July 1940 to February 1941
'The sum total of the training equipment consisted of 40 rifles, half a dozen
impressed vehicles and a few boxes of grenades. Everything was either
made of wood, borrowed for the afternoon - or simply imagined '
THE summer of 1940 was the most desperate hour in Britain's long history.
On May 10, barely a month after overrunning Denmark and Norway, Hitler unleashed his offensive
in the West.
Over the next three weeks, the German panzer armies scythed through the Low Countries and
Northern France - as they had done in Poland the previous September - carrying all before them
with their blitzkrieg.
Trapped against the sea at Dunkirk, the British Expeditionary Force escaped by a miracle -
338,000 men snatched from the jaws of the Germans thanks to an evacuation fleet of ships large and
small. By late June, most of the British soldiers who had managed to avoid captivity were back
home. But the Army lay stunned and virtually impotent, having left behind most of its guns and
equipment in France.
Bestriding the Channel coast, Hitler stood triumphant, ready to invade unless an ignominious peace
was agreed. But even at this darkest moment, the mood in Britain was one of defiance, resolution
and a calm conviction that there would be no surrender. Inspired by Churchill, the nation was
determined to go down fighting rather than be engulfed by the tide of Nazi barbarism.
As Britain looked to its defences and waited for the blow to fall, the call-up of men for military
service gained fresh urgency. If the Germans came, the new recruits would be thrown into the battle.
If invasion was averted, these men would build the armies which one day would go back across the
Channel and liberate Europe.
Up and down the country, old and famous regiments found their ranks swelled by recruits who
would very quickly have to be turned from civilians into soldiers.
So it was that on July 4, 1940, the 7th Battalion of The Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire) was
officially raised at the Loyals' headquarters in Fulwood Barracks, Preston, based around a cadre of
regulars -15 officers and 150 other ranks.
Strictly speaking, the battalion was being re-formed, since the 7th (Service) Battalion of the Loyals
had been established during the First World War, seeing action on the Western Front.
As the regiment prepared to accept its new intake, goodbyes were being said in homes throughout
Merseyside, Lancashire and Cheshire, from where the bulk of the unit's men were recruited.
Fathers, sons, uncles and brothers who until now had been workers in factories, offices, shops or
shipyards, found themselves called to the colours - and the destination on their travel warrants was
Caernarvon, North Wales.
There, at Coed Helen Camp, a large house surrounded by a stretch of wooded land within sight of
the medieval castle that dominates the town, the cadre from the Loyals arrived on July 5 ready to
receive a total of 850 recruits.
Soldiers in the cadre included warrant officers, NCOs, tradesmen, cooks and batmen, several of
whom had seen service with the British Expeditionary Force in France. During the retreat to
Dunkirk, the Loyals had fought with exceptional valour and determination, and were among the last
soldiers off the beaches. This core of professionals brought with it 'a steadying influence of
peacetime service and discipline,' wrote Major Peter Crane, MC, one of the officers tasked with
helping set up the new battalion. On July 17, the first intake of 200 men was received at Coed Helen
and posted to A Company. Six days later, David Lloyd George, who had been Prime Minister
during the First World War and lived along the coast near Criccieth, came to the camp to address
the recruits.
Next day, the second contingent of 200 men arrived - to be posted to B Company - and a further
400 men two days later, who were split into C and D companies. Out of the whole intake, more
than 600 came from Liverpool and district, 120 from London and the rest from various locations,
mainly Lancashire and Cheshire.
The 7th battalion, plus the 8th and 9th Loyals, which were raised at the same time, formed part of
215 Infantry Brigade with the 12th Royal Welch Fusiliers. The 7th's commanding officer was
Lieutenant Colonel M Wilson, the second-in-command was Major (later Lieut Col) W S Plant, the
adjutant was Captain (later Major) Crane and the Regimental Sergeant Major (later Captain) P W
Godden. Two days after the battalion was fully formed, a German plane flew over the camp and
dropped two bombs to the south, but there were no casualties.
At first, shortage of equipment was acute for the fledgling infantry unit. 'Training difficulties were
very intense in the early stages,' Major Crane later wrote. 'The sum total of the training equipment
consisted of 40 rifles, half a dozen impressed vehicles and a few boxes of grenades. Everything was
either made of wood, borrowed for the afternoon - or simply imagined.'
As the men tried to settle into bell tents, it was very much make do and mend. 'We were still
wearing civvies for weeks after we got there and drilling with broom handles,' recalled Corporal
Ronald Prince, one of the Liverpool recruits.
Because a German invasion was thought to be imminent following the Fall of France, training was
combined with beach defence, patrols and practice alerts throughout the summer and early autumn,
taking the 7th as far south along the coast as Aberdovey, where a second camp was established.
The stay in Wales ended on September 28, when the battalion entrained for Liverpool and its first
major operational role - helping protect the port against German invasion. The 7th's base was to the
north of the city in the affluent suburb of Great Crosby, with headquarters in the Northern Cricket
Ground at Elm Avenue. A and C companies were stationed in Seaforth Barracks in nearby
Waterloo and the rest of the regiment in billets in Seaforth and Blundellsands.
Coming under the command of Mersey Garrison, the 7th - working with four Home Guard
battalions - covered one of four defence zones for the Liverpool area. Liverpool was now the most
vital port in the kingdom, a gateway for the convoys that later became Britain's lifeline and the nerve
centre of the Battle of the Atlantic.
'Here the work became very hard,' Major Crane wrote. 'As, in addition to intense training, the
battalion had a considerable operational role and was constantly called up to provide working
parties for ships and docks.'
By now, the Luftwaffe had been defeated in the Battle of Britain after fierce combat and high
casualties on both sides, and as winter approached, the threat of invasion in 1940 receded. Instead,
Hitler targeted British cities with his bombers and in November and December, Merseyside suffered
its first major air raids as the Luftwaffe attacked the miles of docks and wharves either side of the
river and the famous shipyards of Cammell Laird on the Birkenhead shore.