Barry Parkes
during parachute training.
Cap Badge of the
Raiding Support Regiment
No 4 Parachute Training School 1944
No. 3 Parachute Training Course
1.8.44 to 9.8.44
Barry is first on the left.
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853885 Sergeant. Robert "Barry" Parkes BEM
Royal Artillery,
Raiding Support Regiment
Raiding Forces.
Leaving school at the early age of 14, Robert Parkes enlisted in the 2nd Boys' Battery RA.
On Completion of his boys training he was posted to 10th. Field Brigade (still not quite 16 years old) where he was a trumpeter and also acted as an orderly and messenger for the Battery Sgt. Major and the Battery Office.
He was also classified as a signaller whilst serving with this unit.
On reaching 18 years of age he was posted to the Military College of science. From there he was posted to number 17 Prisoner of War Camp and was then posted to POW Voyage Guard.
In May 1942 he was posted to 146th Field Regiment and three weeks later the Regiment embarked at Liverpool and disembarked at Durban, South Africa.
The Regiment then left Durban for the Middle East in August 1942.
In September 1942 he was posted to 95th Anti-Tank Regiment (8th Army), which took part in the follow up after the battle of El-Alamein.
Two months after this he was posted to 105th. Anti-Tank Regiment which made its way north through the desert ending up in Italy in September 1943.
It was from Italy in the spring of 1944 that Sgt. Parkes volunteered to join the Raiding Support Regiment of Special Forces.
The first three months with the unit consisted of tough physical training, endurance marches, weapons training, demolition's training etc. and culminated with parachute training at No.4 Parachute Training School, Italy in August 1944.
He saw action with the RSR (and resistance fighters) in the Adriatic Islands and Greece.
His final action with the Unit was during the Greek Civil War (December 1944-January 1945) when his RSR detachment was attached to 2nd Independent Parachute Brigade and was involved in bitter street fighting and house clearance.
On the 4th January 1945 the RSR spearheaded (for the second time) a big attack by 4 Para and during this attack Sgt. Parkes was injured and evacuated to 83rd Field Ambulance.
In the spring of 1945 (whilst still a member of the RSR) he was sent on attachment to an artillery training depot and then to 2 Commando Brigade Training Wing.
Sgt. Parkes returned to the UK in February 1946 and then saw service with a further two Royal Artillery units before leaving the army after more than 13 years service.
His first job after the army was at a ministry of supply workshop and after several years he left to go and work at A and AEE Boscombe Down as an industrial storeman.
22 years later he was responsible for the entire stores organisation at Boscombe Down which employed nearly 200 people and his services there were recognised with the award of the British Empire Medal.
He completed 34 years service at Boscombe Down and sadly died in April 1991.
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