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MEMORIES AND INFORMATION -  COUNTIES (A-E and F-L)  THE DENBIGHSHIRE and FLINTSHIRE BATTALIONS

  

(click on image to view magnified version)

The old counties of Denbighshire and Flintshire in north-eastern North Wales, later in the 20th century part of the now "preserved county" of Clwyd,  were defended by eleven different Home Guard battalions, all part of Western Command.  They are listed below.

The boundaries of these battalions cannot be confirmed because no contemporary HG maps of territories seem yet to have surfaced.  But the area of responsibility of each will have been defined in part by the coast; and by the old county boundaries which existed before the later reorganisation and divided the counties from adjoining Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire and, across the border, the English counties of Cheshire and Shropshire. Within the counties of Denbighshire and Flintshire as a whole and within individual battalions, boundaries will have mirrored the local authority areas of the time.

Whilst Denbighshire and Flintshire were separate counties in the 1940s, the local Home Guard Battalions were closely linked under one command - from 1941 in the Denbigh and Flint Group of Zone 3, North Wales Area; and by 1944 in various Sectors of the Cambrian Sub District of the Mid West District of Western Command.

These are the battalions in 1944, their HQ location and their Commanding Officers in late 1944 (and in 1941 if different or applicable):

1st Denbighshire Battalion - Colwyn Bay - Lt.-Col. R. Swayne, M.C. (originally Lt.-Col. T. South) 2nd Denbighshire Battalion - Denbigh - Lt.-Col. J. R. Williams (originally Lt.-Col. R. C. Lloyd, D.S.O., M.C., T.D.) 3rd Flintshire Battalion - Rhyl - Lt.-Col. G. H. Young (originally Lt.-Col. G. E. Hamelryk, O.B.E.)    Within this Battalion, the Holywell Home Guard: "D" Coy. 4th Flintshire Battalion - Mold - Lt.-Col. J. W. J. Elliott 5th Flintshire Battalion - Hawarden - Lt.-Col. J. MacCallum, O.B.E., M.M. 6th Denbighshire Battalion - Wrexham - Lt.-Col. J. Rankin (originally Lt.-Col. R. Roberts, O.B.E.) 7th Den/Flint Battalion - Overton-on-Dee - Lt.-Col. Sir G. W. Edward Hanmer, Bt. 8th Denbighshire Battalion - Chirk - Lt.-Col. The Lord Howard de Walden, T.D. 9th Denbighshire Battalion - Ruthin - Lt.-Col. W. Roberts (originally Lt.-Col. G. E. Roberts) 10th Denbighshire (ROF) Battalion - Marchwiel - Lt.-Col. R. G. Fenwick-Palmer 11th Denbighshire (Ministry of Food) Battalion - Colwyn Bay - Lt.-Col. L. F. C. MacLean N.B. Designations in 1941 had been identical, except that: - 9th Denbighshire Battalion was then called the 9th Flintshire - 10th and 11th Battalions had not been created at that stage

BATTALION INFORMATION

(AVAILABLE WITHIN THIS WEBSITE)

3rd Flintshire Battalion - Rhyl and area
Further information about this Battalion, in particular "D" Coy., the Holywell Home Guard, is available on this page of this website.

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9th Denbighshire Battalion - Ruthin and area
Below is an excellent, fully captioned image of the Battalion officers, taken in June 1944 at Pwllglas Camp. (Click on it for a greatly magnified view).

Surnames of men who appear on it include Bacon, Bullock, Butland, Edwards, Gillow, Godsall, Griffiths, Harrison, Hawkins, Hill, Hughes, Kellett, Johnson, Jones, Owen, Nicholson, Rathbone, Roberts, Ryder, Sanders, Smith, Stacey, Thomas, Thompson, Thorp, Wight, Williams, Winrow, Yeoward.


Click on image for magnified view


FURTHER BATTALION INFORMATION
(AVAILABLE ELSEWHERE)

Published information about the Home Guard in Denbighshire and Flintshire is sparse and not all of it easily accessible. The only battalion histories known to staffshomeguard are:

- "Bureaucrats in Battledress: A History of the Ministry of Food Home Guard" (Conway, 1945, H Smith; reprinted by Naval & Military Press in recent years)
- "A Record of Service, No. 1 Battalion (Denbighshire) Home Guard" (Conway, 1943, J R Williams)
- "7th Denbighshire Flint Home Guard" (3pp, held by IWM)
- "Third Battalion Flintshire Home Guard" (ca. 1945, held by the IWM and probably elsewhere).

There is some information available online about the Denbighshire/Flintshire Home Guard and determined googling will uncover it. Below are a few of the relevant website pages with links (kindly provided by Will Andrew Ward); these include images of local Home Guard units and individuals, with a particular emphasis on Rhyl (these were all active in January 2022):

   https://rhylhistoryclub.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/look-duck-and-vanish/
   https://rhylhistoryclub.wordpress.com/2016/06/05/more-on-the-home-guard/
   http://rhyl-life.blogspot.com/2017/09/echoes-of-world-war-2.html?m=1
   https://www.flintshirewarmemorials.com/memorials/northophall-war-memorial/northophall-home-page-ww2/
   and.....
   Rhyl History Club Facebook Page