Researching the Royal Berkshire Regiment in WWII

The Royal Berkshire Regiment presents researchers with a particularly clear geographical split: the same regimental badge could belong to a soldier whose war was spent in Asia or to one whose experience was firmly rooted in continental Europe. This page explores that East–West divide and why it is so useful when trying to turn scattered family evidence into a plausible service story. It looks at the Royal Berks’ established county identity and the persistence of its traditional recruiting connections as the Army’s system for supplying manpower became less locally focused, while also examining what the regiment’s Army numbering can reveal about men who entered its ranks before and during the conflict. The European side of the story brings its own complication, with Royal Berkshire soldiers appearing on the continent during two widely separated periods, making undated references to France particularly easy to misinterpret. The eastern story leads instead towards India and the fighting against Japan, producing a completely different trail of records, photographs, locations and family memories. Campaign medals can provide an important bridge between these two worlds, while the regiment’s casualty figures offer context for the human cost shared across them. Above all, the Royal Berks demonstrate why a regimental identification is sometimes only the first answer: the crucial next question is whether the soldier’s story leads east or west.

Royal Berkshire Regiment Service Numbers

For anyone researching a soldier of the Royal Berkshire Regiment, the Army number can provide one of the strongest initial clues that his military career began with the regiment. Men enlisted directly into the Royal Berks were generally issued numbers within the block 5328001–5373000, creating a clearly defined range against which an otherwise unexplained seven-digit Army number can be checked. This can be particularly valuable when very little personal evidence has survived: perhaps a number appears on the reverse of a photograph, in a wartime letter, on an identity disc, within medal paperwork or among miscellaneous family documents. Establishing that the number falls within the Royal Berkshire allocation immediately gives the researcher a regimental starting point from which other evidence can be investigated. It does not identify the soldier’s battalion, determine where he served or prove that he remained with the Royal Berks throughout the war, as transfers could take men into other units and regiments. Nevertheless, the 5328001–5373000 allocation provides a valuable first anchor, particularly because the subsequent experiences of Royal Berkshire soldiers could diverge in dramatically different geographical directions.

East or West – Two Radically Different Wars

The wartime experience of the Royal Berkshire Regiment divides particularly strikingly between East and West, creating two broad operational stories that could scarcely have been further apart. In Asia, Royal Berkshire soldiers served in India and Burma, experiencing a war fought thousands of miles from the regiment’s traditional home and in conditions entirely different from those encountered in Europe. Other elements of the regiment followed the western route, serving with the British Expeditionary Force during the early stages of the conflict and later participating in the campaigns across North-West Europe during 1944–45. This sharp geographical division makes the regiment particularly interesting for family historians because simply discovering that an ancestor was a Royal Berkshire soldier leaves two fundamentally different possibilities. A reference to India or Burma directs research towards the regiment’s eastern history, while evidence from France, Belgium or the Netherlands may belong to its European story. Even the latter requires further interpretation, because continental service could relate either to the BEF or to the return to North-West Europe several years later. Identifying whether a soldier belonged to the eastern or western strand of Royal Berkshire service is therefore one of the most important steps towards reconstructing his individual wartime experience.

Campaign Medals Can Help Separate East from West

The potential campaign medals associated with the Royal Berkshire Regiment provide a particularly clear reflection of this geographical divide. Depending upon a soldier’s battalion, dates and qualifying theatre of service, he might have received the Burma Star, pointing towards the regiment’s eastern campaigns, or the France and Germany Star, associated with qualifying service during the later campaign in North-West Europe. Royal Berkshire soldiers might also have qualified for the 1939–45 Star, Defence Medal and War Medal 1939–45, subject to the appropriate service requirements. For researchers fortunate enough to possess an original medal group, this can provide an important additional layer of evidence. A Burma Star can immediately shift attention towards India and Burma, while a France and Germany Star places the investigation firmly within the regiment’s western wartime story. The absence of either should not automatically be used to rule out particular service without examining the qualifying criteria and whether the complete medal group survives. Taken alongside an Army number within 5328001–5373000, photographs, dates, locations and other family evidence, however, medals can help transform a broad Royal Berkshire identification into a much more focused understanding of whether a soldier’s war was fought in the jungles and frontier regions of Asia or on the battlefields of North-West Europe.

Explore similar units:

1. Ox & Bucks LI: A neighbouring infantry unit from WWII
2. Gloucestershire Regiment: A regional regiment with similar size and history
3. Hampshire Regiment: A nearby infantry regiment with a similar wartime role

Click here to explore similar infantry regiments in the main WWII Regiment & Corps Library.