A force of Marines, some 700 strong, with an anti-aircraft battery, was given notice on the 13th April to embark for Norway, with the...

Unit/ Formation: Royal Marines Location: Norway Period/ Conflict: World War II Year: 1940 Date/s: 30 April 1940 Westcott and ourselves...

Unit/ Formation: Royal Marines Location: Namsos Period/ Conflict: World War II Year: 1940 Date/s: 4 May 1940 Among the last of the...

The Maunsell Forts are armed towers built in the Thames and Mersey estuaries during the Second World War to help defend the United Kingdom. They were operated as army and navy forts, and named after their designer, Guy Maunsell. The forts were decommissioned in the late 1950s and later used for other activities including pirate radio broadcasting. The Maunsell naval forts were built in the Thames estuary and operated by the Royal Navy, to deter and report German air raids fol

James Louis Moulton was born on 3 June 1906, the son of J. D. Moulton. He was educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Barnet, and...

Colonel Douglas Burns Drysdale was born in Hampstead, a suburb of London, on 2 October 1916. He spent the majority of his youth in...

21st July 1944 Normandy HM LCM, 601st Flotilla. Attempting to cross the Channel from the Normandy Beaches the flotilla of small Mark 1...

The Battle of Calabria Unit/ Formation: HM Ships Location: Mediterranean Sea Period/ Conflict: World War II Year: 1940 Date/s: 9th July...

Capt R.M. Winter commanded 4 Bty, 2nd R.M. Aroured Support Regiment. Landing on D Day in a Sherman Command Tank. A Journey Through War:...

Unit/ Formation: HM Ships Location: Mers-el-Kébir Period/ Conflict: World War II Year: 1940 Date/s: 3 July 1940 The attack on Mers-el-Kébir (Battle of Mers-el-Kébir) on 3 July 1940, during the Second World War, was a British naval attack on neutral French Navy ships at the naval base at Mers El Kébir, near Oran, on the coast of French Algeria. The attack was the main part of Operation Catapult, a British plan to neutralise or destroy neutral French ships to prevent them from

Unit/ Formation: Royal Marines Location: Great Britain Period/ Conflict: World War II Year: 1940 Date/s: 3 July 1940 In 1940, Surcouf was based in Cherbourg, but in May, when the Germans invaded, she was being refitted in Brest following a mission in the Antilles and Gulf of Guinea. Under command of Frigate Captain Martin, unable to dive and with only one engine functioning and a jammed rudder, she limped across the English Channel and sought refuge in Plymouth. French WW2 Su

Unit/ Formation: 45 Cdo RM Location: France Period/ Conflict: World War II Year: 1944 Date/s: 6 June 1944 On the afternoon of the 5th...

News was now received that the Brigade was to come under command of the Sixth Airborne Division, and that the 5th Parachute Brigade had...

Unit/ Formation: Royal Marines Location: France Period/ Conflict: World War II Year: 1944 Date/s: 6 June 1944 D Day was the largest single commitment of Royal Marines in history, with over 17,500 RM taking part. As well as providing 2,500 Marines forming 5 out of the 8 Commando units involved in Operation Overlord Royal Marines took part in many other roles including manning the guns of the battleships providing bombardment, crewing landing craft, crewing tanks, as pilots and

D Day- Gold Beach Unit/ Formation: 47 Cdo RM Location: France Period/ Conflict: World War II Year: 1944 Date/s: 6 June 1944 The first...

Combined Ops Signals Officer Charles Armstrong: (Continued from Embarking 47 Cdo at Southampton) We knew exactly where we were going, for...

No. 48 (Royal Marine) Commando was formed in March 1944 and was the last commando unit formed during the Second World War. It was formed by the conversion of the 7th Royal Marine Battalion and the Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisations (MNBDOs) defence battalions to commando duties. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Moulton, it carried out a shortened commando course at Achnacarry and then joined the all Royal Marine 4th Special Service Brigade alongside No. 41,

Unit/ Formation: HM Ships Location: Atlantic Period/ Conflict: World War II Year: 1941 Date/s: 27th May 1941 The last battle of the...

Unit/ Formation: Barracks/ Camps Location: Skegness Period/ Conflict: World War II Year: 1942 Date/s: 21 February 1942 HMS Royal Arthur ...

Unit/ Formation: Royal Marines Location: Iceland Period/ Conflict: World War II Year: 1940 Date/s: 10 May 1940 The invasion of Iceland, codenamed Operation Fork, was a British military operation conducted by the Royal Navy and Royal Marines during World War II to occupy and deny Iceland to Germany. On 28 April 1940, Winston Churchill, then the First Lord of the Admiralty, had initiated planning to establish a British presence on Iceland. With Denmark under Nazi occupation, t