Politicians at War by Henry Buckton

Author:Henry Buckton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781783379804
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2003-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

Part Five

THE INFANTRY

Here we look at the stories of parliamentarians who served as infanteers, largely in a rifle company of an infantry battalion. Having said that, because of the nature of the Second World War, their experiences were, once again, often less than traditional and extremely varied.

PAUL BRYAN

Paul Bryan, who was awarded both the DSO and the MC during the war, became the MP for Howden in Yorkshire in 1955. After studying at Cambridge University before the war, he worked for a firm in the East End of London. He enlisted in the territorial battalion of the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment (RWK) in July 1939, as a private soldier, and was commissioned into the same battalion – the 6th – in November 1939. This was unusual, as normally when someone was commissioned from the ranks they were sent to another battalion. In March 1940 he became the battalion intelligence officer, just in time for their departure for France with the BEF.

At the beginning of May 1940 he was summoned to an intelligence officers’ course, and while he was there the Germans launched the Blitzkrieg. His semi-trained and semi-armed battalion was sent to defend an impossibly wide front. Consequently, the colonel and most of the battalion spent the rest of the war as PoWs. Paul Bryan joined the retreat and eventually found his way to Nantes on the Atlantic coast, where he discovered several more survivors of the battalion.

Once back in England, the remnants of the battalion – three officers and twenty-four men – were sent to the moors near the village of Wark, about eight miles from Hexham. They were later joined by the battalion transport officer and fifty drivers, and 200 reinforcements accompanied by a new lieutenant colonel, ‘Swifty’ Howlett. Paul Bryan was promoted to company commander of D Company.

Two years later, on 8 November 1942, Paul Bryan and the 6th Battalion RWKs, took part in ‘Operation Torch’, the invasion of Algeria. The invasion force landed at several locations and, although the Vichy French troops put up some initial resistance, they soon capitulated. Paul Bryan’s own part in the invasion was somewhat unfortunate, in as much as, in the darkness, the Navy managed to land his company on the wrong beach, from where they could plainly hear the sound of battle some way in the distance. The following day the battalion sailed for Bougie, where they were the first to assault the beach: luckily, they were unopposed.

During the next stage of operations they sailed further up the coast to the port of Bône, where they were attacked by a German Ju 88, while disembarking from destroyers.

Paul Bryan’s company marched 25 kilometres to Lake Fetzara, where they took up defensive positions and waited for the rest of the battalion. In time, French lorries and buses took them up the coast another eighty miles to Tabarka.

Although the Allied landings in Algeria had taken the enemy by surprise, fresh German and Italian troops were soon landing in Tunisia. As the

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