Regimental Dance band’, 3rd County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters), on board HMT Orion, 1941 (b/w...

Regimental Dance band’, 3rd County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters), on board HMT Orion, 1941. Photograph by Major Wilfred Herbert James Sale (1913-1995), MC, 3rd County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters), World War Two (1939-1945), 1941. Captioned, ‘Ian Sloan. Jimmy Redhead. Bill Jackson. Bill Humphrey. Fred Grist. Arthur Aldred. Ray Foster. Gordon Tidey’. The ocean liner RMS Orion, launched in 1934, was requisitioned as a troopship in 1940. She transported troops to and from England, Egypt, New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore; she survived the war and was scrapped in 1963. According to the Sharpshooters’ war diary, 40 officers and 603 other ranks of the 3rd County of London Yeomanry embarked on the Orion at Avonmouth on 14 August 1941. The troopship sailed for Egypt the next day. British forces travelling to Egypt avoided the Mediterranean Sea because of the threat from German and Italian forces. The Orion’s route included Freetown in Sierra Leone, Cape Town in South Africa, Aden and then up to Port Said in Egypt via the Suez Canal. From an album containing 229 group photographs compiled by Major W H J Sale, MC, 3rd/4th County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters), 1941.