Introduction

Summary

This volume consists of two parts: firstly, the War Diary of the 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment; and, secondly, appendices detailing some facts and figures about the battalion, a selection of Operational Orders it received and descriptions of the battles in which it was involved.

As a Bedfordshire Historical Record Society volume it is intended for those concerned with the history of Bedfordshire and its people (a high percentage of recruits to the 2nd Battalion were natives or residents of the county), or those who had a relative who served with the battalion and want to know what he went through. It is not intended for experts on the First World War nor to be any significant contribution to the study of that conflict, although it is hoped that the diary will provide complementary evidence of events in that war.

The Bedfordshire Regiment became the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment in 1919 and in 1958 was amalgamated with the Essex Regiment to form the 3rd Battalion, Royal Anglian Regiment. The regiment had used Kempston Barracks as a training facility and depot base. When it gave up the building Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service (BLARS) cleared it and the records taken formed the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment collection under the reference number X550. Included in these records were the First World War diaries of each active service battalion. Those for the 1st, 2nd and 7th are very full (particularly the 7th, which was published in 2004), those for the 6th and 8th much less so and those for the 1st/5th (which served at Gallipoli and then in Egypt and Palestine) and the 4th (which served with 63rd (Royal Naval) Division in France and Flanders) are frustratingly brief.

A War Diary was kept by each unit (including such large formations as brigades and divisions) while on active service during the First World War. The diary was intended to be a record of the unit's activities, and was written by the adjutant. They were completed in a number of identical copies, of which one was kept by the unit itself and one was sent to the War Office.

BLARS has a number of copies of the Second Battalion's War Diary kept by the battalion itself. This is unusual – for each of the other active service battalions (1st, 4th, 1st/5th, 6th, 7th and 8th) BLARS has just one copy.