Grenadier Guards

[Top-of-the-hill]

    A friend's father was in the Grenadier Guards,and she knows he was at Dunkirk, but is a little vague about the rest of his War. I have established that he was 1st battalion, because he was injured 20/9/1944, which I think would be the Nijmegen Bridge campaign? She did know about that, and he was awarded the Military Medal. What we want to know (and what brought this up in the first place) was did he take part in the Normandy invasion, and if so, presumably he fought right across Europe? And what was his battalion doing between 1940 and 1944? I believe he had been a soldier earlier and was called up in 1939.

[crisane]

Service records from 1921 are still held by the MoD. You can purchase them for 30 quid. You will need his death certificate and know his birth date. You don't need to know his regiment or service number.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/requests-for-personal-data-and-service-records

here is The National Archives guide to British army operations in WW11
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/british-army-operations-second-world-war/

[MaxD]

Your friend should take two approaches.

 One is to get his service record as crisane advises. This will show where he was and when.

The other is to read as much as possible on the Grenadiers in WW2 (Wikipedia to start with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenadier_Guards#Second_World_War) and take note of the bibliography to find books on both the Grenadiers in WW2 and, for context, the Guards Armoured Division history.  This may lead to more reading, any of the books on the lead up to and evacuation of Dunkirk, D day itself (the Grenadiers went across at the end of June) and Nijmegen (Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nijmegen ).

MaxD

[Regorian]

Well worth every penny for his personal record. 1/GG was in 7th Infantry Brigade(Gds), 3rd Infantry Division (MG Bernard Law Montgomery)  in BEF and evacuated from Dunkirk.

From 9/1941 in 5th Guards Armoured Brigade as motorised Infantry until June 1944, Normandy and onwards.
   

[Top-of-the-hill]

  Thank you for those replies. Max has told me they went across at the end of June, so that answers the question about D Day.
 The wiki article about the Grenadiers tells me the 1st Batt. were motorised in 1941 - does this mean armoured vehicles short of tanks? Do we assume they remained in this country from then until 1944?
   I will mention the service records, but I doubt if she will want to go that far.

[Regorian]

I'm not sure about the motorised bit. The British Army was all motorised as such. As far as 1/GG was concerned may mean with American half tracks, but not from 1941. I think Operation Goodwood was first action by Guards Armoured Division.

British Army divisions were mostly motorised, they required several MT columns (composition unknown) to make them wholly motorised. American infantry divisions MT could move all the men or all the equipment, not both. The Russians were mainly horse drawn except for the motor rifle corps (divisions) and tank corps (divisions) and then only part motorised.