Edward Rankine
He completed Officer Cadet Training Unit training on 2 November 1940 and gained an Emergency Commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the King’s Own Royal Regiment (KORR) (Lancaster). (London Gazette Supplement: 19 November 1940). He was posted to the newly raised 7th Battalion KORR on 5.12.1940.
The Battalion stayed in the UK until being posted overseas on 5 January 1942 serving at Gibraltar where he was promoted to Lieutenant on 2 May 1942. They stayed there until November when they went to South Africa until March 1943 and from there to India. He was appointed Acting Captain on 1 August 1943 and Temporary Captain on 1 November 1943.
On 1 July 1944 he transferred to the King’s African Rifles as a Lieutenant as part of the 21st, 25th & 26th Brigade’s, 11th (East Africa) Division of the 14th Army then in Burma. He was again appointed Temporary Captain on 12 April 1945. At the end of his War Service he retired as an Honorary Captain in August 1946.
On 2 January 1947 he obtained another Emergency Commission in the 380th Anti-Tank Regiment Royal Artillery (King’s Own), formally the 4th (Territorial Army) Battalion. KORR with Headquarters at Ulverston as a Lieutenant. He was promoted to Captain on 5 August 1949. (London Gazette Supplement 15 November 1949).
On 19 March 1951 he obtained a Short Service Commission in the 1st Battalion KORR as Captain (London Gazette Supplement 17 August 1951) then at Carlisle and was soon attached to the 1st Battalion the Manchester Regiment as their Motor Transport Officer in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency.
The 1st Battalion Manchester Regiment arrived in Singapore form Berlin on 28 June 1951 and spent a month in Jungle Training. On 29 July 1951 they moved off to their various stations in Malaya. The Headquarter Company, which he was part of, were stationed at Minden barracks, Penang Island.
In February 1952 he returned to the 1st Battalion KORR & spent two years at Osnabruck, Germany as part of the British Army of the Rhine. He was removed from the Active List on 23 April 1954 (London Gazette Supplement 23 April 1954) & transferred to the Class III of the Regular Army Reserve of Officers on 19 March 1959.
He gained the 1939 Star, Burma Star, Defence Medal, War Medal, General Service Medal with clap “Malaya” with his unit shown as the Manchester Regiment.
His name appears 3 times in the book, “Jungle Bashers” by Capt. Robert Bonner, who knew him personally and who described him as a very nice chap who got on with everyone. In the KORR Museum, he appears in two photographs of 7th Battalion KORR Officers at Bambridge, County Down, Northern Ireland, 1941. (KO0679/52 and KO0662/01).
By Mr Simon Butterworth