WW2 Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire Regiment Battledress Cloth Formation Sign Combination

Removed from uniform, a bit grubby, three felt arms of service strips with a felt regimental flash black / amber (yellow) / black for the Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire Regiment sewn to a rectangle of khaki battledress uniform material. Some slight moth graze to the amber (yellow) felt otherwise in good overall condition.

BoBD (Jon Mills) No 794 for the flash.

Happy to be corrected, but I suspect this was worn by a soldier of the 5th (TA) Battalion, who were part of the 55th Infantry Brigade, 18th (East Anglian) Infantry Division, whose order of battle was:

1st Battalion, Cambridgeshire Regiment
2nd Battalion, Cambridgeshire Regiment (to 30 October 1939)
5th Battalion, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment
1/5th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters (from 8 July 1940)
55th Infantry Brigade Anti-Tank Company (formed 9 October, disbanded 14 December 1940)

Reformed as the 55th Infantry Brigade in 1939 in the Territorial Army shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War and joined the 18th Infantry Division. It remained in the United Kingdom on home defence and training duties, preparing for a possible German invasion which, fortunately, never arrived. The 55th Infantry Brigade, along with the rest of the 18th Division, was sent to Singapore in 1942 where it surrendered to the Imperial Japanese Army in the short but violent Battle of Singapore. The men of the brigade would spend the next three years as Japanese prisoners in harsh and degrading imprisonment.

Comm DaMc (359)

Code: 67177