11th Parachute Battalion

11th PARACHUTE BATTALION

The 11th Parachute Battalion was raised from volunteers in the Middle East, at Kabrit in Egypt, starting on the 4 March 1943. A great many of the volunteers came from units recently arrived from Malta. Along with the 156 Parachute Battalion and the 10th Parachute Battalion, it would form part of the 4th Parachute Brigade.

The first Commanding Officer was Lt-Col. Richard Michael Collette Thomas, who came from the 156 Parachute Battalion, which he had joined – when it was the 151 Parachute Battalion – in India in November 1941.

On the 1 April 1943 the Battalion moved to RAF Station, Shandur in Egypt, whilst at the same time the Parachute Training School moved to Ramat David in Palestine. This is where the rest of the parachute training for the Battalion would be conducted, after it also moved to Ramat David by the end of April 1943.

However, by May 1943, when the rest of the 4th Parachute Brigade, started its move to join the 1st Airborne Division in Tunisia the 11th Parachute Battalion was only partly formed.

A company group, consisting of A Company (which was the only complete company formed at that time), with a Section of Mortars and Medium Machine Guns attached, dropped on the Island of Cos on the 15 September 1943, and seized the airfield as a prelude to the later occupation of Rhodes. It was withdrawn back to Palestine on the 25 September.

In December 1943 the whole battalion sailed aboard the S.S. Orion, for the United Kingdom, where it was to join the rest of the 4th Parachute Brigade.

They arrived at the port of Liverpool (after laying over at the port of Augusta, Sicily, for four days), on the 6 January 1944. They immediately boarded a train which went through the night to deliver them to Leicester Railway Station at 2 o’clock in the morning on the 7 January, they were then taken by Company groups to their billets. The Battalion was spread out as follows:

Battalion H.Q. and HQ-Company - The Lodge Manor House, Great Glen.

‘A’ Company   - Carlton Curlieu Hall.

‘B’ Company   - Kibworth Hall.

‘C’ Company   - Glen Parva Grange

SP-Company    - Wigston Fields.

They were only to remain in these billets for 4 months, as on the 8 May the Battalion moved to Welby Lane Camp at Melton Mowbray. This was an old Militia hutted camp, but it would mean the whole battalion being in one place, and they would remain there until the 18 September.

On the 29 June Lt-Col. Thomas left the Battalion and returned to the Wiltshire Regiment. Lt-Col. George Harris Lea took over as the Commanding Officer on the 2 July.

On 18 September 1944, the Battalion jumped under fire, onto DZ ‘Y’ at Ginkel Heath, in Holland, with the second lift at Arnhem during Operation Market-Garden. The 11th Battalion was fought to a stand-still suffering heavy casualties just over 1,000 metres short of relieving Frost’s 2nd Battalion at the Arnhem bridge, before falling back to the 1st Airborne Division perimeter at Oosterbeek.

The remnants of the 11th Parachute Battalion, along with those from the 1st and 3rd Parachute Battalion’s, and the 2nd Bn, The South Staffordshire Regiment, would be put under command of the 11th Battalion’s Second-in-Command, Major. Richard Thomas Henry Lonsdale, and become known as ‘Lonsdale Force’. They would hold their positions from the 20 to the 25 September.

The survivors were evacuated across the Lower Rhine during the night of 25/26 September.

The under-strength battalion was amalgamated with the 3rd Parachute Battalion in October 1944.

Commanding Officers:

1943-44       Lt Col RMC Thomas
1944            Lt Col GH Lea, DSO

There is no War Diary for the 11th Bn after Arnhem - it quite literally stops. The 3rd Bn has no War Diary for October 1944, there's starts again in November, by which time the amalgamation has taken place and 'Dickie' Lonsdale has been promoted to Lt-Col and taken command.