GENERAL INFORMATION ON THE HOME GUARD  - PAPERWORK   

 PAPERWORK
from the
54th KENT BATTALION
1940 - 1942

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Surviving records of the 54th Kent Battalion, KT 54, based at Chislehurst, throw a little light on the sort of documentation which flowed in increasing volume within units of the Battalion and hundreds like it.


First the file copy of a letter from the C.O. of "C" Coy, Major Howard Roberts, M.C. (Howard Roberts was a banker in the City; he had served in the Great War with considerable bravery). Here he is in the letter below, in the desperate days of summer 1940, making detailed arrangements for his Company and at the same time worrying about a lost uniform.

At the beginning of March 1941 other considerations are starting to dominate his thinking:

On 31st October 1941, cash is withdrawn from the Battalion's account for purposes unknown:

In October 1942 the basis on which "C" Coy. are tenants of part of Scadbury House requires a little tightening up; a set of Standing Orders is drafted and, presumably, issued:

Company Orders No. 83 of 26th November 1942 making reference to all sorts of activities
- and to yet more paperwork:

The author of much of the above, Major Howard Withers Roberts, M.C., earned his award in 1916 as a Temp. 2/Lt. in the Royal Fusiliers for bravery on the Somme. His citation reads:

For conspicuous gallantry in action. He fought his mortars from a very exposed position, and repeatedly crossed fire-swept ground in order to keep touch with the battalion with which he was working. During the next two days he tended the wounded and with another officer carried many of them to safety. All this was done under heavy shell-fire.
(Source: London Gazette)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Grateful acknowledgement is made to Mick Ackrill, the owner of the original images who has kindly made copies available to staffshomeguard and permitted their publication.

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