Royal Fusiliers?

[staffsreg]

chums, while reading 'The war the infantry knew' i have hit a passage which reads..

"D and B companies had dug a good trench" ( I assume Royal Welch Fusiliers)

"but that the R.F (Royal Fusiliers?) had made very uneven progress: in parts they were down only

six inches, and there was barely cover for them anywhere. Manual labour was distasteful to them,and was not seriously enforced...for they were officered from their own ranks"

Does R.F signify Royal Fusiliers, and what was meant by the other statements?

curiously yours, Ivan.

[John_Hartley]

Nice bunch of middle class lads in some of the battalions of the Royal Fusiliers. Wouldnt know which end of shovel to pick up.

I'd have fitted in perfectly.

You could probably work out which battalion it is from the date. Same brigade, at a guess.

John

[squirrel]

IIRC this referred to a RF Battalion of the London Regiment.

[Steven Broomfield]

2 RWF was 19 bde, in 33rd Divn for much of the war; they had the pleasure of the 20th RF in the Bde for much of that time - Public Schoolboys (originally).

Compared to a battalion of Welsh miners, I know where my money would be in the digging stakes! Even after the PS boys had been commissioned (or killed), I can't really see Londoners as great trench diggers.

Mind - if they needed a bus driver or a cabbie, i bet the Welsh knew where to turn.

[squirrel]

One of the very early nicknames for the RF (7th regiment of foot) was the Elegant Extracts so they were keeping up the tradition then.

[PhilB]

Manual labour was distasteful to them,and was not seriously enforced...for they were officered from their own ranks"

I find it hard to believe that they could choose whether or not hard labour suited them! Perhaps they had valets. Or fags? Phil B

[Retrac]

As someone with 2 family members in R Fus I feel I must offer some defence, though I have no evidence other than family loyalty and the way in which pictures of London at the turn of the century seem to have numbers of holes and trenches in them. Seriously though there is a nice piece in Richard Holmes 'Tommy' about a miner (Geordie) 'larning a schoolmaster how to dig'. Well worth the read

David

[Retrac]

Sorry me again. Just remembered and found a reference to trench digging in 2RFus War Diary for July 1915.

"28th. In the afternoon moved up into the firing line and took over firing trenches from a portion of Wiltshire and Cheshire Service Battalions. The left portion of the line was the same as that occupied by us early in July. The right portion that formerly occupied by Munsters. According to the new naming we are holding on our left a portion of Essex Knoll and on our right Worcester Flat. The trenches had not been kept up to the standard of the Royal Fusiliers either in sanitation or safety. Consequently a grat deal of work will have to be done. The men worked well throughout the night in making the parapet (sic) safe , filling in old latrines etc"

They certainly had standards whether or not they could dig virgin soil and rock

David

[tintin1689]

In a Regiment of 50 battalions (counting RF affiliated Territorials) standards of digging must have varied a lot

There was a City of London RF Battalion who were mainly Railway Workers and the 1st London took pride in being the "Workingmens Battalion"

Mind you some of the more exotic higher numbered battalions...

The 4th London were the Bethnal Green battalion - I shudder to think what they were good at, but I doubt it was very pleasant for the Germans

[bruce]

I feel I ought to spring to the defense of my fellow public schoolboys.

Although I am sure i would be useless in comparison to a Welsh miner at trench digging, I think I'd be more likely to come up with a grammatically correct rude message for the Germans!

Bruce