Page 57 - QDG Volume 9 No. 2 2021

1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards 55
into presenting the completed tasks. At this point it was easy to see the lengths and depths that the Sqns went to. For C Sqn to complete 608 miles at 0400hrs was pretty remarkable. They were also joined by many others, firstly the OC and SSM F Sqn (Colonel of the Regiment & WO1 Pete Cubitt) who also racked up the miles and many other members of the wider regiment. Even Capt Evans of Welsh Troop managed to throw the walking stick aside for an hour. I’m told he is still recovering now!
The final broadcast was to announce that HQ Sqn had won the day and to thank everyone for raising such a huge amount of money. We initially started off with a £5,000 target, but by the end of the day we hit £7,000. We would have been nowhere near this figure if it wasn’t for the collective buy in of the Regiment, the Regimental Comrades Association and the wider regimental family. It was extremely humbling to see such a huge amount of support both in and out of RBSM and next year we look forward to setting more challenges and hopefully seeing the Association take part in some of the challenges themselves. We are massively grateful of every penny raised and it will all go towards a great cause.
Until next year and for everyone who contributed and supported this event Diolch yn Fawr, and to coin St David’s last words:
‘Gwenwch y pethau bychain mewn bwyd’ ‘Keep doing the little things well’
1st HQ Sqn
2nd C Sqn
3rd A Sqn
4th F Sqn
5th E Sqn
6th B Sqn Deployed on Op CABRIT 7th RCA 2022
DC
RSM Thomas Barlow, KDG
Born circa 1785, Thomas Barlow, the Regimental Sergeant Major of the King’s Dragoon Guards at the Battle of Waterloo, enlisted in the KDG on 18 April 1801, and spent the next fourteen years of his service in England and Ireland progressively working his way up through the non-commissioned ranks. A man of strong religious beliefs, Barlow was a Methodist Lay Preacher, and at the time of the KDG’s embar- kation for the Low Countries in April 1815, a married man but with no children.
On the field of Waterloo, Barlow as RSM rode ahead of his regiment in order to indicate the path of the KDG’s advance in the first great charge of the Household Brigade (1st and 2nd Life Guards, Royal Horse Guards and KDG – 1220 sabres in all) against the 1st and 4th Cuirassiers of Dubois’s Brigade which resulted in putting the four infantry divisions of D`Erlon’s Corps into full flight. In so doing he met a French officer of the Cuirassiers in the open ground between the two sides and engaged him in hand-to-hand combat. Notwithstanding his disadvantage in being armed with the standard British Heavy Cavalry sword, which was six inches shorter than its French equivalent, and despite the fact that the French officer was reputed to be one of the finest swordsmen in Napoleon’s Army, Barlow succeeded in disabling his opponent bringing him to the point of surrender. As a token of his submission, the French officer yielded his sword which Barlow immediately presented to his Commanding Officer, who, in praising him for his bravery, expressed the wish that he had many more such Methodist parsons in his Regiment. During the course of the battle, the KDG were involved in some eleven charges and by the time victory was secured the regiment had sustained casualties of eleven officers and 275 other ranks killed, wounded and missing. Barlow’s obituary maintains that at the close of the day only fifteen King’s Dragoon Guards remained mounted of whom the senior officer was a Lieutenant, and the senior NCO was RSM Barlow.
In recognition of his general bravery and in particular his combat with the Cuirassier officer, Barlow was rewarded with a commission and continued in the KDG until transferring to the 23rd Light Dragoons as a Captain on half pay on 16 April 1818. In 1819, he became adjutant of the Prince Regent’s 2nd Regiment of Cheshire Yeomanry, an appointment which he held until 1833, when he retired having received a commuted allowance for his commission. Described by a contemporary as ‘a bold soldierly looking man, who spoke in a very pompous style’, whose ‘remarks from first to last were generally of the cutting and slashing character’, Barlow became a local Methodist preacher and for some years lived at Pickmere, Cheshire.
WO1 RSM Thomas Barlow passed away at the age of 72 at his home in East Collingwood.
The above, along with a replica of the medal can be found in the Warrant Officers’ & Sergeants’ Mess.
We entered 2 teams into this years Bismarck Challenge, a male team and a mixed team. 2Lt Swailes, 2Lt Clark, LCpl Hellyar-Jones and LCpl Palmer made up the Male team and LCpl Thornton, Tpr George, Tpr Eade and Tpr Hudson made up the Mixed Team.
The team set off for Strensall at 0400 with SSgt Ellis driving to give the team a chance to finish off their sleep cycles. Four hours later we were there and it wasn’t long before the first wave set off. The route was hard going, really wet under foot and the rain did not stop all day.
Worth the effort
After each member of the team finished their leg of the relay they had a chance
to get some warm food and a free sports massage from student sports therapists. All the team then took part in the health fair stand and took part in the health quiz.
The plan was to try and get the faster males in the mixed team in order to try and stand a better chance of a good position. This didn’t work and in fact after the results came in the Regimental 2iC Maj Hoey worked out that if we had stacked the Male Team rather than the mixed team they would have had a time of 2:30:06 which would have been 21/62. But then the Mixed Team would have been 10/23.
We look forward to competing in next year’s Bismarck Challenge.
JG
Trooper George on the run!