July 1940 to February 1941

'The sum total of the training equipment consisted of 40 rifles, half a dozen impressed vehicles and a few boxes of grenades. Everything was either made of wood, borrowed for the afternoon - or simply imagined '


THE summer of 1940 was the most desperate hour in Britain’s long history. On May 10, barely a month after overrunning Denmark and Norway, Hitler unleashed his offensive in the West. Over the next three weeks, the German panzer armies scythed through the Low Countries and Northern France – as they had done in Poland the previous September – carrying all before them with their blitzkrieg.

Trapped against the sea at Dunkirk, the British Expeditionary Force escaped by a miracle – 338,000 men snatched from the jaws of the Germans thanks to an evacuation fleet of ships large and small.

By late June, most of the British soldiers who had managed to avoid captivity were back home. But the Army lay stunned and virtually impotent, having left behind most of its guns and equipment in France. Bestriding the Channel coast, Hitler stood triumphant, ready to invade unless an ignominious peace was agreed.

But even at this darkest moment, the mood in Britain was one of defiance, resolution and a calm conviction that there would be no surrender. Inspired by Churchill, the nation was determined to go down fighting rather than be engulfed by the tide of Nazi barbarism.

As Britain looked to its defences and waited for the blow to fall, the call-up of men for military service gained fresh urgency. If the Germans came, the new recruits would be thrown into the battle. If invasion was averted, these men would build the armies which one day would go back across the Channel and liberate Europe.

Up and down the country, old and famous regiments found their ranks swelled by recruits who would very quickly have to be turned from civilians into soldiers. So it was that on July 4, 1940, the 7th Battalion of The Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire) was officially raised at the Loyals’ headquarters in Fulwood Barracks, Preston, based around a cadre of regulars –15 officers and 150 other ranks.

Strictly speaking, the battalion was being re-formed, since the 7th (Service) Battalion of the Loyals had been established during the First World War, seeing action on the Western Front. As the regiment prepared to accept its new intake, goodbyes were being said in homes throughout Merseyside, Lancashire and Cheshire, from where the bulk of the unit’s men were recruited.

Fathers, sons, uncles and brothers who until now had been workers in factories, offices, shops or shipyards, found themselves called to the colours – and the destination on their travel warrants was Caernarvon, North Wales. There, at Coed Helen Camp, a large house surrounded by a stretch of wooded land within sight of the medieval castle that dominates the town, the cadre from the Loyals arrived on July 5 ready to receive a total of 850 recruits.

Soldiers in the cadre included warrant officers, NCOs, tradesmen, cooks and batmen, several of whom had seen service with the British Expeditionary Force in France. During the retreat to Dunkirk, the Loyals had fought with exceptional valour and determination, and were among the last soldiers off the beaches. This core of professionals brought with it ‘a steadying influence of peacetime service and discipline,’ wrote Major Peter Crane, MC, one of the officers tasked with helping set up the new battalion.

There was also a sprinkling of new recruits in the cadre, one of whom was Joseph Worrall, a 23-year-old from Farnworth, Bolton. He had been called up in January that year and had already completed his basic training. So when the cadre went to Caernarvon to prepare for the arrival of the bulk of the 7th Loyals, he was promoted to lance corporal.

On July 17, the first intake of 200 men was received at Coed Helen and posted to A Company. Six days later, David Lloyd George, who had been Prime Minister during the First World War and was MP for Caernarvon, came to the camp to address the recruits.

Next day, the second contingent of 200 men arrived – to be posted to B Company – and a further 400 men two days later, who were split into C and D companies. Out of the whole intake, more than 600 came from Liverpool and district, 120 from London and the rest from various locations, mainly Lancashire and Cheshire.

The 7th battalion started training at Coed Helen with the 8th and 9th Loyals, which were raised at the same time. The three new battalions made up No15 Infantry Group, under Colonel O E Scarfe. Later, with the 12th Royal Welch Fusiliers, they formed 215 Infantry Brigade.

The 7th’s commanding officer was Lieutenant Colonel M Wilson, the second–in–command was Major (later Lieut Col) W S Plant, the adjutant was Captain (later Major) Crane and the Regimental Sergeant Major (later Captain) was P W Godden. Two days after the battalion was fully formed, a German plane flew over the camp and dropped two bombs to the south, but there were no casualties. However, it was realised that the open ground where the camp had been established was vulnerable to air attack and towards the end of July all units moved to a site nearer Caernarvon, where trees and hedges gave better protection.

At first, shortage of equipment was acute for the fledgling infantry unit. ‘Training difficulties were very intense in the early stages,’ Major Crane later wrote. ‘The sum total of the training equipment consisted of 40 rifles, half a dozen impressed vehicles and a few boxes of grenades. Everything was either made of wood, borrowed for the afternoon – or simply imagined.’

As the men tried to settle into bell tents, it was very much make do and mend. ‘We were still wearing civvies for weeks after we got there and drilling with broom handles,’ recalled Corporal Ronald Prince, one of the Liverpool recruits.

In his memoirs, another Liverpool recruit, Michael Cullen, left a vivid and often colourful account of his service with 7th Loyals after he was called up in July 1940 and allocated to D Company. ‘I was issued with a travel warrant and ten shillings and told to report to Coed Helen Camp,’ he recalled. ‘We were certainly a motley crew as we travelled down from the ’Pool with our little gas masks in cardboard boxes and were excited to know what lay in store. We were soon to find out!

‘On arrival at Caernarvon station, we were greeted with a roar like an elephant breaking wind! On the platform was a man with a gold laurel wreath on his sleeve, a chest like Frank Bruno and a neck like a bull terrier! Get fell in! was the order.
‘We assumed he had been assigned to knock us into some sort of shape. We learned later that his name was Len Nott. I think the “Nott” meant that he was “Nott” to be trifled with. And you can take it from me that nobody tried.’

Len Nott was the Regimental Sergeant Major. ‘On arrival at the camp, which consisted of a large number of bell tents and several other large tents, we were marched into the dining tent and partook of one kipper and a plate of prunes and custard plus three slices of bread and marge. After the meal, we were issued with three rough Army blankets and one groundsheet and were billetted eight men to a tent. We slept on the ground with just the groundsheet underneath.

‘Next morning, feeling rather stiff, we were marched to the quartermaster’s stores to be fitted out with kit. The QM was an old Army lag who wasn‘t very fussy whether the uniform fitted or not. Two pairs of each article were issued – the two pairs of cellular underpants he gave me would have looked well on a cab horse! If I had stitched up the ends, I’m sure I could have got a hundredweight of tatties in each leg! We were then told to dress and come out on parade. Len Nott took one look at us and nearly burst a blood vessel. “If only Hitler could see you now, he’d die laughing,” he said. In retrospect, I think that I agreed with him.

‘In the days that followed, we had inoculations which put us all out of action for three days. I think at this point I had developed quite an aversion to Army life, and longed to be home again and sampling Mom’s cooking and sleeping once again in a nice soft bed. Alas, this was just wishful thinking. We consoled ourselves with the thought that the war would be over in a few months’ time, and we could all get back home again. Little did we know that we had another six years of it to face and God knows what lay ahead.

‘The few months that followed consisted of small arms (rifle and Bren gun) training – the Bren being the Army‘s latest toy. PT was at 6am, then breakfast – which consisted of lumpy porridge, tinned American bacon and perhaps some baked beans. Once a week, there was a fried egg. After breakfast, it was on parade for inspection and God help you if you hadn’t shaved properly!
‘We had, of course, to shave in cold water and this usually meant hacking lumps of flesh from the face and sticking bits of paper on the cuts to stem the bleeding. As Len Nott would say, “I‘ve got a right bleeding shower here!”’

Because a German invasion was thought to be imminent following the Fall of France, training was combined with beach defence, patrols and practice alerts throughout the summer and early autumn, taking the 7th as far south along the coast as Aberdovey, where a second camp was established.

By now, the whole country was on watch for Hitler‘s advance forces – and in the early hours of September 8, the alarm was raised at Coed Helen of possible German seaborne landings along the nearby coast. Soldiers of the 7th hurriedly took up positions facing the beach near Llanfaglan churchyard and awaited the enemy. But it was a false alarm. By 3.30pm that afternoon, the battalion was stood down.

The stay in Wales ended on September 28, when the battalion entrained for Liverpool and its first major operational role – helping protect the port against German invasion. The 7th’s base was to the north of the city in the affluent suburb of Great Crosby, with headquarters in the Northern Cricket Ground at Elm Avenue. A and C companies were stationed in Seaforth Barracks in nearby Waterloo and the rest of the regiment in billets in Seaforth and Blundellsands.

Coming under the command of Mersey Garrison, the 7th – working with four Home Guard battalions – covered one of four defence zones for the Liverpool area. Liverpool was now the most vital port in the kingdom, a gateway for the convoys that later became Britain‘s lifeline and the nerve centre of the Battle of the Atlantic. ‘Here the work became very hard,’ Major Crane wrote. ‘As, in addition to intense training, the battalion had a considerable operational role and was constantly called up to provide working parties for ships and docks.’

By now, the Luftwaffe had been defeated in the Battle of Britain after fierce combat and high casualties on both sides, and as winter approached, the threat of invasion in 1940 receded. Instead, Hitler targeted British cities with his bombers and in November and December, Merseyside suffered its first major air raids as the Luftwaffe attacked the miles of docks and wharves either side of the river and the famous shipyards of Cammell Laird on the Birkenhead shore.
As the Blitz took its terrible toll, the 7th Loyals were drafted in to help tackle gigantic fires which blazed for days in Liverpool‘s Gladstone and Alexandra docks.
Throughout Christmas, contingents of 100 soldiers battled night and day. During one dramatic operation, the men found themselves wading up to their ankles through molten rubber, which was flowing off a blazing ship. ‘There was a consignment of Wellington boots nearby on the dockside and we grabbed them and put them on to protect ourselves,’ Ronald Prince recalled. To the men‘s indignation, a punctilious officer warned them they might face a looting charge. However, reason apparently prevailed and no such charges materialised.

For many men of the 7th, this period was doubly agonising, because Liverpool and Birkenhead were their home towns. As they stood guard and saw the night skies ablaze, or fought fires in the midst of the air raids, they had no way of knowing if their loved ones had become victims.

Michael Cullen recalled: ‘The Germans had started in earnest to bomb the docks and town. We had been sent over to help unload the large shells and distribute same to the many heavy ack-ack batteries that ringed the city. The raids were very heavy at times. The whole city seemed to be on fire. The noise of the guns and explosions was deafening. As we went through the streets, we could hear the “ping-ping” of the shrapnel as it bounced off the pavements. The fire engines and ambulances were working non-stop through the night. It was mayhem.’

It was the Blitz that inflicted the battalion’s first fatal casualty. As the air raids disrupted civilian services, the 7th took on postal duties and Private Albert Stones, who volunteered for this work, was killed by a bomb blast in billets in Bootle on November 21.

As 1941 opened, another period of change dawned for the battalion. At the start of February, the CO, Colonel Wilson, stepped down because of illness and his second-in-command, Major Plant, took over. On February 3, the 200th anniversary of The Loyal Regiment was celebrated with a parade at the Marine football ground in Blundellsands, followed by a march through Blundellsands, Crosby and Waterloo. There was a welcome bonus for the men – a half day’s holiday.

2. THE YORKSHIRE COAST