William Connor Birchall - Desert Rat

[billbir]

My father, the above, was in the 7th Army, 11th Hussars - The Desert Rats and drove a tank. I know that his Army No. was 7953799. He seemed, from the stories he told me, as a child, to have been right through from North Africa, Italy and through into Germany. I would very much like to understand what he went through and were he was at a particular time in the War. Can anyone help/guide me, please?

Bill

[les_looking]

Hi Bill
i have a relative who was a desert rat and recently died, and i did some checking as he wouldn never talk
much about it, so i did do some checking and there is LOADS of info
here is a few for you to start with

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_Armoured_Division_(United_Kingdom)

http://www.btinternet.com/~ian.a.paterson/history.htm

http://www.desertrats.memorialassoc.btinternet.co.uk/northafricanmappage.htm

http://www.ddaycasualties.com/7armdiv.htm

[billbir]

Les

Thanks for the links.I will get on to them tomorrow.

Bill

[Mike Jackson]

Your father's regimental number checks out - 7953799 is in the block allotted to the Royal Armoured Corps.  The 11th Hussars served as an armoured car (not tank) regiment in 7th Armoured Division throughout the War and were by any standards a prestigous regiment.
The link to the 7 Armd Div website will be very helpful to you and you'll find many pictures of the 11th Hussars on the internet.
Mike

[billbir]

Mike

Thanks for your reply and particularly your view that, the 7th Armoured 'were by any standards a prestigious regiment' That makes me pretty proud! I am pretty sure that my father was one of the first armoured vehicles into Berlin. I have a number of photos taken at the time. Also I know that he competed in the Berlin stadium in a post victory athletics tournament. The only confusion I have, is that I am fairly sure that he did drive a tank (Churchill) was mentioned. Are you saying that this would not be compatible, with him being in the 7th Armoured?

Regards

Bill

[billbir]

Mike

I have just spoken to my mother aged 86 and she confirms that my father drove an armoured vehicle NOT a tank, as I had thought. She also says that he was the first armoured car into Holland NOT Berlin.  I also asked her where he was on D Day, but she cannot recall.

Sorry if I have mislead anyone but this is why I need to get the facts.

Bill

[billbir]

les_looking

I have visited the website http://www.btinternet.com/~ian.a.paterson/history.htm, which was very interesting. I particularly looked at the War Diaries, but could not find any mention of my father although other Troopers were mentioned, so a bit disappointing. Also, do you know how to email Ian A Paterson, as his link on the website would not work and I read somewhere that he had introduced a page to 'Stop the Spam Engines' Perhaps he thinks that I am a 'Spam Engine' and will not let me in?

Bill

[Mike Jackson]

To my astonishment I have found the World War 2 War Diaries of the 11th Hussars on the Internet:

www.warlinks.com/armour/11_Hussars/index.html

A bit of light reading for you (and you'll learn exactly where the regiment was on D Day

Mike

[billbir]

Mike

Thanks for the link but all I got was:-

(none)
80.47.131.227
/armour/11_Hussars/index.html
www.warlinks.com
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.1) Gecko/20090715 Firefox/3.5.1 GTB5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) Tiscali Netphone v1.0.7
404

Even when I went into warlinks.com I got nowhere. Help please!

Bill