(click on image to view magnified version)

The old county of Caernarvonshire in north-western North Wales, later in the 20th century part of Gwynedd,  was defended by five different Home Guard battalions, all part of Western Command. 


These were the five Caernarvonshire Battalions:

CONWAY 1st Caernarvonshire (Conway) Battalion (commanded in 1941 by Lt.-Col. J.R. Shennan, M.C. and later by Lt.-Col. F.H. Taylor) BANGOR 2nd Caernarvonshire  (Bangor) Battalion (Lt.-Col. H.G. Carter, M.C.) CAERNARVON 3rd Caernarvonshire (Caernarvon) Battalion (Lt.-Col. T.G.W. Parry) CRICIETH 4th Caernarvonshire (Cricieth) Battalion (Lt.-Col. C.S.S. Curteis, C.M.G., D.S.O. and later Lt.-Col. R.C O'Farrell, M.C.) LLANDUDNO 5th Caernarvonshire (Llandudno) Battalion (Lt.-Col. A. Hewitt and later Lt.-Col. W.H. Lester, O.B.E.)

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 county from adjoining Denbighshire and Merionethshire. (Across the Menai Strait, Anglesey had its own three separate battalions). Within the county of Caernarvonshire as a whole and within individual battalions, boundaries will have mirrored the local authority areas of the time.

Here is a lookout point in the Ogwen Valley, manned (in 2021) by local HG historian and reenactor, Morgan Owen.


 (click on image to view magnified version)

Magnified versions of images shown within this section can be viewed here.

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The Caernarvonshire Home Guard is being actively researched by a local Home Guard historian and it is hoped that further information about these battalions will be available in due course. Both he and Staffshomeguard would welcome further information about the  Caernarvonshire Home Guard and its members so that the memory of these men can be further perpetuated. Please use this FEEDBACK link.

GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
is made to the sources of some information on this page: "Home Guard List" by Jon Mills and "Stand Down" by L. B. Whittaker (1990); and to Morgan Owen.
Snowdonia image © Morgan Owen 2022