Recruitment poster for the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light printed by Gale and Polden Limited of Aldershot in 1920.
Known affectionately to generations of soldiers as ‘The Ox and Bucks’, the regiment combined the histories of two distinguished light infantry regiments from very different geographical locations. In 1741 the 43rd was raised as Thomas Fowke’s Regiment of Foot, becoming the 43rd (Monmouthshire Foot) in 1782, while the 52nd was raised in 1755 and was later associated with the county of Oxfordshire. Both received the Light Infantry title in 1803 as a result of being chosen to join the newly formed Light Infantry Brigade, an elite formation which also included the 95th, later The Rifle Brigade. Its commander was Major General Sir John Moore of the 52nd who was regarded by his contemporaries as ‘the very best trainer of troops that England has ever possessed’. He was mortally wounded during the retreat to Corunna in 1809 and his last words were an appeal to posterity: ‘I hope the people of England will be satisfied! I hope my country will do me justice!’
During the fighting in the Peninsula against the army of Napoleon, light infantry regiments came into their own as skirmishers and sharpshooters and, with their smart green uniforms and bugle horn cap badges, the ‘light bobs’ (as they were known) were exceptionally proud of their reputations. From the outset the 43rd and the 52nd enjoyed a close relationship, one observer noting that the soldiers of the 52nd were ‘highly gentlemanly men, of steady aspect; they mixed little with other corps, but attended the theatricals of the 43rd with circumspect good humour, and now and then relaxed’.
Recruitment poster for the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light printed by Gale and Polden Limited of Aldershot in 1920.
At the time of Waterloo the 43rd was part of an expeditionary force sent to North America and took part in the disastrous Battle of New Orleans before returning to Europe. It therefore missed the heroic attack of the 52nd during the closing stages of Waterloo when it came to the aid of the Grenadier Guards by enfilading the 4th Chasseurs and pursuing French forces across the field. A watching ensign, William Leeke, later wrote a history of Waterloo and believed that this was the pivotal moment in the battle: ‘The author claims for Lord Seaton [Sir John Colburn, the commanding officer] and the 52nd the honour of having defeated, single-handed, without the assistance of the 1st British Guards or any other troops, that portion of the Imperial Guard of France, about 10,000 in number, which advanced to make the last attack on the British position.’
After the two regiments amalgamated in 1881 to form the 1st and 2nd Battalions of The Oxfordshire Light Infantry it was only natural that neighbouring Buckinghamshire should be added to the title twenty-seven years later in recognition of the volunteer battalions within the county. Their records and archives are housed in the Buckinghamshire Military Museum at the Old Gaol Museum in Buckingham. However, the new regiment’s depot was at Cowley Barracks at Headington in Oxford. These closed in 1959 and the site was used as the headquarters of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation which was responsible for providing the famous ‘four-minute warning’ in the case of imminent nuclear attack during the Cold War. Today it forms part of the site of Oxford Brookes University.
The officers of the 52nd (Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire) Light Infantry and reception committee on the occasion of the battalion’s visit to Chipping Norton on 27 September 1913.
Given the regiment’s hinterland it is not surprising that many of its soldiers enjoyed close links with academia. Among the most notable were the leading oarsman Frank Willan, the Vice-Chancellor (1958-60) of the University of Oxford, T. S. R. Boase, and the radical historian Christopher Hill. Of these Willan rowed in the winning Oxford eight for four successive years between 1866 and 1869 and at well over seventy was still employed driving army lorries in France during the First World War. Boase was awarded a Military Cross while serving in the regiment on the Western Front and went on to become director of the Courtauld Institute before serving as a code-breaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. An outstanding historian of seventeenth-century Britain, Hill became disenchanted with the Communist Party in the late 1950s and eventually became Master of Balliol College. Other notable Ox and Bucks Light Infantrymen include the actor and director Lionel Jeffries, who directed the highly popular film The Railway Children (1970), and General Sir Bernard Paget, Commander-in-Chief of Middle East Command in the final years of the Second World War.
As with all regiments of the British Army, the Ox and Bucks expanded dramatically during the First World War, raising seventeen battalions for service, and it was one of the few infantry regiments to serve on most of the main battlefronts – France and Flanders, Italy, Salonika and Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). During the Second World War the 2nd Battalion fought in an air-landing role and June 1944 played a vital part in the D-Day landings by capturing the bridges over the River Orne and the Caen Canal on the first night of the operation. Led by Major John Howard, D Company was flown in by gliders towed by Halifax bombers and after a fierce fire fight seized their objectives. Although Lieutenant Den Brotheridge was mortally wounded during the attack, thereby becoming the first Allied casualty of D-Day, the operation was a stunning success and later the two bridges were renamed Pegasus Bridge, in honour of the airborne forces, and Horsa Bridge, after the gliders which flew in the airborne light infantrymen. In the film The Longest Day, based on a history of the operation by Cornelius Ryan, the part of Major Howard was played by the distinguished British actor Richard Todd who had actually served in 7th Parachute Battalion, which reinforced D Company’s coup de main. Later in the invasion of Europe, 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry again operated in the air-landing role during the Rhine crossings where they suffered heavy casualties – all told, the battalion lost 1408 officers and men in the course of the conflict. The 1st Battalion also took part in the invasions of Europe and the other Ox and Bucks battalions involved in the fighting were the 6th Battalion, which was engaged in the fighting against the Japanese in Burma, and the 7th Battalion, which fought in North Africa and Italy.
Throughout the regiment’s history the Ox and Bucks enjoyed many distinctions that marked them out as an elite force. In common with all rifle regiments they did not carry Colours and used the bugle instead of the drum to transmit orders; and instead of wearing a leather Sam Browne belt across the right shoulder, officers wore two straps crossed in the middle of the back and running straight down the front from shoulder to shoulder. The regiment’s archives and records are held by the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum at Woodstock within the grounds of the Oxfordshire Museum.
On 7 November 1958 the regiment became the 1st Battalion of The Green Jackets and moved to Peninsula Barracks in Winchester. This was followed by further change in 1966 when it became the 1st Battalion of the newly formed three-battalion Royal Green Jackets regiment. In 1992 1st Battalion Royal Green Jackets was disbanded but the traditions and historical lineage of the Ox and Bucks have been maintained by The Rifles which came into being in 2007 through the amalgamation of the army’s light infantry and rifle regiments. The last ever Royal Green Jackets unit was the London Oratory School Combined Cadet Force which was rebadged as Irish Guards in 2010.
Carried on the Regimental Colour
Quebec 1759, Martinique 1762, Havannah, Mysore, Hindoostan, Martinique 1794, Vimiera, Corunna, Busaco, Fuentes d’Onor, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Orthes, Toulouse, Peninsula, Waterloo, South Africa 1851–2–3, Delhi 1857, New Zealand, Relief of Kimberley, Paardeberg, South Africa 1900–02
Mons, Retreat from Mons, Marne 1914, Aisne 1914, Ypres 1914, 17, Langemarck 1914, 17, Gheluvelt, Nonne Bosschen, Aubers, Festubert 1915, Hooge 1915, Loos, Mount Sorrel, Somme 1916, 18, Albert 1916, 18, Bazentin, Delville Wood, Poziéres, Guillemont, Flers-Courcelette, Morval, Le Transloy, Ancre Heights, Ancre 1916, Bapaume 1917, 18, Arras 1917, Vimy 1917, Scarpe 1917, Arleux, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Poelcapelle, Passchendaele, Cambrai 1917, 18, St Quentin, Rosiéres, Avre, Lys, Hazebrouck, Béthune, Hindenburg Line, Havrincort, Canal du Nord, Selle, Valenciennes, France and Flanders 1914–18, Piave, Vittorio Veneto, Italy 1917–18, Doiran 1917, 18, Macedonia 1915–18, Kut-al-Amara, Ctesiphon, Defence of Kut-al-Amara, Tigris 1916, Khan Baghdadi, Mesopotamia 1914–18, Archangel 1919
Those in bold carried on the Queen’s Colour
Defence of Escaut, Cassel, Ypres-Comines-Canal, Normandy Landing, Pegasus Bridge, Caen, Esquay, Lower Maas, Ourthe, Rhineland, Reichswald, Rhine, Ibbenbüren, North-West Europe 1940, 44–45, Enfidaville, North Africa 1943, Salerno, St Lucia, Salerno Hills, Teano, Monte Camino, Garigliano Crossing, Damiano, Anzio, Coriano, Gemmano Ridge, Italy 1943–45, Arakan Beaches, Tamandu, Burma 1943–45
Company Sergeant Major Edward Brooks, 2/4th Battalion, First World War, 1917
Lance Corporal Alfred Wilcox, 2/4th Battalion, First World War, 1918
