Page 225 - Bugle Autumn 2014

The RIFLES (Berkshire and Wiltshire) Museum
With such a significant anniversary in 2014 there was only one subject that could be the focus of our exhibition this year. Called “The Country Goes to War” the exhibition covered the mobilisation, deployment to Belgium and the first battles in which the Royal Berkshire and the Wiltshire Regiment fought in the Great War.
The 1st Battalion The Royal Berkshire Regiment was in Aldershot when war was declared on the 4th August. They departed for France on the 12th August 1914 and participated in the fighting withdrawal from Mons as part of 6 Brigade, of 2 Division. Their first major action was at a bridge on the Sambre 25th/26th August near the village of Maroilles. The final point of the Retreat was reached on 7th September at Le Poteau. The Battalion had marched 236 miles in 15 days, with only one days halt, an average of 15.7 miles
Machine guns of the Great War
10 days later. The retreat from Mons was
a fighting withdrawal with a number of significant actions fought along the way.
The battalion remained intact and ended the
The Country goes to War
provide a photographic interpretation of their understanding of an aspect of the First World War. The starting point for the work was the First World War diaries of Corporal GC Couldrey and Sergeant F Mundy
1/4th Wilts. Both Couldrey and Mundy earned a Distinguished Conduct Medal for gallantry during the Gaza campaign, both survived the war and both were literate men who kept diaries of their activities during the war. The results of everyone’s work were exhibited in London in March and in Salisbury in August 2014.
In 2015 the Museum will be marking 2 campaigns from the Great War in which battalions from the Royal Berkshire and the Wiltshire Regiment played important parts. The first is the landings on the Gallipoli peninsula in April 1915and the second will be the Battle of Loos in September 1915. The exhibition will run throughout 2015. SGC
per day. The flow of
fighting was reversed
on 9th September
when the Battalion
advanced, crossing the
Marne and then the
Aisne on the 14th. The
Battalion took part in
the 1st Battle of Ypres
from 22nd October to the 13th November. They went into Divisional reserve on the 15th November and spent the winter in and out of the trenches.
In August 1914 The 1st Battalion The Wiltshire Regiment was based at Tidworth. The Battalion left for France on the 13th August, taking part in the battle of Mons
retreat on the outskirts of Paris. The battalion took part in the First Battle of Ypres, and
in March 1915 Neuve Chapelle. By the end of March 1915 the Battalion had lost 26 officers and 1000 men.
In last year’s article we gave an account of the start of our
Project with the National Portrait Gallery and 2 schools in Salisbury called National Memory Local Stories. Children from 2 secondary schools local to Salisbury, Avon College and Bishop Wordsworth School, visited the Museum over a month and used some of the artefacts in the Museum to
The Battalion had marched 236 miles in 15 days, with only one days halt
OBITUARIES
Major MEH Pardoe The Royal Berkshire Regiment 29th May 1921 – 28th July 2014
Mike Pardoe who has died aged 93 years after a prolonged illness was one of the last survivors of 5R.BERKS who landed on JUNO Beach in June 1944 with No.8 Beach Group, was born in Kenya and educated at Bradfield College and the RMC Sandhurst.
In 1939 he was commissioned into the
Royal Berkshire Regiment and posted to the
5th Battalion. By 1944 he was a Company Commander and landed at Bernières-sur-Mer (the station signboard is displayed in the RIFLES Wardrobe Museum) and was responsible for getting troops of the 1st Canadian Division / 9th Brigade off the Beach. On the 50th Anniversary of D Day, mike unveiled a Plaque at Bernières-sur- Mer in memory of 5R.BERKS / 6 Beach Gp.
With this experience he commanded the XANTEN Crossing of the Rhine in March 1945 for which he was Mentioned-in- Despatches and later posted to 2R.BERKS in Burma where he took temporary command of the Battalion before moving it to
firstly Eritrea then the Canal Zone MELF where it was amalgamated with the 1st Battalion.
Following a Staff appointment, he rejoined the 1st Battalion as Adjutant. His final postings in the Army were as a Boys Company Commander at IJLB and as Trg Maj and Adjt of 4/6R.BERKS (TA) in Reading. He took early retirement in 1958 prior to the amalgamation with the WILTS to form the DERR.
He settled into civilian life as a Prep School Master at Marlborough House Preparatory School in Hawkhurst Kent where he taught Maths, Geography, Carpentry, and started a .22 shooting team. In 1964 he joined the Committee of Preparatory Schools Rifle Association (PRSA) and, later, became its Chairman and Vice President and was awarded the NRSA Special Services
Diploma in 2008.
Having married Christine, he had a very happy family life and
leaves a devoted widow, two sons and two grandchildren.
PT Dunn
THE RIFLES
REGIMENTAL ASSOCIATION NEWS 223