565th Army Troops Company, Royal Engineers [formerly 1st Wiltshire Fortress Company (TF) Swindon]

565th Army Troops Company, Royal Engineers [formerly 1st Wiltshire Fortress Company (TF) Swindon]

The 1st Wiltshire Fortress Company of the Royal Engineers was a Territorial Force unit whose officers and men were recruited almost entirely from the Great Western Railway Works at Swindon. At the outbreak of war they were taking part in their annual training at Fort Purbrook, Portsmouth and were immediately mobilised and sent to Weymouth to work on strengthening the defences around Portland. More soldiers joined the Company from among the Swindon railwaymen who enlisted at the outbreak of the war and a few were also recruited from the Weymouth area. With the aid of a large number of Infantry units, the works at Portland were completed in November and early in 1915 the Company was dispatched to France, where it was renumbered as 565th Army Troops Company, RE, and remained until the end of the War. The officers of the unit in 1914/15 were Major Frederick George Wright, Captain Cyril Spencer Wilson, Lieutenants John Dawson, Septimus Edward Tyrwhitt, David Williams and George Ernest Crisford Knapp, all engineers from the Railway Works. Henry C Rodda was the Company Sergeant Major, and was later commissioned as Lieutenant in the same Company. Wilson, Dawson and Rodda were each awarded the Military Cross for exemplary action during the war in France. In 1917, the men of 565 AT Coy RE (ex Wiltshire Fortress) received new service numbers, starting at 520001, a useful way of identifying them among the hundreds of thousands of RE men. The Company's darkest day was 18 September 1918, when a lieutenant and seven sappers were killed and 22 wounded (two of the wounded died the following day), in a German attack on the construction of a 300 foot long vehicle ramp down the face of a retaining wall of the Canal du Nord at Ruyualcourt. There is a good account of the Company's role during WW1 in Chapter 7 of Sandra Gittin's book "The Great Western Railway in the First World War".

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    Born 1893

    Died 1918

    British Army T143 Sapper Royal Engineers

    British Army 520034 Sapper Royal Engineers Wiltshire (Fortress) Company

  • Born 1891

    Died 1978

    British Army T139 Corporal Royal Engineers

    British Army 520031 Corporal Royal Engineers Wiltshire (Fortress) Company

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    British Army 520281 Sapper Royal Engineers

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    British Army 291 Sapper Royal Engineers

    British Army 520143 Sapper Royal Engineers Wiltshire (Fortress) Company

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    Born 1897

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    British Army 344 Sapper Royal Engineers

    British Army 520187 Sapper Royal Engineers Wiltshire (Fortress) Company

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    British Army 520287 Sapper Royal Engineers Wiltshire (Fortress) Company

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    British Army 230067 Sapper Royal Engineers

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    British Army 182 Sapper Royal Engineers

    British Army 520065 Sapper Royal Engineers

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    British Army 520273 Corporal Royal Engineers Wiltshire (Fortress) Company

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    British Army 281 Sapper Royal Engineers

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    Died 1973

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    British Army 151 Acting Serjeant Royal Engineers

    British Army 528983 Private Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry

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    Died 1966

    British Army 141 Sapper Royal Engineers

    British Army 520032 Sapper Royal Engineers

    520032

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    Died 1951

    British Army 171 Sapper Royal Engineers Wiltshire (Fortress) Company

    British Army 2200096 Sergeant Royal Engineers

    British Army 520057 Sergeant Royal Engineers Wiltshire (Fortress) Company

  • Born 1895

    British Army 145 Sapper Royal Engineers

    British Army 520036 Sapper Royal Engineers

    British Army 520036 Acting Corporal Royal Engineers Wiltshire (Fortress) Company

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    British Army 520002 Company Serjeant Major Royal Engineers

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    British Army 168 Sapper Royal Engineers

    British Army 520054 Sapper Royal Engineers Wiltshire (Fortress) Company

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    British Army T320 Sapper Royal Engineers

    British Army 520167 Sapper Royal Engineers Wiltshire (Fortress) Company

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