Staffordshire Yeomanry

World War II The Staffordshire Yeomanry (Queen's Own Royal Regiment) was a mounted auxiliary unit of the British Army raised in 1794 to defend Great Britain from foreign invasion.

[5][7][15] Most volunteer cavalry was disbanded after the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802, including the Needwood Troop and the Wolverhampton Association, but the Staffordshire Yeomanry continued in existence.

On 30 May 1810 there was a riot at Wolverhampton Market, and the Bilston Troop was called out to assist the magistrates and the Western Regiment, Staffordshire Local Militia, to suppress the trouble.

[13][17] The Yeomanry generally declined in importance and strength after the end of the French wars,[18] but this was not the case in industrial areas such as the Black Country and the Potteries where there was social unrest.

[3] The Staffordshire Yeomanry was regularly called out in support of the civil power twice in the years after the Battle of Waterloo, first on 14–18 November 1815 when Wolverhampton and Bilston ironworkers and coal miners rioted.

While undergoing this reorganisation, the regiment was unable to assist the magistrates with a disturbance at Walsall in October, but the independent Handsworth Volunteer Cavalry did the duty.

Future Prime Minister Robert Peel was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Uttoxeter Troop on 2 January 1820; he had left by the time he entered the Cabinet as Home Secretary in 1822, but several of his relatives served in the regiment.

Lieutenant-Col Littleton resigned the command in August 1833 when he became Chief Secretary for Ireland and the Earl of Lichfield was appointed Lt-Col Cmdt in his place.

The Staffordshire Yeomanry were assigned as 'divisional troops' to 1st Division of III Corps based at Croydon, Surrey, alongside Regular Army units of infantry, artillery and engineers.

[31][37] The Prince of Wales visited Lichfield for the regiment's centenary in 1894, when he was entertained at Elmhurst Hall, former home of the regiment's founder, Francis Eliot, by the commanding officer, Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 4th Duke of Sutherland, great-grandson of the first CO.[31][38][39] The Yeomanry was not intended to serve overseas, but due to the string of defeats during Black Week in December 1899, the British government realised that it was going to need more troops than just the regular army.

The company sailed from Liverpool on 21 February and on arrival in South Africa it formed part of 4th Battalion, IY, commanded by Col F.G. Blair of the Leicestershire Yeomanry.

[5][8][31][38][45][46][47][48][49] On 4 March the 4th was sent with other IY battalions to Naauwpoort,[50] and by 19 April it had joined Lieutenant-General Sir Leslie Rundle's 8th Division ('Rundle's Column') concentrating at Rosendal in the Orange Free State.

[68][69][70] After more than a year training in Norfolk, 1/1st Staffs Yeomanry was ordered to complete to full war establishment in September 1915, and the following month embarked with 1/1st NMMB for the Mediterranean.

The advance party went to Mudros, the base for the Gallipoli campaign, but the rest of the regiment was ordered to the Salonika Front, then finally was disembarked in Egypt.

At the Battle of Nebi Samwil and the subsequent Turkish counter-attacks during November 1917 men and horses suffered from the terrible conditions in the Judaean Hills.

4th Cavalry Division then undertook a tour of duty in the malarial Jordan Valley during the height of summer, with 1/1st Staffs Yeomanry having to evacuate many casualties suffering from sickness.

In September the division secretly moved to the coast with the Desert Mounted Corps (DMC) under the Australian General Harry Chauvel for the Battle of Megiddo.

After the opening infantry assault the division broke through with little opposition, and took part in Chauvel's strategic cavalry 'bound', riding 70 miles (110 km) in 34 hours to participate in the Capture of Afulah and Beisan, taking hundreds of prisoners.

[67][61][71][74][75] Ravaged by malaria caught in the Jordan Valley (the 1/1st Staffs Yeomanry having been reduced to just 75 men, 200 of them having become casualties), 4th Cavalry Division was too exhausted to keep up in the DMC's final 200 miles (320 km) advance to Aleppo, which fell to the EEF on 26 October.

[77] By the later 1930s the policy was to mechanise all remaining cavalry units, but the TA was at the bottom of the priority list for modern equipment, and this had still not been done for the Yeomanry when World War II broke out.

Initially this was as motorised infantry mounted in 15-hundredweight trucks, though the five senior yeomanry regiments in the division (the Staffordshire being 5th) had been selected to be converted to armour when tanks became available.

[79][80][78][81][82][83] During the crisis of the Battle of Gazala in June the 8th Armoured Bde was sent up to join Eighth Army, but on arrival it was ordered to hand over its tanks to experienced units and return to Egypt.

At the end of November it came under the command of the 7th Armoured Division, the famous Desert Rats and was involved in the battles around El Agheila and the pursuit to Tripoli.

[79][81][88][89][90][91] The regiment took part in the Battle of the Mareth Line, participating in the New Zealand Corps' 'left hook' to penetrate the Tebaga Gap and outflank the defences, engaging the enemy at 'Roman Wall' and later helping to defeat a German counter-attack.

[81][95][96][97] As part of British Second Army, commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey, 27th Armoured Bde had been selected to land with amphibious DD tanks on Sword Beach in support of 3rd Division, and had been training in the Moray Firth.

In Operation Vitality 52nd (Lowland) Division was launched in an amphibious assault on South Beveland, crossing the 9 miles (14 km) wide estuary in Landing Vehicle Tracked 'Buffaloes', accompanied by B Sqn Staffs Yeomanry, which had completed its DD training.

[b] Most of the tanks were unable to climb the muddy dykes, but Lt-Gen Guy Simonds commanding II Canadian Corps considered that they had made 'a tremendous difference to the situation in South Beveland'.

The headdress was a Tarleton helmet with a bearskin crest and black turban with silver chains, carrying a white-over-red feather on the left side.

The Slouch hat proved more popular, with the Stafford knot badge on a red patch on the turned-up left side worn by both the 6th and 106th Companies.

These were yellow swallow-tailed guidons with in the centre the crowned Stafford knot surrounded by a wreath above the motto Pro aris et focis, and oval cartouches in each corner, those on the upper hoist and lower fly probably being red with the White Horse of Hanover.

Staffordshire Yeomanry at ease
A typical Imperial Yeoman on campaign
William H. Richardson of the Staffordshire Yeomanry.
Men of the Staffordshire Yeomanry crowd in and around a universal carrier for a portrait, 7 June 1944. The vehicle is equipped with a .50-inch Browning machine gun, 7 June 1944.
Sherman and Crusader AA Mk III tanks of the Staffordshire Yeomanry during Operation Goodwood, July 1944.
Staffordshire Yeimanry cap badge 1940s.
The Staffordshire Yeomanry memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum.