The Shahur Tangi Ambush, Waziristan, 1937

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This blog post originally appeared in 2018 on my website dealing with Royal Signals honours and awards. With the closure of that site I have updated it (substantially) and moved it here. More details on the casualties may be found in the blog post about Manzai Fort cemetery. 

Operations in Waziristan and elsewhere on the North-West Frontier of India, earned for Royal Signals some of its very first awards for gallantry—the earliest in the 1920s are dealt with in the chapter of the book that deals with the Meritorious Service Medal for gallantry.

By 1924 conflict in the region had largely abated but a British and Indian Army garrison remained to piquet the roads that had been built between small population centres as a means of increasing control of the tribal area. Such duties were not without danger. On 18 August 1924, during a road opening operation north of Razmak Narai, near Duncan’s Piquet, a vehicle carrying a small Royal Signals party from Razani was ambushed below the picquet. In the action that followed, Lance Sergeant Percy Cook, aged 23, was killed and Signalman C. Punter and an Indian signaller were wounded.[1] This incident was the subject of the Corps painting Frontier Ambush by Peter Archer.[2]

The grave of Lance Serjeant Percy Everitt Cook, Razmak

Less well known, certainly in Royal Signals, is a much larger ambush in 1937 that claimed the lives of two Royal Signals soldiers and over 70 others killed and wounded. Continue reading →

Manzai Fort Cemetery, Pakistan

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This blog post originally appeared in 2020 on my website dealing with Royal Signals honours and awards. With the closure of that site I have updated it and moved it here. 

I must firstly record my most sincere thanks to Muhammad Naeem, a civil engineer from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, for his enthusiastic help in providing the photographs used here. For more information on the men buried at Manzai Fort cemetery, please read the notes linked to each of the photographs in the galleries.

One of the interests that I have developed while working on the Royal Signals honours and awards project relates to the fate of the Corps’ casualties, particularly those who lie in graves not maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. One of my keenest interests is in the casualties of the inter-war years, particularly those men who died in the North-West Frontier Province.[1]

Most of the military cemeteries and many of the civilian graveyards in which they lie are no longer in use and are not maintained. Although many have become derelict they remain a feature of the locale and some are protected by virtue of the fact that they sit within or near military or Frontier Constabulary bases. Continue reading →

Lieutenant Luigi Parisotti, 4/39th Garhwal Rifles

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As a researcher of military history, one of my greatest sources of satisfaction is the acceptance by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission of a correction to a record of commemoration. Mostly as a consequence of the digitisation process, such errors are legion. Additionally some casualties were missed for various reasons. My first success was the inclusion of one of Blacker’s Boys, the 9th Royal Irish Fusiliers, on the Addenda Panel at Thiepval; he was killed on 1 July 1916 but his death had not been recorded. For some years I have been examining the CWGC commemorations from the First World War in the United States and recently I have been working on a project to ensure the correct commemoration for all Royal Signals casualties. My latest success, however, was for an infantry officer killed in action in Waziristan whose date of death and regiment were recorded incorrectly; he was killed in a fight that earned another officer a posthumous Victoria Cross.

Lieutenant Luigi Maria Parisotti was born on 25 July 1891 in Paddington, London, the son of an Italian father and an English mother; he was the fourth of five children.[1] He was educated at Stonyhurst College; Collège Saint Pierre, Calais; and the Sorbonne.[2] At some time he began to use the name ‘Louis’.

Luigi Parisotti

Parisotti was commissioned into Alexandra, Princess of Wales’s Own (Yorkshire Regiment) on 2 September 1915. After a period with the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion at West Hartlepool, he joined the 2nd Battalion of the Green Howards near Carnoy in France as a platoon commander in ‘D’ Company in February 1916. The battalion was part of 21st Brigade in 30th Division, which had transferred from 7th Division the previous December and on doing so lost two of its regular battalions to other brigades in 30th Division, receiving two ‘Pals’ battalion in their place—18th (Service) Battalion, King’s (Liverpool Regiment) (2nd City) and 19th (Service) Battalion, Manchester Regiment (4th City). Continue reading →

Non-Commissioned Officers and the Military Cross

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This blog post originally appeared in 2016 on my website dealing with Royal Signals honours and awards. With the closure of that site I have updated it and moved it here. 

The medals of Lance Sergeant D. E. Ward M.C.

After the 1993 review of decorations and medals for gallantry, the Military Cross replaced the Military Medal as the third level award for non-commissioned officers and other ranks. Prior to 1993 there were 98 Military Crosses, including two bars, awarded to officers of the Corps, one award to a warrant officer during the Second World War and one to a warrant officer during the Borneo Confrontation. In addition, there were several awards to officers of the Indian Signal Corps serving alongside their Royal Signals counterparts in actions in North Africa, the Italian Campaign and Burma. Since 1993 there has been only one Military Cross awarded to a Royal Signals non-commissioned officer—to Sergeant N. J. Hillyard in 2016.[1] He is not, however, the first N.C.O. of the Corps to wear the ribbon of the Military Cross.

In India on the evening of Saturday 1 February 1936, two N.C.O.s of Kohat District Signals were returning to camp in a motor-cycle and sidecar along a mist-covered road east of the town when they hit a bullock cart—one was killed and the other badly injured.[2] The dead man was Lance Sergeant D. E. Ward M.C., an attached N.C.O. from ‘A’ Corps Signals.[3]

Kohat District Signals (Lance Sergeant D. E. Ward M.C. is on the left)

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Operation Plainfare – The Berlin Airlift 1948

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A similar blog post originally appeared in 2020 on my website dealing with Royal Signals honours and awards. With the closure of that site I have updated it and moved it here. The events that it commemorates began 74 years ago this week. The ‘On This Day‘ series by the Royal Signals Museum also has a short piece about the Berlin Airlift.

A Royal Air Force Avro York at landing at RAF Gatow

In 1948, plans to create a new West German state from the zones occupied by the Western Allies, and the introduction of a new currency—the Deutschmark—resulted in the withdrawal of the USSR from the Allied Control Council and the blockade of road, rail, and canal links into West Berlin. In response, the United States began Operation Vittles on 26 June, and the United Kingdom followed with Operation Plainfare two days later. The operations proved to be an extraordinary success and lasted until the blockade was lifted on 11 May 1949. Continue reading →

Gallantry During The Blitz – Robert Hamilton Tinto G.M.

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This blog post originally appeared in 2016 on my website dealing with Royal Signals honours and awards. With the closure of that site I have updated it and moved it here. The events that it commemorates took place just over 81 years ago.

Signalman Robert Hamilton Tinto G.M.

On the evening of 29 December 1940, a German bombing raid on London caused what became known as the ‘Second Great Fire of London’. Most frequently illustrated by the iconic photograph of St Paul’s Cathedral that came to symbolise London in the blitz, the attack targeted the City of London and the high explosive and incendiary bombs started a firestorm that swept all before it. The area destroyed was more than that devastated by the Great Fire of 1666 and cost the lives of over 160 civilians and 14 firemen.[1]

St Paul’s Cathedral, 30 December 1940

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The Book Cover

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This article was published originally in 2021 on my website dealing with Royal Signals Honours and Awards to describe the various photos on the book’s cover; having closed that website it is reproduced.

Designed by Jag Lal, the cover of Honours, Decorations, and Medals to The Royal Corps of Signals for Gallantry & Distinguished Service 1920-2020 shows seven images, with another making up the textured background.

Royal Signals dispatch rider in Waziristan, 1935

Left Top: A Royal Signals despatch rider in Waziristan, 1935. He is riding the military version of the 350cc Douglas Motors L3 which in India replaced the well-regarded Triumphs in the early 1930s. In 1932 Kohat District Signals reported in The Wire: ‘Since receiving our new pattern Fords, we have also had a new outfit of Douglas motor-cycles. The old Triumphs have passed out, much to our regret, and the steady purr of the Doug has come to stay.’[1] They were not as popular as the Triumphs and apparently not as reliable. 1st Indian Divisional Signals on exercise south-east of Rawalpindi in late 1932 recorded: ‘There was plenty of hard work for everyone, but the Douglas motor cycles could not stand up to the type of country over which they had to work and were all out of action before the ‘war’ proper commenced, leaving the three Triumphs to carry out the motor cycle D.R. work.’[2] By the Second World War they had been largely replaced by the Norton WD16H. Continue reading →

‘Darkest Hour’, Calais—Capture and Escape

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This article was published originally in 2018 on my website dealing with Royal Signals Honours and Awards; it is reproduced here in anticipation of that website closing.

I suspect many of the readers here will have seen Darkest Hour and Gary Oldman’s superb performance as Churchill. One aspect of the final days of the fighting in France that gets a deserved mention in the film is the ill-fated defence of Calais by Brigadier Claude Nicholson’s 30th Motor Brigade. Ordered to hold out at all cost, the Brigade and French troops in the town fought bravely until, position by position, they were forced to surrender on 26 May 1940. Two German divisions were diverted from their attack on the Dunkirk perimeter.

Headquarters 30th Motor Brigade was split between an Advanced Headquarters in the Citadel in the Old Town and a Rear Headquarters in the docks’ railway station; the latter moved on the afternoon of 26 May to a small fort at the end of the quay. First of the two to fall was Rear Headquarters which was completely surrounded and being slowly reduced by accurate and heavy mortar fire. The Royal Signals element there, led by Lieutenant William Millett of the Brigade Signal Section, and remnants of 1st Battalion, Rifle Brigade and 1st Battalion, Queen Victoria’s Rifles surrendered at about 4.00pm. The Advanced Headquarters, defended by French troops and a small party of Royal Marines, was overrun between 4.30pm and 5.00pm; it was here that Brigadier Nicholson and the Brigade Major, Captain Dennis Talbot were captured.

Daily Record, Friday 31 May 1940

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‘Who are they? Where are they now?’

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This article was written as a contribution to The Wire, the Royal Signals in-house magazine, in 2018. It is reproduced here in its original (somewhat fuller) format and with some minor additions and corrections made possible by information received since publication.

‘Where are they now?’ The Wire June 1959

The photograph above appeared in The Wire in June 1959 under the heading ‘Who are they? Where are they now?’

The accompanying caption was:

Taken outside the W.O’s and Sergeants Mess S.T.C. (I), Jubblepore, India, 1931?
Reading from left to right, (Standing): C.S.M. H Hartley, D.C.M., M.S.M., CQMS Andrews, M.S.M.
(Seated): RQMS Nixon, RQMS Earwaker, M.S.M., RSM May, D.C.M., M.S.M., RQMS Sewerin, M.S.M.
When the photo was taken: Total Service 133½ years. Total Indian Service 116½ years. Average Service 22 years. Average Service in India 19½ years. Total Medals, 38. Average 6½.

The photo was, indeed, taken at the Warrant Officers’ and Serjeants’ Mess at the Signal Training Centre (India) at Jubbulpore but it was taken earlier than suggested, probably in 1929 before some of those listed returned to the United Kingdom at the end of their service. So, to answer the original question:

Standing, left to right:

6454569 Warrant Officer Class II (Company Serjeant Major) Henry Edward Harley DCM Continue reading →

Major Robert Norman Dodds MBE, MC, DCM, MM

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This blog post originally appeared on my site dealing with Honours and Awards to Royal Signals. It is reposted here in anticipation of that site’s closure.

Second Lieutenant R. N. Dodds MC, DCM, MM, Russia, 1920

One hundred and two years ago, on 22 May 1920 the former Royal Navy hospital ship and troop transport SS Dongola arrived in England carrying some of the last British and French refugees to flee Bolshevik Russia. Amongst the passengers was also the final batch of British prisoners of war, who had been captured a year before during the operations in North Russia. One of their number was Second Lieutenant Robert Dodds MC, DCM, MM of the Royal Engineers Signal Service.

Dodds was commissioned into Royal Signals just prior to the Second World War and was made an MBE for his service in North Africa. I came across him while researching something completely different a few years ago and intrigued by his multiple decorations—he was one of only two men to receive this combination of awards[1]—I saved on my computer the London Gazette that recorded his retirement, meaning to return to it later. It became one of the catalysts that promoted my wider study of Royal Signals gallantry awards.

He is an excellent example of a significant number of decorated soldiers whose gallantry awards are, by necessity, consigned to a brief mention in the Register of Awards. It was an aspiration to record the awards made to those who earned them prior to joining Royal Signals but that has proven to be an impossible task to complete accurately. Nonetheless, the full story of Dodds’ repeated gallantry is worth recounting. Continue reading →