9th Battalion Royal Northumberland Fusiliers

War Diary

The documentation of this particular War Diary has been confined to the period while it was part of the 23rd Division Order of Battle in the B.E.F., and thus associated with 70th Infantry Brigade.

The 9th Battalion was formed as a duplicate of the 7th Battalion on 27 July 1939 (first officer commissioned). It was organized as a Machine Gun Battalion and on the outbreak of the war was in Northumbrian Area, Northern Command. On 2 October 1939 it was attached to the 23rd Northumbrian Division (under command for labour duties and training, though not a Divisional Unit) and proceeded to France with them in April 1940.

After Dunkirk, the Battalion left the 23rd Division on 29 June as the division was disbanded. It was under command of Home Forces until January 1942, when it was transferred to Malaya Command, landing at Singapore a few days before the fall of the island. It went into Japanese POW camps after the brief but violent week-long Battle of Singapore.

The assistance of the author of the relevant article within Wikipedia is acknowledged for the above information, as is the kind help of the Regimental Museum for the material from the Barclay history, and with many other queries.

War Diary of 9th Battalion, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers 1940

9th Battalion, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers - April 1940

9th Battalion, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers - May 1940

9th Battalion, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers - June 1940

It would appear that the War Diary for the period after June 1940 is not available. According to Barclay's History of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, after a spell defending the South Devon Coast, under the command of South Western Area, and utilising a mixture of weapons obtained via the Naval authorities, refurbished by Battalion staff, the Battalion was moved to join the 18th Division at Cromer, once again as a Machine-Gun Battalion, but re-equipped with 48 new Vickers guns and a generous allocation of vehicles. There is evidence that, during their time in South Devon, the Battalion defended an area around Slapton Sands but it is not clear how their role correlated with that of 11th DLI, who had their C Company, and the Advanced Battalion HQ, also based there. It is possible that 9th RNF moved to 18th Division as the responsibilities of 11th DLI at SLAPTON were clarified. After joining 18th Division the Battalion underwent an intensive spell of training at Holt in Norfolk and then assumed an active role as part of the defence of the area between Yarmouth and Wells, with HQ and W Company at Stiffkey, Z Company supporting 54th Infantry Brigade at Yarmouth, Y Company supporting 55th Infantry Brigade at Mundesley and X Company supporting 53rd Infantry Brigade at Sheringham. Later, HQ and W Company moved to the more convenient location of Coltishall, close to Divisional HQ at Sprowston Hall.

As winter conditions arrived, the likelihood of invasion receded and larger-scale exercises were held. The Division moved to Roxburghshire In December 1940 as GHQ Home Forces' Mobile Reserve - by 6th January the Battalion had arrived at Selkirk. At the end of April 1941 the Battalion moved again, to the Sandbach area of Cheshire, with W, X and Z Companies at Holmes Chapel, Bolton and Neston on the Wirral Peninsula respectively. Later HQ, HQ Company and Y Company moved to Whitchurch in Shropshire, as the Sandbach accommodation was unsatisfactory.

Personnel list of those known to have served with the 9th Battalion, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers.

While the initial group of names was extracted from the three months of the 1940 War Diary, set out above, an extract of the database of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission was produced which identified a total of 206 men registered as having died while serving with the Battalion - the great majority while Prisoners of War in Japanese hands. Those names have been added to the personnel list below and additional information has been added to the personal pages of the men concerned, including that extracted from the Battalion Part II Orders produced by Lieutenant Colonel H S Flower, commanding the Battalion, in September 1945. While initially access had only been obtained to the first four pages of that Order, a more cmplete version of the list was obtained through the kind support of the Hidden History Museum of Belford in Northumberland http://www.belfordvillage.co.uk/visiting-belford/hidden-history-museum/ , following a visit there in May 2018, - the home village of several of the casualties. The assistance and interest of Museum volunteers is greatly appreciated. Other names were obtained from the Website of the Children of Far East Prisoners of War - that help is again much appreciated.

As will be seen, some of the casualties, like those from 125th Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery, died as a result of the sinking of Japanese freighters en route to Japan on 12th September 1944.

To read an article on this tragedy from the Imperial War Museum please click here

To read a further article, including personal testimony, please click here.

To obtain an Australian perspective on the tragedy, please click here.

Details of the Cemeteries in which many of these casualties are buried can be seen by following the links below:-

Chungkai War Cemetery, Thailand

Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, Thailand

Kranji War Cemetery, Singapore

Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery, Burma

Sai Wan War Cemetery, Hong Kong

9th Battalion Royal Northumberland Fusiliers

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