Chapters

The traditions of a regiment are fundamental to understanding the expectations set for its component battalions, so this chapter gives a brief history of the Sherwood Foresters.  It focusses in particular on militia and volunteer units that amalgamated with the regular regiments to form its territorial battalions; and explores parallels between the territorial and service battalions of 1914-18 and their descendants in 1939-45.

The 5th Battalion Sherwood Foresters was split into two following the expansion of the British Army in March 1939 after Hitler’s takeover of Czechoslovakia. The junior or ‘second line’ branch, the 2/5th, is the subject of this book. This chapter covers its formation, training and war experience up to the point it went to France in April 1940.

Sent to France as a labour battalion, the undertrained unit instead found itself fighting in the front line against German veterans on the Canal de Haute Deule, south of Lille, covering the BEF’s retreat. This battle is largely forgotten in accounts of the campaign, this chapter redresses that omission.

The 2/5th Foresters retreated to Dunkirk, where they were the only second  line territorials to actually fight in defence of the perimeter at Dunkirk, and from where the battalon was one of the last units to leave on 2 June. This chapter tells that story and evaluates the unit’s performance in France in 1940.

Back in the UK, the battalion served in Home Defence roles in Scotland, East Anglia and Kent. This chapter examines its training and development over the next two and a half years. It also covers the creation of the 70th (Young Soldiers) Battalion of the Regiment, which provided many of the replacements that were posted to the 2/5 Battalion, and introduces several important characters in the story.

This chapter looks at the misfortunes of three sister battalions that were associated with three of Britain’s worst disasters of the war, and how this impacted the 2/5th. The 8th Battalion was largely destroyed in Norway and later disbanded, but several officers and men transferred to the 2/5th. The 1/5th, after heavy losses in France, was sent to Singapore in early 1942 just in time to be taken captive by the Japanese. It had received drafts of men from the 2/5th, and its demise led to the renaming of the 2/5th as the 5th Battalion. Finally, the regular 1st Battalion surrendered with the Tobruk garrison in June 1942. This represented the nadir of both the regiment’s war service and the British war effort overall.

The battalion’s second overseas commitment was as part of the follow up to the Torch landings in French North Africa, serving through to the capture of Tunis. This chapter covers the initial deployment of the battalion and its experience of war in the front-line facing Green Hill in the northern sector of the front.

This second part to the battalion’s North Africa experience covers the largely forgotten action fighting a German counteroffensive in March 1943 at the First Battle of Sedjenane, the worst single day in the battalion's short history.

This concludes the story of the North Africa campaign with the battalion's role in the fighting at Tamera alongside British paratroops, and then in the final advance on Tunis. An overall review of the battalion’s performance in Tunisia suggests that although it had suffered defeat again at the hands of more experienced troops, the progress made by the battalion was evident.

The battalion needed time to regroup and retrain following its Tunisian experience; and this chapter covers its brief period of rest and recuperation in North Africa, which included exercises with the US Army preparing to invade Sicily.

The battalion fought at Salerno, the first Allied invasion of mainland Europe. Once again, its role is overlooked or dismissed by campaign accounts that mostly focus on the fighting to the south in which the US Army held off German counterattacks. The 5th Foresters landed on the beaches in the second wave, but soon found themselves in the front line where they also fought off determined German counterattacks for over a week, before fighting out of the bridgehead to the north. In this so-called supporting role it still suffered over 40 fatalities.

After Salerno the battalion’s next major operation was at the crossing of the Volturno river in October, another relatively unknown affair glossed over in most campaign histories. After establishing a bridgehead, the Foresters once again faced ferocious German counterattacks, and were eventually forced to fall back across the river with heavy losses. But their resistance had ensured the success of the main crossings, and this represents the battalion’s first real battlefield success against veteran opposition.

This chapter describes the battalion’s role in the advance to the Gustav line, particularly the battle of Monte Camino, a battle just as terrible as, but over-shadowed by, the more famous operations at Monte Cassino.

The terrible winter campaign in Italy is the backdrop for this chapter, in which it fought alongside the American 36th Division.  Looked at from the battalion perspective, the focus is not on the strategic or moral dilemmas of the campaign, but on the development of the battalion as a fighting unit, and on the experiences of the ordinary British civilian soldier in perhaps their toughest series of actions.

The fighting described in previous chapters had taken a heavy toll in casualties. In fact the battalion had suffered one of the highest casualty rates of any British unit in Italy.  It was therefore sent to the Middle East for another period of R&R. This brief chapter describes their preparation and training in this period, and evaluates the battalion’s performance to date.

After a second period of rest in the Middle East, and following the fall of Cassino and Rome, the now veteran 5th Battalion was sent back to Italy and went north to participate in the attacks on the next series of German defences, the Gothic Line. These operations in Italy were overshadowed by the events in north-west Europe, but also required the men to overcome formidable defences and stubborn enemy resistance. The battle of Monte Vecchio in August 1944 demonstrated how the battalion had developed into a highly capable fighting force.

After initial success breaking the Gothic Line, the campaign in Northern Italy developed into a bitter war of attrition akin to the Western Front of the First World War. This chapter looks at the battalion's involvement in the operations of September 1944 and why the Allied offensive in Northern Italy failed to achieve a breakthrough.

The battalion’s final operations operations in October and November 1944 are  almost forgotten today. This chapter analyses why and how these actions were fought and the impact on the men in the battalion, and reviews how the battalion had changed since the campaign in France four years earlier.

Few people in Britain know anything of the Greek Civil War, but the Balkans were a crucial part of British strategic thinking, and the Army’s intervention in Greece in 1944-1945 to prevent a communist coup anticipates the post-war peace-keeping roles of the British Army. This chapter covers the background of why the battalion was sent, and its role in the crisis.

Around six hundred members of the battalion – three-quarters of its establishment strength - were taken prisoner in France, North Africa or Italy. They were held captive in camps across Italy and Germany. This is a subject entirely ignored in most regimental and battalion histories, but this chapter, based upon several personal accounts of men in the battalion taken prisoner and the POW records in the National Archives, looks at their experiences: those who remained in the POW camps for the duration of the war; those who died in captivity; those who escaped; and a few who joined and fought with partisans in Italy and were decorated for their actions.

This chapter completes the story of the battalion's POWs with a look at the fates of those taken to Germany after Italy's surrender and those captured at the Volturno.  Many were subjected to forced labour under the Nazi regime, and some took part in the notorious 'death marches' of POWs in the winter of 1944-45.  It concludes by looking at the repatriation of prisoners and the reception they had back in the UK.

Sent back to Italy to partake in the final push in May 1945, the war ended before the battalion got into action, but it played a significant role in occupying Austria. It is the occupation of Germany itself and the liberation of the concentration camps there that receives most historical attention, but Austria also saw ongoing racial and political tensions. Problems faced by the battalion included provocation by the Red Army and Yugoslav troops; handling displaced persons; disarming enemy military personnel including Cossacks serving with the SS; the discovery of a concentration camp; and de-Nazification; as well as practical issues such as morale, training and de-mobilisation.

The battalion disbanded in Austria in March 1946, exactly seven years after being formed. This chapter briefly summarises the subsequent history of the regiment’s TA battalions and the post-war activities of battalion veterans, in particular the highly active Battalion Association.

This appendix lists both the regimental battle hnours that can be ascribed to the battalion, and individual awards for gallantry or meritorious service.  Like the roll of honour, this is the most complete list of such awards yet produced.

This appendix is the most complete Roll of Honour yet produced for the battalion.  Included are all those men who it can be said with a high degree of certainty died either serving with the battalion, from wounds or injuries sustained while doing so, or as prisoners of war following capture fighting with the battalion.