Exercise "SINNER": 1st KOSB's Advance from Chilgrove, 19 April 1944
Early 20th-century Ordnance Survey six-inch map of the South Downs north of Chichester, showing Chilgrove House, Chilgrove Hill, Stoughton Down and Goosehill Camp, the ground used by 1st KOSB for Exercises "DAD" and "SINNER" on 19 April 1944.
Sep 281 min read
Exercise "DAD", 19 April 1944: Chilgrove and the South Downs
"A" Company acted as advance guard to the Battalion, advancing along the high ground of the South Downs towards Chilgrove Manor, north of Chichester in West Sussex, supported by a section of carriers and a section of mortars.
Sep 281 min read
Exercise FIZZLE: How the 1st KOSB Watched a D-Day Rehearsal from the Moray Firth
In January 1944 the 3rd British Infantry Division was training hard in the north of Scotland for the assault landings it would make on D-Day. Exercise FIZZLE was a full divisional assault landing exercise on the Moray coast at Burghead, carried out by the troops of 185 Infantry Brigade with full naval gunfire and artillery support.
Sep 271 min read
Rehearsing the Attack: The 1st KOSB Attack TEWT, March 1944
In the spring of 1944 the 1st Battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers was stationed at Selkirk, part of 9 British Infantry Brigade, 3rd British Infantry Division — the division earmarked to land on SWORD Beach. Alongside exercises with troops on the ground, the officers of the battalion were put through a series of TEWTs — Tactical Exercises Without Troops — in which syndicates of officers walked real ground and talked through how they would fight a battle on it.
Sep 271 min read
September 19th, 1944 - 400 yard dash at the Escaut Canal!
"The whole company streaked like mad across the four hundred yards gap." Officers and N.C.O.s encouraged a few who were straggling behind, "Come on, keep going" ... "You ought to have been there by now" ... "Only a few more yards to go" ... because if any had been left on that perilous "course" when the smoke screen lifted they would have been popped off easily by the German machine-gunner.
Sep 64 min read
On the Eve of Overlord: The Officers of 1st KOSB, May 1944
Group photo of D Company, 1st KOSB prior to Normandy landings
Aug 91 min read
