Scriven Hall
In March 1941, Major-General Percy Hobart arrived in Yorkshire. Hobart had unconventional views on the use of armour in warfare which did not always endear him to the military establishment and he had been dismissed from his post by General Wavell in 1940. He returned to his home village of Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds, enrolled in the Local Defence Volunteers as a Lance-Corporal and set about preparing for an expected invasion. Soon the village bristled with defences. Churchill, who rather admired unorthodox thinking, brought him back in 1941 and entrusted him with the formation and training of a new Armoured Division from scratch, a task at which he excelled. This was the now famous 11th Armoured Division which the British kept back from the North African campaign and subsequently used to break out of Normandy in 1944. Hobart did not command the Division in battle due to ill health but went on to command the 79th Armoured Division which developed such designs as the Duplex Drive (DD) floating tank, the 'crocodile' (flame throwing) tank and the 'crab' (flail) tank for clearing mines, the various AVRE tanks (Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers) which were designed to perform various tasks under fire such as bulldozing and bridge laying, all of which were used on the D Day beaches (ref.5), designs known collectively as 'Hobart's funnies'.
Hobart's Divisional HQ was at Wormald Green, between Knaresborough and Ripon. Arriving there for the first time, in sleet driven by the wind, he wrote (in pencil, there being no ink) on 10 March 1941:
'Seas of mud here. Everything is of course still in chaos - the 'state of becoming'. 30 or 40 odd men from various sources have arrived and the RSM of Div HQ....squelches round with them evolving order and decency. HQ is in a Red-brick Victorian 'manor' complete with tower, but with cold gaunt rooms- central heating obsolete and almost unworkable- and only two WCs....Officers are billeted anything up to seven miles away. An awful nuisance and a handicap, especially when we all want to live together not only for work but to get to know one another....the various units of the Div have just, or are just on the point of arriving. Am starting to go round them today. Some are billeted 70 miles away. Transport very short. However- all will come right' (ref.72).
As he wrote this, one unit in his new Division had just arrived at Scriven Hall, others being located at numerous places between Skipton and the east coast at Whitby and Bridlington.
As part of the 29th Armoured Brigade within the 11th Armoured Division, the 23rd Hussars arrived by rail at Knaresborough on 6th March 1941. The Regiment had only been formed on 1 December 1940, one of six new cavalry ie tank regiments raised in the early months of the war. Their officers and men were taken from the 10th Royal Hussars (including Major C.B. Harvey who was to command the new regiment), the amalgamated 15th/19th King's Royal Hussars and the 16/5th Queen's Royal Lancers. Formed in Penkridge, Staffs, they came first to Knaresborough where they remained until relocating to Nawton, near Helmsley four months later. They moved again, in the autumn of 1941, to a base near Whitby. They spent the winter on the east coast before moving again to Sussex in April 1942. In August 1942, the Hussars moved to Thetford, and then to Ely before returning to Yorkshire and a new base at Bridlington (ref.69). The Priory church at Bridlington still has memorials to the Hussars, including a 'Roll of Honour' to commemorate men who fell in the first six months of the Battle of Normandy (ref.65).
The War Diary of the Hussars does not detail where each regimental unit was based during their stay at Knaresborough but one imagines that troops were billeted at several places in the town as the 41st RTR had done immediately beforehand. Whilst the Diary does not mention Scriven (or any other location within Knaresborough) as a billet for its squadrons, it is almost inevitable that one squadron with their tanks would have been based at the Hall. The 'Return of Strength of the British Army' in its edition of April 1941 (the last time it was published during the war) states that the 23rd Hussars had 575 men stationed in Knaresborough (ref.136).
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Major-General Hobart is recorded as giving a lecture to troops at Scriven Hall in 1941 (ref.52). The War Diary of the 24th Lancers, based then at nearby Boroughbridge, records the following entry for 4th June 1941: 'The Divisional Commander, Major General Hobart, gave a lecture at Scriven Hall to all Officers, NCO's and a large number of men from 23rd Hussars, 24th Lancers and 8th Rifle Brigade' (ref.58).
Each of these units was part of the 29th Armoured Brigade within the Division. Although we do not know the subject matter of Hobart's lecture, it will have formed part of the Division's training, and possibly related to the recent experience of fighting the German Panzer units in France and the on-going campaign in North Africa. It may also be significant that the first Churchill tanks were being produced at about this time. Certainly, lectures on the Libyan Campaign were being given to these units by others at the time (ref.75).
When they were formed, the Hussars had very little equipment; their inventory comprised some rifles, a few .303 Besa machine guns, some Bren LMG's, two 'impressed' vehicles, a delivery van and one tank which could not move under its own power! (ref.89). The unit received much of their equipment whilst at Scriven.
Whilst at Knaresborough, the Hussars received new men as well as 11 Valentine tanks, personnel carriers, motor cycles, lorries and various other vehicles. Some tanks came from other armoured units such as the 46th Royal Tank Regiment and the 1st Gloucester Hussars, whilst others seem to have been new issue to the Hussars. The 'other vehicles' included the delivery of six 'Beaverettes' from the 27th Lancers. The Beaverette, named after Lord Beaverbrook, was a light armoured car produced in a rush after the BEF had left their armour behind at Dunkirk. It used a commercial car chassis and was fast but not very well protected by its armour and difficult to handle; it was used principally for home defence and training (ref.5).
Most days were occupied by training and the regiment received new instructors to help train the influx of raw recruits. Gunnery Instructors came from well established armoured units and training regiments, as did D &' M (Detection and Monitoring) Instructors. In May 1941, the Regiment undertook gas training at the gas compound in Harrogate where they experienced, tear, mustard, phosgene and DM gases. Most training though was of new drivers and gunners and when the Regiment left Knaresborough, it went to occupy a new training area at Nawton (ref.75). The need for training was emphasised by the entry in the War Diary for 29th May, 1941, which was two and half months into the training at Scriven; the Diary simply states '15 Driver Mechanics tested of whom 4 passed'.
On 14 June 1941, the Hussars moved to Nawton by rail.
It is clear from the various billets occupied by the Hussars that the units under Hobart's command in 1941 were moving about fairly frequently within the region to accommodate the demands of their training. This is borne out by the other units in the 29th Armoured Brigade at that time, the 24th Lancers and the 8th Rifle Brigade. Even if a unit within the Armoured Brigade was not billeted at Scriven, there is a reasonable likelihood that its troops attended the village for some of their training, as we have seen by the attendees of Hobart's lecture at Scriven. This is borne out by the 24th Lancers who had arrived at in Boroughbridge that March. Their War Diary records, for 27 March 1941: 'Drill Competition held at Knaresborough for recruits of 24th Lancers and 23rd Hussars. 24th Lancers first squad was adjudged to be the best by Brigadier Peto' (ref.58).
Peto would take over from Hobart as Divisional Commander in February 1942.
The 24th Lancers had also been formed on 1 December 1940 at Warwick racecourse before moving to Cannock in Staffordshire. They were made up of officers and men from the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers (including Major M.H. Aird who was to command the new regiment), and the amalgamated 17th/21st Lancers (ref.69). On 6 March 1941, the Lancers had arrived at Boroughbridge from Cannock where they remained until 12th June 1941 when they moved to Keldy Castle near Pickering. In August of 1941, they moved again, this time to Whitby, staying there until April 1942 when they left the area (ref.58). Their Diary also records that normal training was continuing throughout their stay during 1941 in Yorkshire on the following basis: 'Up to 18th August- Troop training; 18-30 August, Squadron training; 30 August-13 September, Regimental training; 26 September - October, Divisional training and November-December, Individual training'.
Similarly, whilst there appears to be no record of the 8th Rifle Brigade being stationed at Scriven in 1941, we do know that 'E' Company was in Yorkshire that year. Between 6 March and 17 December 1941, they spent time in Leeds, Husthwaite, Pickering, Whitby, and Scarborough prior to travelling to Reighton Gap and Filey in 1942. Their War Diary however contains no detailed information regarding this period and does not mention either Scriven Hall or Knaresborough (ref.64).
The entire Division was inspected on the North York Moors on Thursday, 6 November 1941 for three hours by Winston Churchill who sent the following message to all ranks in this new Armoured Division:
'To- All Ranks 11th Armoured Division. From the Prime Minister, I am very glad to have seen this grand Division which General Hobart has trained so well. I hope a chance will come for it to play a glorious part in the destruction of a hateful enemy. Friday will be a whole holiday. Winston S. Churchill.'
The Lancers War Diary duly recorded '7/11/41. A Holiday observed' (ref.69).
The 'chance' referred to by Churchill came in 1944, when the 11th Armoured Division played a huge part in the Allied breakout from Normandy. By then equipped mainly with American-built Sherman tanks, they landed on Juno beach on 13 June 1944 and suffered heavy casualties in the Battle of Normandy. The Division spearheaded Operations Epsom and Goodwood to outflank and seize Caen in order to breakout from Normandy. After the latter, the losses within the 24th Lancers were so high that the unit was actually disbanded and the survivors incorporated into the 23rd Hussars. They then took part in Operation Bluecoat, enabling the US forces to break out from the western flank of the Normandy beachhead. The Division went on to harass the retreating German forces in the 'Falaise pocket' and subsequently liberated both Amiens and Antwerp. Later on, the Hussars helped liberate the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and captured Lubeck (ref.5).
One junior officer in the 24th Lancers who had just joined the regiment in January 1941 was a Lieutenant J.N. Cowley. He went on to command 'C' Squadron of the 24th Lancers in Normandy where he was subsequently badly injured by shrapnel. He progressed to the rank of Colonel before becoming the British military attaché in Budapest in 1955, just prior to the Hungarian uprising when he was declared 'persona non grata' and given 48 hours to leave the country. Colonel Cowley died in 2010, aged 97 (ref.59).
In his account of the training, Geoffrey Pulzer, a Corporal in the new Division, has written,
'The 11th Armoured Division's training in the UK was geared to the prospective role of spearheading a breakthrough following the securement of a bridgehead on the continent and to this end we trained on the South Downs, the Yorkshire Moors (& corn fields) and the woods & flat lands of East Anglia. Eventually waterproofing our tanks in S. England preparatory to D-day'(ref.62).
As a schoolboy during the war, John Kitchener remembers the family following his father around numerous army camps in various parts of England, as a result of which he attended 15 primary and junior schools before entering Ashford Grammar School in Kent in 1944. His father, John H. Kitchener served in the 23rd Hussars and when they were posted to Scriven, the family stayed with the Outhwaite family in Knaresborough (ref.15).
One of the senior officers at the time was Lord George Scott, the youngest son of the 7th Duke of Buccleuch, who served as a Major in both the 10th and the 23rd Hussars (ref.86).
2nd Lieutenant Michael George Watney came from Crowborough in Sussex and joined the 23rd Hussars at Knaresborough on 24th March 1941 (ref.75) where he took part in the on-going training of the new regiment. He was subsequently attached to the 10th Hussars with whom he fought in North Africa, being killed in action on 29 March 1943, aged 22. He is buried in Sfax cemetery in Tunisia (ref.29).
In January 1943, Sergeant Thomas Palmer of the Hussars, who came from Kidderminster, married Joyce Deighton of Starbeck at her local church (ref.81).
Audrey Hines' father had been second chauffeur to Sir Algernon Firth and she remembers the garages at the Hall, which had once held six Rolls Royce cars, being filled with tanks. In the surrounding woods were all the lorries and accompanying staff cars, screened from the air by trees (ref.2).
Bryan Norris remembers the film star, Richard Greene, at Scriven (ref.1).
Another resident recalls 'Robin Hood and his merrie men' in the fields around the village; Greene became well known in the 1960s for his role of Robin Hood in the British TV series of that name (ref.3).
Greene had returned from Hollywood in 1940 to serve in the army and had been commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in April 1941. He joined the 27th Lancers in the summer of that year, shortly after the regiment had been formed (ref.4).
The 27th Lancers were assigned to the 11th Armoured Division as the Divisional Reconnaissance Regiment (ref.5)).
In March 1941, they were based at Skipton where they were inspected by Hobart on 21st March (ref.84) before being relocated to Pickering. However, there is no record of the 27th Lancers being based at Scriven and by 1942 they had moved to Thetford in Norfolk (ref.51).
It is however probable that, as part of the 11th Armoured Division, some of their training in 1941 occurred at Scriven which may explain local children remembering a film star in their midst.
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