an uneasy night among the shell bursts, relieved only by the story of a German prisoner who said that the Black Bull (our divisional sign) had butted him at Cheux, chased him at Caen, and finally caught him at Vire. His unit had seen the Bull so often that they thought it was the sign of Second Army.

7 August
We went out to the same positions, Dick Leith sitting near me. We fired at movements in Dump Wood. Much nearer, maybe 200 yards, a German was observed guiding a Mark IV out of a hedge. Sgt Gale brewed it with one shot. However, we were already being fired on by Tigers from the high ground to the east, around Chenedolle, and Sgt Gale was himself brewed up. His whole crew survived. Dick Leith said to me that we were in a bad position, I disagreed, and when he moved to what he thought was a better one he was brewed up: no casualties, so I was able to laugh.

How to deal with the Tigers? We could not see them, just received their 88 mm shots. Typhoons were called in, with what effect it was impossible to tell. John Gilmour came up on the air, and ordered a troop to go down into the valley and up towards Tiger Hill, One gasped. Then he added that he was coming too. They knocked out a Tiger, which should have annihilated the Shermans, moving in the open, before they got within range. We were stonked on and off, until retiring to our uncomfortable resting place.

8 August
Before first light we crept cautiously to the same positions. All quiet. I crawled round the burnt-out tanks. I had a list of the wounded who had been evacuated, so knew what bodies to look for: crumpled heaps on this seat or that. The one mystery was Tpr Dew, whose hatch was closed but his seat empty. He is shown in the Divisional History as being killed on 6 August, but I never found out how. He had been in my crew once, was a young lad, always very frightened, but did his job.

The enemy had really gone, and in the afternoon we were relieved by the Scots Greys. While they came down the hill and through Burcy, and while we went up it, Tiger Hill was drenched in smoke by the gunners as there was supposed to be a German OP there. We moved in squadron packets, and ours comprised only Pinkie, Sqn Ldr, and my 4 Troop, five tanks in all out of nineteen. At La Quelle we found a grinning Jimmy Samson, L/Cpl Martin with the mess truck, mail, etc., and I immediately had three large whiskies and soda. We were there for four balmy days refitting, absorbing reinforcements, taking shower‑baths, marking maps, lying in the sun, eating a roast goose, to be brief. A grenade went off in the pocket of a B Squadron officer (Lt Dennis Lovelock), killing him.

 

This wargaming site has a good visual guide to the fighting around Pavee on the Perrier Ridge, involving the 2FFY, 3rd Monmouthshires and the 1st Norfolks.

Fire and Fury Games' Battlefront WWII RMD NORMON TOUR

 

Firefly44,

Wow, thank you for so much detail, a lot to take in. It’s hard to imagine what they endured but I’ll admit the line about the mattresses did make me smile. I have showed this detail to my mother, who was Scampie’s cousin and now the only living relative who knew him. She is so thankful to all who have contributed to this collection of knowledge.

 

Glancing at : THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORMANDY 1944

B9528
DESCRIPTION
Object description
Infantry of the 3rd Monmouthshire Regiment aboard Sherman tanks of the 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry wait for the order to advance, near Argentan, 21 August 1944.



Has it by chance been researched / further captioned elsewhere?
i.e. in books about the 2nd F&F, or elsewhere etc?

I guess that there are vague possibilities of a "B" Squadron tac Mark on the middle sherman - although that could merely be shadows on welded on extra armour etc. Or maybe a "C" Squadron circle on the turret of the right (mid-foreground) sherman.

Are the faces at the front etc. recognised somewhere?

All the best,

Rm.

 

THE 11TH ARMOURED DIVISION ADVANCES TO ARGENTAN [Allocated Title]

 

I don't have the book to hand, but I'm pretty sure it appears in The Black Bull by Patrick Delaforce.

 

There are a few other IWM films from around the same time... and a bit earlier...


Though not all of it currently online, there are content descriptions etc.

THE 11TH ARMOURED DIVISION'S UNITS ADVANCE EASTWARDS FROM ARGENTAN IN THE WAKE OF THE RETREATING GERMANS [Allocated Title]

A70 132-6
DESCRIPTION
Full description
On the 19th August, an 11th Armoured Division Firefly tank heads eastwards across a Class 40 Bailey bridge at Putanges where a German assault gun has toppled into the river. On the 22nd, a detachment from the 4th Battalion King's Shropshire Light Infantry (SLI) patrol a road in the Fôret de St Evroult in company with Sherman tanks from the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment. The cameraman films from a moving 4th SLI carrier as it speeds along a narrow track through the forest. 3rd RTR Shermans and a more manoeuvrable 4th KSLI carrier compete for road space with a column of 8th Rifle Brigade half-tracks in the forest.


THE 11TH ARMOURED DIVISION ADVANCES TO ARGENTAN [Allocated Title]

IWM A70 130-1
DESCRIPTION
Full description
Armour, self-propelled artillery and infantry belonging to the 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry, the 13th Royal Horse Artillery and the 3rd Battalion Monmouth Regiment wait in the countryside between Bailleul and Argentan for the 80th US Infantry Division to occupy the latter before moving off. A column of tired prisoners from the Falaise 'gap' - including ex-Red Army Wehrmacht 'volunteers' - trudges past the assembled force. Gunners from the 13th RHA peel potatoes as the traffic roars by a few yards away. A troop of 'Sextons' and their command half-track deploys in a wheat field; on the orders of the troop commander in the half-track, a 'Sexton' gun crew opens fire on German pockets in the Fôret de Gouffen. Argentan still burns after its occupation by the Americans; 30th Corps' commander, Lieutenant-General Horrocks, drives into the town, sorely battered throughout the previous week. The 15/19th Hussars 'C' squadron accompanies American infantrymen into Argentan while British sappers clear a way through the rubble. The streets around St Germain church are in ruins. Outside Argentan, a 3rd RTR Sherman tank crew surveys the countryside for German stragglers.

11TH ARMOURED DIVISION ADVANCES BEYOND ARGENTAN [Allocated Title]

IWM A70 130-2
DESCRIPTION
Object description
As the struggle to close the Falaise 'gap' draws to an end, elements of the 11th Armoured Division drive eastwards from Argentan in the wake of the fleeing remnants of the German 5th Panzer Army and 7th Army.
Full description
On the outskirts of Argentan, 30th Corps vehicles pass makeshift German direction signs scrawled on a wall pointing the way out of the Falaise 'gap'. Nine kilometres further each along the N24 bis, motorised infantry belonging to the 8th Battalion the Rifle Brigade drive in the rain through the village of Le Bourg St Leonard where units from the 2nd French Armoured Division and the 15/19th Hussars have met up.

 

My mistake - it appears in "The Charge of The Bull" by Jean Brisset. (IWM #B9528)

 

Hi Phaedra.

Do you know what the abbreviation TDU means? My Grandfather's military records also records that he was transferred to A Squadron TDU on 13 Dec 1943 from the 147th RAC.
Any help appreciated.

Mark

 

Hi Mark, I think it’s Training Delivery Unit but that’s a bit of a guess as it’s a time I’ve now found he was conducting training in the U.K.
Phaedra

 

Hello Mark,

What about this?

137 Tank Delivery Unit, 'A' Squadron | The National Archives

Richard