 5773223 WO1 (RSM) Paul Eric Boxall,
aged 81, after a long illness, peacefully, on 16 July
04.
On a most appropriate warm ‘Indian Summer’ mid July
afternoon in 2004 the Regiment paid its last respects to
Paul in a packed chapel at St Faiths.
Paul joined The Regiment as a boy soldier 9 days before
his 16th birthday in 1938. He was closely and actively
associated with the Regiment for 66 years until 2004. He
variously served with the 1st, 4th and 70th Bns of the
Royal Norfolk Regt, and with the Parachute Regt 1943-48,
in Aldershot, Bangalore, Berlin, BAOR, Europe, Hong
Kong, Korea and Palestine.
In his copious notes, taped and archived at The R
Anglian Museum, Duxford, Paul commented: ‘I had leave
at Christmas 1938 - the last I would spend at home until
1947. We boarded HT Dorsetshire at Southampton and
sailed for India on 22 Feb 1939. 3 weeks later we
disembarked at Bombay and had a 2-day train journey to
Delhi. Life in India was very good though the pay was
poor - 1 shilling a day - from which we were allowed to
draw 2 Rupees a week. The food was good and there was
plenty of sport.’ The late Charlie Baker wrote in
B&C 95 Dec 00: ‘It may not be common knowledge
that Paul Boxall was a Bandsman, playing clarinet and
saxophone, also representing the Bn at hockey. You may
have seen his photograph on the front page of the local
papers concerning victory in the disregarding of Army
Pensions when calculating benefits.’
He remembered, as a 16 year old Bandboy, meeting Winkie
Fitt, the Regimental Omnibus Driver, in Delhi before the
War. The origins of the Chilianwala Table are obscure
but it is now in the Officers’ Mess, TA Centre,
Aylsham Road, Norwich. After the Battle of Chilianwala
the bodies of 12 officers of the Regiment and the RSM of
the 24th Foot (The South Wales Borderers and latterly
The Royal Regiment of Wales) were laid out on it. It has
20 leaves each on four folding legs and is 39’ 8”
long. At the outbreak of war in 1939 the table was with
the 1st Bn in India. It was decided to pack the table
away and Paul Boxall was one of the packing party.
At 0130 hrs he was the first of the Regiment (then
serving with 3 PARA Bde) to land in Normandy on D Day, 6
Jun 1944. In the Feb 1951 Britannia was a report from A
Coy in BAOR: ‘There was a slight mishap on Ex
Broadside when the driver of an RASC truck tried to
change gear. Instead of seizing the gear lever he
grabbed the CSM’s moustache, thereby causing the truck
to leave the road. So we all say to CSM Boxall: ‘Cut
it off!’
Paul was PSI to 4 R Norfolk in Great Yarmouth before
becoming RSM. In Jul 62 HRH The Princess Margaret
presented new colours to the 4th Bn at Britannia
Barracks. Paul was fond of telling the tale of the WOs
& Sgts Mess photograph with Princess Margaret. ‘The
CO insisted on being on the right of HRH in the front
row but I said ‘No, Sir. I’m the RSM and that’s
where I’m sitting.’ (To see who won, refer to p 148
and photograph 61 in ‘History of the Royal Norfolk
Regiment 1951-1969 Volume IV’ by Maj Bob Godfrey MC BA
- as if you need to look!)
Paul retired from the Army on 16 Nov 62 after serving
for ‘24 years and 9 days with the colours’ (As he
was keen to emphasise!)
After being wounded in Normandy 1944, Paul met Jean at
Beverley Hospital, Yorkshire, where she was a Red Cross
Nurse. They were married in July 1946.
On Wednesday 29 Aug 1951, the 1st Bn The Royal Norfolk
Regt, left Crowborough, East Sussex, to begin the
journey to Korea where the Bn was to be part of the
Commonwealth Division. The Bn boarded the Empire Orwell
at Southampton on the afternoon of the 29th and sailed
the following day.
The Britannia No 40 Nov 1952 stated: ‘A Coy, forward
with D Coy, were in Korea on ‘The Finger’ and up
against the same problem as B Coy (successive tenants
had all had different ideas and in consequence the whole
area was a honeycomb of holes, disused cuts and old
trash dumps) and needed sorting out in a big way.
Nevertheless, they succeeded in turning it into a
first-rate place and constructing some of the most
monumental bunkers in Korea, not the least of which was
CSM Paul Boxall’s.’
After 1962 retirement from the Army Paul was employed by
Norwich City Council, where he was Branch Secretary of
the Norfolk County Branch of NALGO 1974-79.
J Porter Esq, Editor ‘The Backnumber’ (Norfolk
UNISON Retired Members Newsletter) paid a tribute to
Paul in his Aug 04 issue: ‘Paul was a former RSM and
at the time of his becoming Branch Secretary he was in
charge of the Education Dept Post Room. Woe betide any
letter that decided to go to the wrong place! His
organisational skills were legendary. We were trying to
adjust to the massive changes brought about by local
Govt re-organisation, desperately in need of structure
and systems. And that is precisely what Paul did for us.
There was, of course, a great deal of military zeal
which motivated this development. Paul was fond of
phrases like: “I am detailing you to do ‘x’, ‘y’
or ‘z’” among other similar phrases not to be
repeated to those of a delicate disposition. The Branch
certainly got organised under Paul’s direction and
also very outward looking in terms of its place within
the NALGO District Council and the wider Trade Union
Movement. Paul was a man of definite views and kindly
actions. He was proud of his military background, very
active in support of its veterans and had a deep
commitment to the work of the Branch and the betterment
of its members.’
On 29 Aug 2001 the 2 surviving members of the 10 Warrant
Officers of the 1st Bn who sailed to Korea, Tim Chatting
and Paul Boxall, met at the Maid’s Head Hotel in
Norwich for a drink and natter about the event, 50 years
ago to the day, when they had set out for Korea.
For many years Paul organised the tables and layout of
the Norwich Drill Hall for the Regimental Association
Reunion Dinner, the raffle and provision personally by
him of the principal prize, an engraved rose bowl. At
the Association Reunion Dinner in Sep 99, Paul was
presented with an engraved glass bowl in recognition of
his work for the Korean Veterans, Combined Services and
the Norwich Branch. The inscription read: ‘WO1 (RSM)
Paul Boxall - In Appreciation - 26 Sep 99’.
B&C 94 Jun 00 carried a piece titled ‘Centre Stage’.
The Norwich Evening News Millennium Special of 3 Jan
2000 carried a photograph taken in the Castle Mall ‘on
the last day of the 20th Century of a dozen
representatives from different regiments and
associations displaying their standards. Pictured centre
front was Paul Boxall, Chairman of the Norwich Branch of
The Royal Norfolk and Royal Anglian Regimental
Association. He was quoted: ‘We are here just to let
the public see they have millennium celebrations because
of the people who served the country in previous years.
I think the country owes them a debt of gratitude. We
still think a lot of our country and do a lot for it in
our own way. It is also a celebration of getting to the
end of the century and 60 years of peace in most of our
country.’
On Sun 30 Sep 2001 in Norwich Cathedral, the Roll of
Honour of those members of the Regiment who died on
active service in Korea and Cyprus was dedicated. Paul,
The Korea Veterans Chairman, had the privilege of
presenting the Roll of Honour for dedication. Paul’s
eldest daughter, Elaine, made a cushion in Regimental
colours and the black leather-bound book with the
Regimental badge embossed in gold was carried to the
altar rails.
At the 2002 Regimental Chapel Service, Paul, only just
out of hospital, insisted on being one of the ushers.
‘You try telling him to sit down!’ warned Col Tony
Taylor.
Maj Gen John Sutherell CB CBE complimented Paul at the
Norwich Branch Christmas Lunch in 2002 : ‘a tower of
strength’, on establishing the Branch in 1992. Paul
responded: ‘I know I’m a cantankerous old bastard
but appreciate the support of you all. In a mirror I don’t
recognise myself from the compliments!’
Due to read the Exhortation at the 60th Anniversary
D-Day Regimental Remembrance Garden Service in Jun 2004,
Paul was confined to hospital but the Chaplain organised
a service in the Hospital Chapel, where he read the
Exhortation. We visited him that afternoon and Janine
asked Paul if he was there on Sword Beach on 6 Jun 1944.
The response was clearly delivered: ‘Not likely. That
was too bloody dangerous. I dropped in by parachute!’
Paul was in and out of hospital for over 2 years and
reluctantly, due to ill health, handed over, after 12
years as Norwich Branch Chairman, to Lt Col Paul Garman
in May 2004. He had been Chairman and Secretary since he
founded the Norwich Branch in 1992. Above
is a photograph by Gwyn Button of Paul in 1998 with the
Standard of the Royal Anglian Regimental Association
(Norwich Branch) which he made himself and carried many
times at funerals and events. For many years he was an
usher at Regimental Chapel Services.
We will miss the banter between him and Gwyn Button,
especially when the latter told an excruciating joke at
the end of the Norwich Branch meeting. Typical remarks
were: ‘I’m always right’ and ‘Do you want to
walk home Gwyn?’
Norwich have a lasting memorial to Paul in that he was
instrumental, as Chairman of Norwich Combined
Ex-Services Assocn, in bringing about, after 35 years of
consistent pressure on English Heritage, the turning
around of the Norwich War Memorial.
Paul, it seemed, was always there. For years, the
Norfolk Editor carried a regular piece in the Summer
B&C concerning the Sep Regimental Reunion Dinner:
‘Be warned, Paul Boxall will again be checking your
name on the Nominal Roll!’
A one-off, he will be missed. Paul was pre-deceased by
his wife Jean in 1999 and is survived by his children
Michael, Elaine, Alexandra and Pamela.
JLR
[B&C 103]
And see: Foaming at the knees |
5771119 Drummer Ronald Edgecombe,
aged 22, 2nd Bn The Royal Norfolk Regt, between 28 May
1940 and 02 June 1940. He is commemorated on Column 44
at the Dunkirk Memorial.
It commemorates more than 4500 casualties of the British
Expeditionary Force who died in the campaign of 1939-40
and who have no known grave.
Click
here for more details.
[B&C 103] |
Maj Eustace Thomas Edward Cary-Elwes TD,
of Poringland, aged 95, on 12 Aug 04.
Much, much more to follow.B&C 84 Jun 94 reported
The mark of a master
raconteur is that the telling of a story never deviates.
The late Maj Gilly Banthorpe was one and now we add Maj
Tom Eaton OBE TD DL.
At the Aug 04 funeral for
Maj Eustace Cary-Elwes TD (p N) he told, 3 times the
same tales, without deviation of a phrase, of Eustace to
people present. The enraptured listeners had never heard
them before.
As the Norfolk Editor
urges, before such gems are lost for ever: ''Write it
down!"
CONSIDER YOURSELF UNDER ARREST!
Told at the 1995 4th Bn Royal Norfolk Officers' Dinner
by the late Lt Col Alex
Turnbull:
Colonel Jewson, clad in pyjamas and a dressing
gown, returned to the 4th Norfolk Officers Mess at camp,
unable to sleep because of the noise, and addressed the
inebriated officer he assumed to be the prime cause of
the commotion, 'Mr Cary- Elwes, consider yourself under
arrest.'
A wavering Eustace Cary-Elwes responded, 'Colonel, I'm
not in a position to consider anything.'
Quote from The Britannia No 26, Autumn 1939:
The 4th Battalion welcomed Steward, Cary-Elwes, Farrelly, Gaymer, Gaymer, Burne and Strickland-Goodall. The
Signallers greeted their new Signalling Officer Mr Barrett and
congratulated Cpl Cullum
on his promotion and Cpl Palmer
on his marriage.
The Rt Hon The Lord Prior of Brampton and JLR
B&C 103
|
22482220 LCpl Robert George
Thorne (Bob) Guess of Luton on 29 May
2004 aged 73. Fifty two years earlier to the day, Bob, a
National Serviceman LCpl, was serving with 1 R Norfolk
in Korea. He had joined the battalion in February. On 29
May 1952 he was 2IC of the assault group of a fighting
patrol lead by 2Lt Wormald. In a sharp fire-fight with
the enemy, where Mr Wormald was killed, Bob was severely
wounded and taken prisoner. At that time their fate was
unknown to the unit and both were posted missing. It was
not until Christmas 1952 that Bob was notified as a PoW.
He was released from captivity at Panmunjom on 20 April
1953.
Born in London on 6 Jan 1931, Bob was married to Thelma
for over fifty years and blessed with four sons. He
worked in the building trade and was a keen boat
enthusiast. It was at a social gathering with his
boating club at Huntingdon when, midway through a ten
minute act, he said he didn’t feel too well and would
have to sit down. Sadly, he died that evening.
A number of Royal Norfolk and British Korean Veterans
Association members attended his funeral on 10 June
2004.
Bob leaves his widow Thelma, sons Robert, Paul, Clive
and Bryan and 13 grandchildren.
Keith Nutter and John Denny
[B&C 103] |
Capt Robert Gurney Ferrier
on 1 April 2004, aged 82, in London. Born near Great Yarmouth he lived
as a boy at Hemsby, where his family had owned land
since the XVth century. He enlisted in Oct 1939 but had
to wait a year before joining up as he was too young. In
Oct 1940 he joined the Beds and Herts Regt.
Subsequently, he was commissioned in May 1941 into the R
Norfolks and posted to the 70th Bn HQ at Taverham Hall
in Oct 1941. His duties included Intelligence Offr and
Assistant Adjutant.
After posting to the 9th Bn in Apr 1943 as Acting
Adjutant he joined, in Feb 1944, Special Operations
Executive. After 3 months training he was posted to SOE
India (Force 136) as an Acting Captain. In Jan 1945, as
a Temporary Captain, he served in the Siamese Section in
Siam (Force 136) in what is now Thailand. Leaving the
Army in Dec 1946 he served with the Intelligence
Division of the Control Division in Germany for 3 years
then did a variety of jobs, mainly in insurance. He
relinquished his commission in 1951 and was granted the
honorary rank of Captain. Robert lived in Dolphin
Square, London, for over 50 years. He never married and
was the younger brother of Maj Tony Ferrier.
Maj Tony Ferrier
[B&C 103] |
William
Hanson, of Great Yarmouth, on 29 Sep
2004, aged 84. He served with 4 R Norfolk and had been a
FEPOW.
Twelve former colleagues attended the funeral at
Gorleston Crematorium where a Regimental Wreath
accompanied the floral tributes. A Royal Norfolk flag, a
black Britannia on a yellow background, was also flown.
Maj John Housego
[B&C 103] |
 Maj Jim Holl TD
JP DL on 28 Aug 2004, aged 80. When 6 Royal Anglian was founded in Bury St
Edmunds on 1 Apr 1971, Jim was appointed OC B (Bedford)
Coy. He was an officer of the 'Old School' and the
Norfolk Editor recalls the 1973 Okehampton Camp when
Jim, as PMC the Officers' Mess, conducted a briefing
session on Mess Etiquette for officers attending their
first camp. It included the Norfolk Editor, then OC 2
Thetford ‘Gangster’ Pl and Mike van der Gucht, RSO
at Bury St Edmunds. Jim retired from the TA in 1974. The
last time the Norfolk Editor saw Jim, at a Bn Dinner in
the TA Centre at Bury St Edmunds in the 1980s, he
commenced the evening up a ladder in the Drill Hall in
rare ‘scruff order’. With an electric drill he was
drilling holes to mount the Honours Board. It bore the
names of the 1st CO, Lt Col (later Col and DL) Paul
Raywood TD; 2IC, Maj Paddie Drake TD; Trg Major, Maj
Bill Peat; QM, The Late Maj Danny Bebbington; Adjutant
The Late Capt Harry Woods; A (Royal Norfolk) Coy in
Dereham, OC - The Late Maj David Standley TD; B
(Bedford) Coy in Bedford, OC - The Late Maj Jim Holl TD
JP DL; C (Essex) Coy in Braintree, OC - Maj (later Lt
Col) Tim Swayne TD and D (Cambridgeshire) Coy, OC - Maj
(later Col and DL) Dick Shervington TD.
It was typical of Jim, not a man afraid of manual work.
Sadly, the mounted cap badges of the antecedents of 6 R
Anglian: Royal Norfolk, Suffolk, Beds & Herts and
Cambs Regts, Coys and elements of which comprised the
Bn, were later stolen. This officer, now, in 2004, PMC
Suffolk ACF, sadly reporting Jim joining the ‘Forward
Recce Patrol’, thanks him for that induction session
over 30 years ago. It set the standard by which TA and
ACF Officers’ Messes should be run.
Jim was a Past President of the Luton and Dunstable
Branch and a Mason. In
2003 he sent the Norfolk Editor a large collection of 1970s photographs of
6 R Anglian, some of which are on this site on
the 6 R Anglian photographs page,
all now safely in the archives at The Royal Anglian
Museum, Duxford, Cambridgeshire. Thanks Jim.
JLR and ‘Becky Sharp’
[B&C
103]
(And see 1972
Centipede bed. Ed) |
Bernard James Humphrey in
1985, aged 59. At the age of 18 he landed on Sword Beach
on D-Day, 6 June 1944 with the 1st Bn The Royal Norfolk
Regt.
The year before Bernard died he returned to Normandy for
the 40th Anniversary.
Malcolm Humphrey
[B&C 103] |
Bert
Leech, of Gorleston, on 19 Oct 2004, aged
87. He served with 4 R Norfolk and had been a FEPOW.
Ten former colleagues attended the funeral at Gorleston
Crematorium where a Regimental Wreath accompanied the
floral tributes.
Maj John Housego
[B&C 103] |
14058365 Frederick Munns
of North Weald, Essex, peacefully, on 4 Aug 2004, aged
77, in the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Harlow, after a
long and courageous battle with illness and disability.
Demobbed in Feb 1948, Frederick had been housebound
since 1987.
He wrote about serving in 1946 with 4
R Norfolk Int Section Patras in B&C 95 Dec 00.
Fred is survived by his widow.
He and the Norfolk Editor spoke occasionally on the
telephone but never met. Another gallant soldier
departs.
Carol Chesher (daughter), Betty Burton and JLR
[B&C 103[ |
Derek Pearson of
Canterbury on 11 May 2004. He served with the 1st Bn
1956-1959.
[B&C 103] |
Robert
Raven of Bungay, peacefully on 15 Sep
2004, aged 90, in the Norwich University Hospital. He
served with the 4th Bn and is survived by his widow.
M Raven
[B&C 103] |
Sir Julian Errington Ridsdale CBE,
politician and military intelligence officer, born June
8 1915, died on 21 Jul 21, aged 89. (The text which
follows, courtesy of The Guardian, headlined ‘Tory MP
with an obsessive love for Japan’ has been severely
edited! Ed.) The rightwing Conservative MP for Harwich
(1954-92) was probably the only parliamentarian outside
Japan to worship that country and its old order,
including its emperor. His receipt of a CBE in 1977 for
seeking to improve relations with Japan was an enormous
understatement; he would not tolerate anyone criticising
the Japanese or their behaviour. When, in 1991, Prince
Philip described as ‘inhuman’ the Japanese treatment
of their wartime prisoners on the Thai-Burma railway,
Ridsdale reproached him, saying: ‘We should be
welcoming Japan as our ally and not looking back.’
Ridsdale’s love affair with Japan seemed all the more
surprising for someone trained in Japanese by British
military intelligence to penetrate that country’s
belligerent intentions before the second world war.
After Tonbridge school and Sandhurst, in 1935 he had
been commissioned into the Royal Norfolks. Posted to
Gibraltar, he escaped the boredom of garrison life by
taking an elementary course in Japanese. He then
persuaded the army to send him to the School of Oriental
and African Studies in London, where he won the Japanese
language prize. He was promptly posted to Tokyo as
Britain’s military attaché, the usual cover for
intelligence work. He did this so clumsily that, in
1940, he had to leave to avoid being arrested for
espionage. He spent much of the war doing intelligence
work at the War Office, where he had ample opportunity
to observe the brutal destruction of Britain’s
south-east Asian empire by Japan’s militarists. As a
Harvard-trained, Japanese-language officer in wartime US
naval intelligence, I normally greeted him in Japanese.
His obsession with Japan was all the stranger coming
from one who, as the nephew both of Stanley Baldwin and
the former Liberal MP Sir Aurelian Ridsdale, was the
scion of two British political dynasties. His own father
was a stockbroker, but family talk in the 1930s was
intensely political. Ridsdale himself saw war as
inevitable, which explains why he chose to go to
Sandhurst. After the war, he did a 7-year stint of
fruit-farming in Sussex before entering politics
himself. He contested Paddington North in 1951 and was
then offered safe old-fashioned Harwich for the 1954
by-election. He backed the Suez invasion in 1956, and
the retention of capital punishment. Although he doubted
Harold Macmillan’s Keynesianism, he served as Supermac’s
undersecretary for air, from 1962 to 1964. Four years
later, in the wake of Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of
blood’ speech, he hailed Powell as ‘the Churchill of
today’.
He kept busy with constituency work and consultancies,
including work for the Japanese firms Nissan and Shimizu
Construction. The scandal-ridden Middle Eastern bank,
BICC, took him on to extend its coverage to Japan, but
he resigned as it crashed in 1991, and shortly
afterwards announced he would not stand again for
Harwich.
He leaves his daughter Penelope and his wife Patricia,
who was the original model for Miss Moneypenny, having
served as Ian Fleming’s secretary in wartime
intelligence before Julian married her in
1942. With acknowledgements to
Andrew Roth of The Guardian.
(An hilarious account of Julian’s pre-war buffoonery
at the Staff College, Camberley, by our Doyen, Maj John
Knox Forte MBE, is in B&C
104 Jun 05. Ed.)
[B&C 103] |
5778459 Pte Albert Victor Roberts KIA
on 12 February 1942 in Singapore in the fighting just 2
days before the Allied Forces surrendered on 14 February
1942, while serving with 4th Bn The Royal Norfolk Regt.
He is commemorated on Column 52 of the Singapore
Memorial with more than 24 000 casualties of the
Commonwealth land and air forces who have no known
grave.
JLR
[B&C 103] |
John Michael Vergerson of
Docking, Norfolk, on 13 Aug 04 after a short illness,
aged 68.
Born at Barnham Broom, Norfolk, John was called up for
National Service in 1955. After training he was posted
to 1 Royal Norfolk at Colchester.
He served in Cyprus for 15 months before returning to
Britannia Barracks for demob in 1957. John's main hobby
was fishing, where he was in his element sitting on the
river-bank, watching the world go by. He is survived by
his widow Diane and 5 children.
Bruce Fairclough
[B&C 103] |
 Wally Watson,
of Bungay, after a tragic accident, in Feb 2004. He
served with 4 R Norfolk.
Wally is survived by his widow Phyllis.
Phyllis Watson
[B&C 103] |
|
B&C Norfolk Editor