Recruits needed for the 'NER pioneers'
Appeal for recruits for the 'NER Pioneers' Battalion
NER Pioneers
Recruits Needed For The Reserve Battalions
An appeal for recruits for the 17th Service Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers (NER Pioneers) and the 32nd Reserve Battalion has just been issued in attractive form. The appeal is comprised in a well-illustrated booklet, giving a history of the battalion, and showing photographs of the many phrases of the work accomplished during the period of training. As is well-known the 17th Battalion recently left for service in the field, and it is necessary that the Reserve Battalion should be at full strength in order to fill up the gaps which may be caused in the 17th.
The two battalions are the only units in the Army exclusively recruited from the staff of one railway company, and it is hoped that this individually may be maintained. As is pointed out in the booklet it can only be done by the men of the NER filling up the ranks of the Reserve Battalion.
Col. Pears, the commander of the 17th Battalion, in the course of a letter to the NER staff on the eve of the departure of the battalions, says:-
“With the exception of a very few months at the beginning of the war, I have had the honour to command the 17th Northumberland Fusiliers during the whole of its existence, and am proud to be able to say that no call upon the capabilities or endurance of non-commissioned officers and men has as yet been made by our superior officers that has not justified their confidence in the keenness and fine physique of the battalion.
All of us in the 17th are proud of our record so far, and when the North-Eastern Railway can spare them, we know that there are plenty of good men to fill the gaps which will have to be filled before many months are out. We want those North-Eastern Railwaymen to join the 32nd Reserve Battalion and back us up. As long as the 32nd can provide for the 17th we will be able to keep the old strain in the battalion, but if the 32nd and the North-Eastern Railwaymen fail us, we will be reinforced not by our old friends but by strangers, or, what is worse, the 17th may lose its identity.
“I therefore make an appeal which, had my duties allowed, I would like to have made personally, to all N.E.R. men who are of military age and can be spared to enlist for immediate service in the 32nd Reserve Battalion now stationed at Ripon, and, to all who cannot at present be spared, to enrol for that battalion to be called up later under Lord Derby’s scheme.
“Owing to the imperative call for munition workers, which to our great disappointment has deprived us of many of our best men I have already been obliged to draw upon the Reserve Battalion on whom we depend for our drafts.
“Before very long the wastage of war will involve my calling upon it to supply further drafts, and we feel sure that N.E.R. men will see that the call is not in vain. The 17th have had a long and severe training, but I am proud to say that they have invariably had the very best reports from inspecting officers, and I am confident that on service as in training they will hold their own in any company. We feel now that we can outmarch or outfight anyone, but we want our old mates on the NER to back us up and keep our ranks full of NER men – we want no one else. Will YOU see that we get the men we want to fight side by side with us?”
Date: 2-Dec-1915
Author: Auckland Chronicle
Reference: D/WP 4/38 Microfilm Reference M61/37
Where to find this: Durham County Record Office
Contributed by Fiona Johnson - Durham
