The Rose Family in World War Two - the Battle Front
Written by Linda Levine 5780/2020 (with research assistance from Jeremy Gordon)World War Two affected the lives of everyone, and the Rose Family was no exception: as can be seen from this article and also The Rose Family in World War Two - the Home Front (opens in new window).
What's on this page ..
- The Battle Front in Europe
- Morris Rose’s Family (Mick Levy, Sidney Rose, Norman Rose)
- David Rose’s Family (Norman and Harold Rose)
- Jenny Grossman's Family (David Rothman, Jacob Klein, Norman Grossman)
- Dora Jacobs’s Family (Israel Tillinger)
- Abraham Rose’s Family (Leon Rose)
- The Battle Front in Africa and the Middle East
- Morris Rose’s Family (Hans Heilbut, Sol Rose, Samuel Rose)
- Jenny Grossman's Family (Louis Grossman, Abraham Grossman)
- The Battle Front in the Far East
- Epilogue
The Battle Front in Europe
Morris Rose’s Family
Mick Levy
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Netty’s husband, Mick Levy, served in the Royal Army Service Corps in Holland and France, working in a mobile field bakery behind the front lines, supplying fresh bread to the troops. The corps was based in Aldershot. The following provides us with a description of the logistics involved:
The Royal Army Service Corps
The Royal Army Service Corps (RASC), was a corps of the British Army responsible for land, coastal and lake transport, air despatch, barracks administration, the Army Fire Service, staffing headquarters' units, supply of food, water, fuel and domestic materials such as clothing, furniture and stationery and the supply of technical and military equipment.
The Royal Army Service Corps (Wikipedia) (pdf file).Chain of Command in a Field Bakery
Each (field bakery) had two officers, a regular Captain and a supplementary reserve Lieutenant, and about 350 other ranks. The most important man in the field bakery was not the commanding officer but the master baker. He held the rank of Staff Sergeant Major. The officers knew nothing about the baking trade but were mainly there for disciplinary purposes. Under the master baker was a headquarters section, concerned with administration, and three bakery sections, each under a Staff Quartermaster Sergeant. These were divided into four sub-sections, of which three were under a Sergeant and one under a Corporal.
Setting Up a Field Bakery
We joined No.2 at a place called Formerie and erected bell tents for ourselves and marquees to work in. The ovens had to be set up outside. Both sub-sections had two marquees — one contained the mixing troughs and the other was a bread store. The tents and marquees were white and were conspicuous from the air. We therefore had to smear them with mud. When all this was done, all was ready to start baking. The night shift was detailed, flour was tipped into the troughs, but before we started everything was cancelled and we had to pack up as we were on the move again.
Baking the Bread
It might be appropriate at this point to say something about the equipment we used. Our ovens were made by Baker-Perkins of Peterborough. They each held 144 2lb loaves; each sub-section had four ovens, making sixteen to a section — forty-eight ovens in all. Each oven took at least six batches a day so the whole battery produced 41472 loaves per day, ration for about eighty thousand men. By the time of Dunkirk there were four bakeries in France turning out this amount of bread seven days a week. The ovens had to be manhandled on and off trains and lorries with levers and rollers, and it was not until near the end of the war that we had ovens on wheels. All our doughs were made by hand until near the end of the war. Like our personal kit, the ovens were relics left over from 1914-18.
A Baker at War (Part 1) Reminiscences of Wesley Piercy (pdf file).
Sidney Rose
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All we know of Sidney Rose’s army service is that at the time of his engagement in July 1941, he was a private in the British Armed Forces.
Norman Rose
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When he turned eighteen Norman Rose enlisted in the army on 14 December 1942, serving in the Tank Corps of the 11th Armoured Division.
The 11th Armoured Division, also known as The Black Bull, was an armoured division of the British Army which was created in March 1941 during the Second World War. The division was formed in response to the unanticipated success of the German panzer divisions.
The 11th Armoured Division was responsible for several major victories in the Battle of Normandy in the summer of 1944, shortly after the D-Day landings of 6 June 1944, and it participated in the rapid advance across France, Belgium, and the Netherlands and, later, the Rhine crossing in March 1945, and later invaded Germany. It was disbanded in January 1946.
The 11th Armoured Division (pdf file).
At the time Norman joined the Tank Corps the division was conducting intensive training while gradually receiving new, more modern equipment, in preparation for the invasion.
Training continued throughout the remainder of 1942 and 1943 until July 1944. After the Allies had invaded Normandy, the 11th Armoured Division, now commanded by Major-General Philip Roberts, who, although aged just 37, was already a highly experienced and competent armoured commander, participated in Operations Epsom and Goodwood. It also participated in the drive to Amiens, the fastest and deepest penetration into enemy territory ever made at that time. On 4 September, just over five years since the war began, the 11th Armoured Division captured the Belgian city of Antwerp. Soon thereafter, the division pushed forward into the German-occupied Netherlands.
November 1944 Norman Rose taken in Helmond in Holland
In March 1945, it crossed the river Rhine and captured the German city of Lübeck on 2 May 1945. It occupied the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 15 April 1945. When men of the division entered the camp, more than 60,000 emaciated prisoners were found in desperate need of medical attention. More than 13,000 corpses in various stages of decomposition lay scattered around the area. Units of the division and its higher formations were detached to oversee the clean up of the camp.
At one point in their advance, Norman’s 11th Armoured Division fought on the right flank of Sol’s 7th Division. If both brothers were still with their divisions at this time, then it is possible that both were at Bergen-Belsen together. However, this is purely conjecture.
1945 Norman Rose on his tank in Germany
From the end of the war in Europe (8 May 1945), the 11th Armoured Division controlled the province of Schleswig-Holstein in the north of Germany.
The division was disbanded in January 1946. Norman transferred to the Intelligence Corps, based in Germany. Only on 4 August 1947 was he demobilized.
Raymond Altschuler, who had started studying quantity surveying at Edinburgh University, was called up to the British army a year later, serving as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), based initially in the UK. Documentary proof of his army service exists for the years 1944 and 1945. Immediately after the war, Raymond was transferred to the Osnabruck barracks in Germany. His future wife, Sylvia, used to meet Raymond for weekends in Brussels.
David Rose’s Family
Norman and Harold Rose
View profiles of Norman Rose and Harold Rose (both open in new window).
Two of David Rose’s sons served in the American armed forces in Europe. The younger of the two, Harold, was the first to enlist in the US army on 26 June 1941, followed by his elder brother, Norman, who enlisted over a year later on 26 August 1942 (army enlistment record) or 9 September 1942 (Department of Veterans death file record). Both enlisted at Fort Jay, Governors Island, the headquarters of the First Army in the early part of the war.
According to their army enlistment records, by the time of his enlistment Harold had attended four years of high school and was working as a shipping and receiving clerk, while Norman had completed two years of high school and was working as a stock clerk. Harold was the taller (67 as opposed to 66) and the heavier (149 as opposed to 135 pounds) of the two. Both were single, without dependents.
Whereas in Harold’s record no mention is made of his term of enlistment, in Norman’s record his term of enlistment is stated as being “for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law”. Since Norman was released from active service on 6 February 1946, this means that he served in the army for about three and a half years.
In October 1943, the Headquarters of the First United States Army (pdf file) relocated from Fort Jay, Governors Island, New York to Bristol, England in anticipation of the invasion of Normandy.
First Army's entry into World War II began in October 1943 as Bradley returned to Washington, D.C. to receive his command and began to assemble a staff and headquarters to prepare for Operation Overlord, the codename assigned to the establishment of a large-scale lodgement on the European Continent following Operation Neptune, which was the invasion of Normandy. The headquarters were activated in January 1944 at Bristol, England.
We know from their cousin, Sarah Cook, daughter of Jenny Rose that, during WWII, both Norman and Harold attended her wedding in Birmingham, dressed in uniform. Since her wedding took place on 21 December 1943 at Singers Hill Synagogue, the two brothers must have already been stationed in the UK, probably at Bristol.
Norman Rose in uniform
Upon going ashore on 6 June 1944, D-Day, First Army came under General Bernard Montgomery's 21st Army Group (alongside the British Second Army) which commanded all American ground forces during the invasion. Three American divisions were landed by sea at the western end of the beaches, and two more were landed by air. On Utah Beach, the assault troops made good progress, but Omaha Beach came nearest of all of the five landing areas to disaster. The two American airborne divisions that landed were scattered all over the landscape, and caused considerable confusion among the German soldiers, as well as largely securing their objectives, albeit with units completely mixed up with each other. First Army captured much of the early gains of the Allied forces in Normandy. Once the beachheads were linked together, its troops struck west and isolated the Cotentin Peninsula, and then captured Cherbourg. When the American Mulberry harbour was wrecked by a storm, Cherbourg became even more vital.In 1946 First Army Headquarters returned to Fort Jay, Governors Island, New York. Norman, who was discharged on 6 February 1946, married Diana Sevi three and a half months later on 25 May 1946 in Brooklyn.After the capture of Cherbourg, First Army struck south. In Operation Cobra, its forces finally managed to break through the German lines. The newly established Third Army was then fed through the gap and raced across France.
With the arrival of more US troops in France, the Army then passed from the control of 21st Army Group to the newly arrived 12th Army Group which commanded the First Army and the newly formed Third Army under Lieutenant General George S. Patton. General Bradley assumed command of the 12th Army Group and Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges was placed in command of the First Army. First Army followed Third Army, the American armies forming the southern part of the encirclement of Germans at the Falaise pocket.
After capturing Paris (the Wehrmachtbefehlshaber von Groß-Paris, Dietrich von Choltitz, capitulated 25 August, ignoring Hitler's Trümmerfeldbefehl), First Army headed towards the south of the Netherlands.
When the Germans attacked during the Battle of the Bulge, First Army found itself on the north side of the salient, and thus isolated from 12th Army Group, its commanding authority. It was, therefore, temporarily transferred, along with Ninth Army, back to 21st Army Group under Montgomery on 20 December.[3] The salient was reduced by early February 1945. Following the Battle of the Bulge, the Rhineland Campaign began, and First Army was transferred back to 12th Army Group. In Operation Lumberjack, First Army closed up to the lower Rhine by 5 March, and the higher parts of the river five days later.
On 7 March, in a stroke of luck, Company A, 27th Armored Infantry Battalion, part of Combat Command B, found the Ludendorff Bridge across the Rhine at Remagen still standing. It quickly captured the bridge and established a secure bridgehead. in the next 15 days, over 25,000 troops and their equipment crossed the river. By 4 April, an enormous pocket had been created by First Army and Ninth Army, which contained the German Army Group B under Field Marshal Model, the last significant combat force in the northwest of Germany. While some elements of First Army concentrated on reducing the Ruhr pocket, others headed further east, creating another pocket containing the German Eleventh Army. First Army reached the Elbe by 18 April. There the advance halted, as that was the agreed demarcation zone between the American and Soviet forces. First Army and Soviet forces met on 25 April.
In May 1945, advance elements of First Army headquarters had returned to New York City and were preparing to redeploy to the Pacific theater of the war to prepare for Operation Coronet, the planned second phase of Operation Downfall the proposed invasion of Honshū, the main island of Japan in the spring of 1946, but the Japanese surrender in August 1945 thanks to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki terminated that effort.
Although we possess no documentary evidence at present, it seems likely that Harold was discharged at the same time, for he married Fay Dobrowinsky (Dobrow) on 6 November 1946.
Jenny Grossman’s Family
David Rothman
View David Rothman's profile (opens in new window).
Freda’s future husband, whom she would not meet and marry until 1945, was a Czech national named David Rothman. In March 1939 Czechoslovakia was overrun by the Germans. At the end of that year David boarded the S. S. Orion which left Port Rustchuk on the Danube and docked in Haifa on 8 January 1940. He was promptly arrested by the Palestine Police for trying to enter Palestine illegally. In the application for an Order of Deportation for him and the others who had arrived on the same ship, the 23 year-old is described as a painter by profession, stateless and destitute, and living in the transit camp at Atlit.
This author, who visited the camp in 2000, wrote the following description:
Last week we visited the immigrants’ camp at Atlit, a British detention camp for illegal immigrants from the Mandate period before the establishment of the State of Israel, which is situated within walking distance from the sea. We started by walking along the beach in glorious sunshine and just reached the shelter of the camp when there was a sudden cloud-burst, and anyone who was unfortunate enough not to be under cover, got absolutely drenched. You’ve probably never visited a concentration camp, but at first glance the Atlit camp with its barbed wire fence, rows of barracks, grid of paths, and worst of all, the fumigation hall with its furnaces, reminds one only too vividly of one. Apparently when the immigrants were first brought to the camp, not understanding a word of the language, they thought that they were once more back in hell. However the photographs in the museum show people with smiling faces, so the sight of the other inmates rushing to greet them eagerly, hoping for news of missing loved ones, must have quickly assured them that things weren’t quite the same as in Europe. The guide went to great pains to explain how the British had behaved in a humanitarian fashion, allowing families to meet each other once a day, even though men and women were detained in separate quarters. She also explained how the British Army and the Army of Occupation were totally separate entities, with the former sympathetic to the Jews and the latter favouring the Arabs.
At some point David must have successfully entered Palestine where he joined the British Pioneer Corps, serving as a corporal. The Corps carried out engineering works on the Egyptian-Libyan border, before being taken prisoner by the Germans in the battle of Crete.
After being liberated from captivity, David was brought to the UK to recover from the terrible ordeal he had undergone as a prisoner of war. During this time he met and married Freda Grossman on 14 October 1945. The couple did not have much time together before David was returned to army service on 5 November 1945.
David was transferred back to Palestine where he served in the Palestine Police until he was discharged on 2 March 1946 and awarded a General Service Medal.
The Three Musketeers
What distinguishes his story is that it was shared by two of his friends, Jacob Klein and Israel Tillinger. All three were prisoners of war together, convalesced in the UK together, married women from the same family together, returned to Palestine together without their wives who followed the next year, lived not far from each other and had children at more or less the same time.
Front row from left to right: David Grossman, Sarah Cook and Jenny Grossman
The three friends were jokingly referred to as 'The Three Musketeers' by Freda’s brother, Norman:
I am not sure how my sisters met their husbands. There were three, the three musketeers I expect, and they had been in the British Army, volunteered in Israel. I think they were captured, and came to Britain to be demobbed, when the war was over. They met my two sisters and Aunty Dora’s eldest daughter Edna. The upshot was that they got married. It was all done in a hurry, as they probably had to return to Israel, and so my two sisters and Cousin Edna went with. Freda married David, and Minnie married Yaakov, but I can’t remember Edna’s husband’s name, Freda went to live in the USA soon after, and Min and Yaakov stayed in Israel.
Read more about The Three Musketeers (opens in new window).
Jacob Klein
View Jacob Klein's profile (opens in new window).
Minnie Grossman’s future husband, Jacob Klein, born like his friend, David Rothman, in Czechoslovakia, immigrated to Palestine on 16 October 1939, where he joined the British Army at Sarafand on 1 August 1940. Both Jacob and David served together in the British Pioneer Corps in Palestine. Like David he carried out engineering works on the Egyptian-Libyan border, before being taken prisoner by the Germans in the battle of Crete.
After his release from captivity, he met and married Minnie Grossman in a double wedding with David and Minnie’s eldest sister, Freda.
Jacob returned to Palestine without his wife, where he registered as an immigrant on 30 December 1945. The two Grossman sisters did not travel together because of some bureaucratic tangle. Minnie joined Jacob on 15 May 1946 while Freda joined David later the same year. On 29 March 1946 Jacob was discharged from the army, with the remark ‘military conduct very good’ appearing in his service record. He was awarded a General Service Medal from the Palestinian Pioneer Corps.
Jacob was one of the "Three Musketeers" mentioned above. Read more about them here (opens in new window).
Norman Grossman
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When Norman Grossman turned eighteen in 1942, he was called up to the Royal Navy. After training as a stoker, in 1943 he joined his first ship, a minesweeper named HMS Jason. The Jason was the leader of a flotilla of four minesweepers and two trawlers that escorted convoys bringing much-needed war materiel to war-torn Britain. On 27 August 1944, the flotilla was strafed by friendly fire and Norman narrowly escaped with his life in what he described as “One of the greatest and most tragic blunders of World War Two”.
For more, see Norman Grossman’s Wartime Experiences in the Royal Navy (opens in new window).
Dora Jacobs’s Family
Israel Tillinger
View Israel Tillinger's profile (opens in new window).
Edna Jacobs’ future husband, a Rumanian Jew named Israel Tillinger, was one of the "Three Musketeers" mentioned above. Read more about them here (opens in new window).
Abraham Rose’s Family
Leon Rose
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In 1939, aged sixteen, Leon Rose was registered as a builders’ salesman. In 1940 he joined the Royal Fusiliers, probably one of the two Territorial Army City of London infantry units that were renamed the 8th and 9th Battalions of the 1st London Infantry Brigade. These two battalions saw service in North Africa and Italy.
Both battalions were sent to the Anzio beachhead in February 1944, a month after an amphibious landing by the Allies in January. Anzio is a city on the west coast of Italy, about 51 kilometers south of Rome. Leon, who fought in the front line, suffered a back injury as the result of the blast from a bomb, and was evacuated back to Preston in the UK.
Meanwhile his younger brother, Hyman, had enlisted in the British Air Force, and was training to be a wireless operator at a boarding school in nearby Blackpool. When he heard that Leon had been injured, he asked his commanding officer for permission to visit him. The officer consented with the proviso that Hyman be back in camp by midnight. When Hyman arrived at Leon’s camp it was to find that all the inmates were at a concert, held in a large marquee. Hyman entered and was confronted by hundreds of soldiers. For a moment he wondered how he would ever find his brother in such a crowd. Fortunately Leon started to cough, a cough that was so distinctive that Hyman immediately recognised it. He let out the distinctive family whistle which Leon immediately repeated, and that is how they found each other. Hyman was only able to stay for an hour before he had to start back to Blackpool.
After recovering from his back injury, Leon was assigned to kitchen duties. In this capacity he fought a losing battle to keep "Milchik" and "Fleischik" (milk and meat dishes separate according to Jewish dietary law)!
The Battle Front in Africa and the Middle East
Morris Rose’s Family
Hans Heilbut
View Hans Heilbut's profile (opens in new window).
Lena’s future husband, Hans Heilbut, served as an engineer in the South African Army.
During WWII, the South African Army fought in the East African, North African and Italian campaigns. Hans probably served in one of the forces under Cape Command, the headquarters of which were located at the Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town. Cape Command included the 3rd Infantry Brigade, the 8th Infantry Brigade, the Coast Artillery Brigade with its two heavy batteries, two medium batteries, and the Cape Field Artillery, and a battery of the 1st Anti-Aircraft Regiment.
Sol Rose
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According to his family, Sol was a “desert rat” in North Africa, went to Palestine and finally helped in the liberation of Bergen-Belsen.
The desert rats (pdf file) was the name given to the 7th Armoured Division of the British Army, formed in North Africa just before WWII. It originated from the divisional emblem, depicting a rodent called a jerboa or “desert rat”.
August 1941 found Sol in Egypt in Ismailia, a city in north-eastern Egypt on the west bank of the Suez Canal, one the three most popular cities in Egypt where Allied troops spent their leave, the other two being Cairo and Alexandria.
He also visited Cairo, where he was photographed sitting outside the Hotel Cairo.
By 1942 he was fighting in the Libyan desert.
Following the successful conclusion of the Western Desert campaign on 4 February 1943, instead of accompanying the Division to Italy, Sol seems to have gone to Palestine. He possibly entered Palestine at Rafah, a town located on the border between Palestine and Egypt that served as an important British base.
The following two photographs were taken on 14 March 1943 on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem.
Other photographs place him on leave in Tel Aviv the following day, 15 March 1943.
26 April 1943 Passover in Tel Aviv Sol Rose with Syd Cole | Sol and two comrades-in-arms in October 1943 |
A final photograph places him at a British military convalescence or resort camp in north Netanya, later known as Camp Dora, in December 1943. In the photograph he looks as if he is recovering from some illness, no doubt one of the many that can be picked up in a hot climate.
In November 1943 the 7th Armoured Division returned to England, to re-equip and train in preparation for the invasion of Europe. We do not know if Sol was with them.
On 21st July 1945 the Division took part in a victory parade in Berlin, marching past Winston Churchill.
The story that Sol Rose was at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is corroborated by the fact that some elements of the 7th Armoured Division were involved in the effort to clear up the camp, which had been liberated by the 11th Armoured Division.
British forces liberated Bergen-Belsen on 15 April 1945. Thousands of bodies lay unburied around the camp and some 60,000 starving and mortally ill people were packed together without food, water or basic sanitation. Many were suffering from typhus, dysentery and starvation.Bergen-Belsen was first established in 1940 as a prisoner of war camp. From 1943, Jewish civilians with foreign passports were held as ‘leverage’ in possible exchanges for Germans interned in Allied countries or for money. It later became a concentration camp and was used as a collection centre for survivors of the death marches. The camp became exceptionally overcrowded and, as a result of the Germans’ neglect, conditions were allowed to deteriorate further in the last months of the war, causing many more deaths.
The British Army immediately began to organise the relief effort. Their first priorities were to bury the dead, contain the spread of disease, restore the water supply and arrange the distribution of food that was suitable for starving prisoners in various stages of malnutrition. Additional military and civilian medical personnel were brought in to support the relief effort. The British faced serious challenges in stabilising conditions in the camp and implementing a medical response to the crisis. Nearly 14,000 prisoners would die after liberation.
The Liberation of Bergen-Belsen (pdf file)
Throughout his army service Sol tried to observe Jewish dietary laws as much as possible, swapping his pork ration for cigarettes. However he lost his faith after being assigned to burial duties and ordered to load corpses onto a lorry.
Samuel Rose
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When war broke out in 1939 Samuel Rose was twenty one and already serving as a militiaman in the Territorial Army.
The Territorial Army
Known today as the Army Reserve, the Territorial Army was created as the Territorial Force in 1908, and called the Territorial Army (TA) from 1921 to 1967. Then as now it was a volunteer reserve force and an integrated part of the British Army.
During the 1930s, tensions increased between Germany and the United Kingdom and its allies. In late 1937 and throughout 1938, German demands for the annexation of Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia led to an international crisis. To avoid war, the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler in September and brokered the Munich Agreement. The agreement averted a war and allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland. Although Chamberlain had intended the agreement to lead to further peaceful resolution of issues, relations between both countries soon deteriorated. On 15 March 1939, Germany breached the terms of the agreement by invading and occupying the remnants of the Czech state.
On 29 March, Secretary of State for War Leslie Hore-Belisha announced plans to increase the TA from 130,000 to 340,000 men and double the number of TA divisions.
In April, limited conscription was introduced. This resulted in 34,500 twenty-year-old militiamen being conscripted into the regular army, initially to be trained for six months before deployment to the forming second-line units. During the war the Territorial Army militiamen were automatically incorporated into the regular army for the duration of hostilities. Its members were not demobilised until 1947.
The Territorial Army (pdf file)
One of militiamen conscripted into the regular army was Samuel Rose. A newspaper photograph shows Samuel Rose about to board a train for a training camp on Salisbury Plain together with other Royal Army Service Corps units on 30 July 1939. This tells us that he was conscripted into the Royal Army Service Corps, like his future brother-in-law, Mick Levy.
The Royal Army Service Corps (RASC)
The Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) was a corps of the British Army responsible for land, coastal and lake transport, air despatch, barracks administration, the Army Fire Service, staffing headquarters' units, supply of food, water, fuel and domestic materials such as clothing, furniture and stationery and the supply of technical and military equipment.
The Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) (pdf file)A general view of Snow Hill Station yesterday, when local R.A.S.C. units left for camp on Salisbury Plain (Samuel Rose bottom right)
Army Training on Salisbury Plain
The military training area covers roughly half of the plain. The army first conducted exercises on the plain in 1898. From that time, the Ministry of Defence bought up large areas of land until the Second World War.
Army Training on Salisbury Plain (pdf file)
Sol’s daughter tells us that Samuel and her father accidentally “bumped into each other” somewhere in the Middle East. This could have occurred in a number of different locations. From photographs we know that at some date Samuel was in Khartoum (Sudan) and in Cairo (Egypt), and Sol was in Libya. So their meeting could have occurred in North Africa. Another possibility, also documented by photographs, is that they met up in Palestine.
Samuel must have also been in Eritrea, where be bought an English-language newspaper on 17 March 1944.
Jenny Grossman’s Family
Louis Grossman
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Louis Grossman volunteered for the army in June 1937, over two years before the outbreak of WWII. Purely by chance he happened to pass a recruitment centre for the British Army on Steelhouse Lane, Birmingham. On the spur of the moment he walked in and signed up for three years in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
After a brief visit home he started his army training at Crookham Camp near Aldershot for six months. Due to an accident in which his arm was broken, he remained there for an extra three months, before being transferred to Millbank Hospital in London, where he took advantage of everything that London had to offer.
In 1938 Louis was sent to Palestine where he was stationed in Talpiot, near Jerusalem. From there he was transferred to the British Military Hospital in Haifa where, in 1939, he was awarded a General Service Medal and “Clasp” Palestine. From Haifa he was transferred to Nazareth, prior to entering Iraq and Persia (Iran) with the British forces.
Louis was demobilized in Manchester, where he was given a job in an Employment Centre:
I found myself in Manchester where I had been demobilized, pushed temporarily into a Civil Service job in the Employment Centre. There were 30 of us, most demobilized but with a sprinkling of full time civil service. The rest of us were temporary civil service, a wonderful labour innovation enabling them to employ thousands of demobilized soldiers, pay them and use them to arrange the employment of millions of others.For more, see Louis Grossman's Army Service (opens in new window).
Abraham Grossman
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Abe Grossman’s Prayer Book for Jewish Sailors and Soldiers
Although it was always widely known that Abe Grossman served in the Royal Marines, a fact reinforced by a number of existing photographs, it was only recently that a copy of his Prayer Book for Jewish Sailors and Soldiers, containing more detailed information, came into our hands. This prayer book, issued in 1918 by H.M. Stationery Office, with the Authority of the Chief Rabbi, was no doubt presented to every Jewish recruit. Since Abe and his wife had no children of their own, we are indebted to his wife’s niece and nephew both for the photographs and for the Prayer Book.
The following three photographed pages of the Prayer Book are of interest. Each is described by Abe’s nephew:
Uncle used to take his prayer book with him whenever he was hospitalised. This was a prayer book issued to Jewish servicemen in the war. On the cover you can just make out to the right above the words “prayer book”, the name DAVIS. I think this is the name by which his family was known.
His nephew is indeed correct for Abe’s sister, Sarah Cook, remembers her aunts and uncles saying, “Davis will do it” or “What would we do without Davis?” referring to her father, David Grossman.
The inside of the cover reveals his humour, attested to by his brother Norman:
I have never met anyone so full of fun as beloved brother Abe, (Avrum). One had only to walk round his back garden to end up with tears of laughter, from the captions one could see attached to a bunch of extinct pill containers, “KEEP TAKING THE TABLETS!”
If anyone travelled the world, it was certainly Abe Grossman who between the years 1941-1946 served in three theatres of war – the Middle East, The Far East and Europe.
His nephew continues:
The first two pages of his Prayer Book shows some of the addresses he lived, some of his bases, some of the places he served and also some of the times he was hospitalised in UK.
From these two pages we have been able to trace the course of Abe Grossman’s movements round the world during WWII.
According to his Prayer Book Abe served in two main army organizations. The first was the 11th Searchlight Regiment of the Royal Marines from 1941-1944, during which he was stationed in Palestine, Egypt and Ceylon. The second was the 27th Battalion of the Royal Marines from 1944 -1945, during which he saw action in France, Belgium and Holland.
The 11th Searchlight Regiment of the Royal Marines
The 11th Searchlight Regiment, formed in February 1040, was part of a Mobile Naval Base Defence Organization known as MNBDO I. This organization, formed in September 1939 at the outbreak of war, was created for the defence of British naval bases overseas. MNBDO I was finally disbanded in September 1944.
In 1940 a Royal Marines depot was established at Exton, located between the city of Exeter and the town of Exmouth in Devon. Here it was that Abe Grossman underwent training when he was drafted in October 1941.
Between the years 1942-1944 photographs place him in Palestine, Egypt and Ceylon. These countries also appear in his Prayer Book. Dated photographs place him in Jerusalem on 27 January 1942.
St. David's Jerusalem
Jaffa Road leading to Western Wall
At the time there was only a narrow passage past the Wall, unlike the broad plaza that exists today.
Abraham Grossman and two friends by the Western Wall
1942 Ismailia, Egypt Virgin Mary Church | Abraham Grossman and friends rowing in the Suez Canal |
During this period he was engaged to his childhood sweetheart, Freda Brown, on 5 June 1942. The announcement, published in the Jewish Chronicle, describes him as “serving with the M.E.F. (Middle East Forces). We know from his sister, Sarah Cook, that he was engaged by proxy.
There are two photographs of Abe from the beginning of 1943. In the first dated 26 January 1943 he is dressed in winter uniform.
In the second, dated 28 February 1943, he appears to be wearing summer uniform, indicating that by this date he may already have been stationed in Ceylon. Ceylon was a British Crown Colony where the Royal Navy's East Indies Station was based at the port of Colombo.
We know that in February 1943 Abe’s regiment was serving with various commands in Ceylon. A Prayer Book entry from 6 June 1943 definitely places him in Colombo, where he may have served in an anti-aircraft battery.
If Abe was transferred to Ceylon directly from Egypt, then he would have done so on a troopship sailing as part of a convoy. The ship would have passed through the Suez Canal, sailing south through the Red Sea until arriving at the British Crown Colony of Aden in South Yemen. Aden was an important transit port and coaling station on the route between Europe, British India and the Far East. From Aden the convoy would have sailed in a north easterly direction across the Arabian Sea to the west coast of India, docking at Bombay (Mumbai). From there Abe would have taken a train to Madras (Chennai), then another train south to where the Talaimannar Ferry crossed to the west coast of Ceylon. From Talaimannar he would have taken yet another train south to Colombo, where the British Royal Navy East Indies Station was based.
For a description of such a journey see A Posting to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) - Memories of a Wren (pdf file).In autumn 1943 Abe was most likely retrained as a member of a landing craft crew to combat the Japanese. The adjoining photographs show marines undergoing training at Chatham Camp in Colombo.
In February 1944 there is a photograph of Abe’s troop - No, 2 Troop 27th Battalion, Royal Marines.
On 23 May a final photograph of 742 Squad, in which Abe served, was taken at the Royal Marines Depot at Exton in Devon.
It seems that the following month, June, the 11th Regiment was disbanded.
This concludes the account of Abe’s army service in the Middle East and the Far East. Now begins the account of his army service in Europe, for which we possess no photographs whatsoever. All we have are the entries in Abe’s Prayer Book for Jewish Sailors and Soldiers, and general information about the battalion in which he served.
The 27th Battalion of the Royal Marines
The 27th Battalion of the Royal Marines was formed at Dalditch on 24 August 1944. Dalditch Camp was a large training centre that existed between 1941 and 1946 on Woodbury Common, four miles north east of Exmouth in Devon.
In the run up to operation Overlord in June 1944, Dalditch camp served a vital role in preparation for the upcoming invasion. The camp had the facilities for a very varied and specialised weapons training, which included the many rifle ranges, PIAT (Projector Infantry Anti-Tank) range, a tank range, Lifebouy flame throwers, mortars, hand grenades, as well as training of hand to hand combat and Close Quarters Battle. These combat skills proved indispensible for an elite regiment as the Royal Marine Commandos.
At its height, Dalditch camp had around 8,000 troops stationed on site at any one time.
Dalditch training camp (pdf file).
The 27th was one of several army infantry battalions hastily raised from demustered Royal Marine landing craft crews, to meet the manpower crisis on the European Front. It trained in Devon and Scotland as a Beach Landing Battalion until December 1944. On 4 January 1945 it became part of the newly created 116th Infantry Brigade destined for service in the Far East. Only eleven days later on 15 January 1945 it was reorganized as an army rifle battalion, and the brigade repurposed to fight in Europe. In this way Abe who had been trained as an infantryman and retrained as a member of a landing crew, was transformed back into an infantryman again.
We know from Abe’s prayer book that in February he was already with the British Liberation Army (B.L.A.), which took him to France, Belgium and Holland, possibly in that order i.e. from south to north. The 116th Brigade, including the 27th Battalion, left the United Kingdom by troopship on 18 February 1945 and was at sea until 20 February. Abe’s troop must have landed somewhere in France, made its way to Antwerp where it was assigned to the 21st Army Group command, consisting primarily of the British Second Army and the Canadian First Army. The brigade arrived in time to play a part in a holding action on the lower Maas (Meuse), vital to the swift envelopment of the Dutch and North German ports by the two armies.
Since Abe does not mention Germany in his Prayer Book, we presume that he advanced no further north than Holland, and therefore did not take part in the 27th Battalion’s crossing of the Maas into Germany and the advance north towards the German naval ports of Wilhelmshaven, Emden, Brunsbüttel, and Cuxhaven.
Germany surrendered to the Allies on 7th May 1945. The 27th Battalion returned to the UK on 27–8 June, where it was based at Beacon Hill Camp near Falmouth in Cornwall. An entry in Abe’s prayer book places him at Beacon Hill on 20 October 1945. The Beacon Hill Camp provided groups of soldiers to work on nearby farms. Fresh fruit and vegetables were among the few foods not subject to rationing, although supplies were limited.
The battalion remained part of the 116th Infantry Brigade until 31 August 1945. After most of its members were demobilized, the 27th Battalion was repurposed as a training battalion.
An entry in Abe’s Prayer Book concludes this account.
It reads:
HOME AT LAST! 1946
126, Alexandra Rd
Edgbaston Bgham 5
For more information on the Royal Marines see: Royal Marines 1939-93 (pdf file).
The Battle Front in the Far East
Abraham Rose’s Family
Hyman Rose
View Hyman Rose's profile (opens in new window).
Hyman Rose, the third son of Rabbi Rose, like his cousin, Abe Grossman, also served in the Far East. He was called up to the Royal Air Force in 1943 and trained as a wireless operator. He saw service in both India and Burma.
To read Hyman’s story, see The Travels of Hyman Rose in WWII (opens in new window).
Epilogue
The Rose family was especially lucky in that none of the 45 grandchildren of Haya Leah and Isaac Jacob Rose died as a result of WWII. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of those Rose relatives who remained in Europe and died in the Holocaust.
All we know is that Isaac Jacob’s brother, Shimon Halevi Rosenof, moved to Warsaw and is said to have perished in one of the death camps, possibly Buchenwald, in 1945. Even though his three children managed to escape, his son to Argentina and his two daughters to Palestine, there must have been other members of the family who did not. Who they were and what happened to them, we shall probably never know.