News of the Day
November 21st. The Cambridgeshire Regiment was featured in articles in the Cambridge News on this day in both 1950 and 1963 1950 11 21 A memorial to the 343 officers and men of the 1st Battalion, the Cambridgeshire Regiment, who died in the Far East was unveiled in the parish church of Stockingford near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, on Remembrance Day. The ceremony was attended by representatives of the Battalion. The visit rekindled memories of a warm May afternoon in 1941 when at the end of a nine-hour march, they entered the gates of Arbury Park and of the happy time they had there before setting out on active service. No one who was serving will ever forget the kind hospitality of the people of Stockingford and the memorial would remain to the 343 officers and men who did not return. |
Then in 1963:
The famous Singapore drums of the Cambridgeshire Regiment which were hidden from the Japanese when the Regiment was captured in 1942 and recovered when the war ended in the Far East in 1945, are to be sold to raise funds to re-equip the Corps of Drums of the Suffolk and Cambridgeshire Regiment T.A. One will be placed in the regimental museum and two reconditioned to be used by the Corps of Drums. The Old Comrades Association is purchasing two side drums to present to the Cadet battalions. 63 11 21 The story of the discovery of the drum was reported in the CDN on 9th March 1946. They had been lost at the fall of Singapore on 2nd February 1942 and found four years later by a Red Cross Welfare Officer, Miss Mary Taylor, while on a picnic She recognised their significance and arranged for the drums to be shipped to Cambridge where her father handed them over to Major K.S. Few at the Drill Hall, East Road. The drums, fully emblazoned with the Regimental Honours won in the South African and 1914-1918 wars were then placed on display in the windows of Joshua Taylor's shop in Market Street. They had arrived just in time to be reunited with the Regiment's survivors when they received the Honorary Freedom of Cambridge in September that year - see picture |