called up for the services

[Alan P]

I find that totaly disgusting. To think an excellent Regiment like the H.L.I. have forgotten the men who were called up to serve in WW2, Korea, and other trouble spots.
my uncle who lived in Leeds served with the London Scottish and my brother was an R.A.M.C national serviceman attached to the H.L I. in Cyprus during the troubles in the fifties.
A good post Del Boy I hope it gets rectified at least for the lads who didn't make it back home

 

[LeEnfield]

Many of the Regiments have writen the National Service Men out of their records, I was trying to trace a friend of mine that was killed. I know the chap that runs our museum and asked him to check the records and nothing was found. He found a small article in the regimental magazine of that year but nothing at all in orders. Also he was not listed on the new national monument and we had to get a photograph of his grave which was no easy matter as you can't visit this CWG with permission in writting from the UN and they forbid photographs being taken before his name was added.

 

[Del Boy]

It was a strange experience, reading the archives that day in the Museum, the Bn. HQ entries were like blogs or posts of the period ( the Bn. was the one of the time of Alan P's mention, just off to deal with Cyprus and 2 days before they left England I had to be dragged away from travelling with them as a regular volunteer, by my family) and were written by my brilliant boss, the ORQMS prisoner of the Japanese for many WW11 years, who had promoted me and supported me at my work at all times; the notes were celebratory and jolly - but what a shock; no mention of me or my Nat. Service workmates. Somehow we had been written out.

Of course, individually, every move every soldier made, military or civil, was recorded daily and despatched to Infantry Records, in our case, by myself.
Promotions, demotions, marriages, injuries, illness, exams, education, awards, court martials, AWOL, police notifications, punishments, even " conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline Sec. 40".... all the minor charges dealt with by the Commanding Officer.

So I assume records of our involvement still exist somwhere in detail - they certainly were on my watch.

BTW - we were not pen-pushers, the Bn. were all soldiers, perimeter guards etc. under fire, water station guards, major and minor parades, battle schemes, just like the rifle companies ; even for the Bn. Pipe Band; the only exceptions were the Military Band, who were not officially on our strength, but marked as 'attached'.