Suffolk Regiment Shoulder Title

Guaranteed original. Complete & intact. This is an original Suffolk Regiment shoulder title badge for sale. In good condition. Please see our other items for more original WW1, WW2 & post war British military shoulder titles for sale including other Suffolk Regiment shoulder titles.

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The Suffolk Regiment was an infantry regiment of the line in the British Army with a history dating back to 1685. During WW1 the value of the 2nd Battalion’s 20 years of peacetime training was exemplified at the Battle of Le Cateau on 26 August 1914. In this action the 2nd Battalion undertook a fierce rear-guard defence out-manned and out-gunned by superior numbers of enemy. The 2nd Battalion held their defensive position despite losing their commanding officer, Lt. Col. C.A.H Brett D.S.O., at the commencement of the action and their second in command, Maj. E.C. Doughty, who was severely wounded after six hours of battle as he went forward to take ammunition to the hard-pressed battalion machine gunners. Almost totally decimated as a fighting unit after over eight hours of incessant fighting, the 2nd Battalion was gradually outflanked but would still not surrender. This was despite the fact that the Germans, knowing the 2nd Battalion had no hope of survival, entreated them to surrender, even ordering the German buglers to sound the British Cease Fire and gesticulating for the men of the 2nd to lay down their arms. At length an overwhelming force rushed the 2nd Battalion from the rear, bringing down all resistance and the 2nd’s defence of Le Cateau was at an end. Those remaining alive were taken captive by the Germans, spending the next four years as prisoners of war and not returning home until Christmas Day 1918. As an example of their valour and the level of training they had been subject to as a peacetime unit, it is noted that 720 men of 2nd Battalion Suffolk Regiment total roll call of some 1,000, many of whom had been with the battalion since the 1899 posting to Quetta, were killed, wounded or captured. This fight-to-the-last-man defence at Le Cateau was later recognised as a key factor in preventing the German occupation of Paris.

The 1st Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment was in the 8th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division (United Kingdom) and served with the British Expeditionary Force in France where, with the rest of the BEF, it was evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940. The next four years were spent training in the United Kingdom for the invasion of Normandy in 1944, otherwise known as D-Day. They served with the 3rd Infantry Division throughout the entire North-West Europe Campaign from D-Day to VE-Day in 1945. The 4th and 5th (Territorial Army) Battalions of the Suffolk Regiment fought briefly in the defence of Singapore, with the 18th East Anglian Division, before British Commonwealth forces on that island surrendered on 15 February 1942. Men from the two battalions suffered great hardship as prisoners of war and only a few would survive the war.

Please see our other items for more original WW1, WW2 & post war British military shoulder titles for sale including other Suffolk Regiment shoulder titles.