Dear Sergeant (WWII British despatch rider training)
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- Опубликовано: 19 дек 2021
- The film opens in the winter when the soldiers arrive by train at Wentworth Station. They carry with them their kit bags. Once at the Hall, they march across the yard. The next morning as a soldier plays Reveille on the bugle, the Hall grounds can be seen with deer and the main part of the Hall in the distance. Some soldiers make their way over to the washroom, and a cat is outside washing itself.
‘After breakfast they do their best to make us look more like motor-cyclists’
The soldiers are lined up outside for inspection and all wear motorcycle helmets, long waterproof coats. They then march off.
‘After the initial lecture on do’s and don’ts we get down to business’
Soldiers wheel out their motorcycles, and some start riding around the Hall grounds. The season has changed as now the trees can be seen in full bloom. A group gather around an instructor who goes through the various parts of the motorcycle. They then practice kick starting their motorcycles, and one soldier nearly falls over. While riding around the track, the instructors look on. Many of the soldiers are struggling, and one falls off his bike.
‘A section is soon promoted to the gear-changing track’.
They continue their training going over the grass and gaining in confidence. A group of them line up their bikes on their stands and march off.
The film shows the crest of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute (NAAFI). They next practice slaloms, using sticks stuck into the ground.
‘Eventually we take to the road!!’
Near a village, a road sign shows a major road ahead and a sign for a school. Various other road signs are shown in close up. The riders emerge onto a road where they are overtaken by a truck carrying coal. The instructor brings them to a stop in Cortworth Lane, and after an initial jumble, they are taught to line up against the curb.
‘The correct convoy distance of twenty feet feels very short at first’
The motorcyclists ride in convoy along a country road when one of the bikes has some difficulties and comes to a stop on the B 6090 Angel Lane. The others wait on Packman Road, whilst the instructor goes back and makes an adjustment to the bike and gets it going again.
‘The other had lagged behind and then tried to catch up!’
A motorcyclist and his bike have crashed in a ditch on the side of a road. Again the instructor returns to find out why they are having trouble. The rider gets up, a bit groggy, and the instructor pulls his bike out. The convoy continues on its way. They practice a sharp turn from the B6089 into America Lane
‘And so we live and learn’
The soldiers have a break in a café called Fieldsends before continuing on. The instructor shows them how to stop and start on a steep slope using the throttle and clutch, and they then each in turn practice doing this. A truck drives past carrying milk urns.
‘In time the convoy speeds up, and meet problems of weather and traffic with growing confidence’
Outside in the winter with a snow-covered ground, the riders are lined up trying to kick start their bikes. They ride through College Street, Rotherham, then one rider has trouble kick starting his bike. An instructor impressively fires the motorcycle up with a running start. They then navigate a roundabout at the junction of Eldon Street and Market Place, Barnsley
‘Early days on the “rough’’’
A group are shown how to ride while standing up on the pedals. They then practice over rough terrain, and one rider ends up in a bush. They are then shown how to turn around on a grassy hill by getting off the bike and using the brakes. They practice going through very muddy terrain before being allowed time for a smoking break.
‘By the time we graduate to the slag heaps they are more interesting than sinister’
A couple of riders ride over large slag heaps.
‘Once you can deal with a ‘stall’ on a hill no graduate need worry you . . much’
An instructor shows a group of riders how to deal with stalling when going up a steep slag heap. They are instructed to lay the bike down, turn it around by pulling on the handlebars and front wheel mud guard, and jump starting it going back down again. The soldiers practice this, and one of the riders ends up with the bike on top of him. An instructor shows them how to go down a very steep embankment.
‘Mud, sand and water each calls for special technique’
They practice driving over sand, waterlogged ground, and dusty off road track.
‘Plume’s revenge’
Driving through some tricky woodland paths, the riders eventually return to the Hall.
‘The finished product’
A group of riders line up in the yard to receive their tokens for having successfully completed the training. They then go off for a ride, again making their way through woodland paths, expertly dealing with very difficult terrain. At one point, a group of them pose for the camera.
The End. 
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Excellent film, especially for fans of Matchless!
As a motorcycle courier in Los Angeles for 41 years and ex desert racer. It was really impressive to see how they took these young men from having never ridden a motorcycle and turned them into very good riders on and off road, better than most riders today.
My Grandfather was a despatch rider in WW2 Europe and made it back home, but never ever spoke about wartime , Amazing to see the training they went through, but as they progressed through training their motorcycle skills soon developed, at the end of the war a few went on to form Motorcycle clubs which we see today, thanks for sharing this , i really enjoyed it.
my father was based in singapore during the end of the war, i have a full album of pictures he took during the time as he was an avid photographer, some of the pictures are amazing and the stories he told were full of danger they faced on the roads, and fun thry had at base during off time. his bike was an Enfield and he loved it and kept his love of bikes after leaving the army.
We all might have to learn to be dispatch riders or reconnaissance.
The Hells Angels were originally formed from a group of ex servicemen who were disgruntled, missed military life and the camaraderie that went with it.
Fascinating to watch, I was a police response motorcyclist, when we did our training we were all licensed motorcyclists, these guys were starting from scratch. There is a sense that the motorcycles being used were quite tricky to ride, stalled easily and were hard to get started. Modern motorcycles are very very different.
Hats off to these guys.
Absolutely love this. I would love to make a Triumph Street Twin look like one of these....
Amazing, and these were essentially normal road bikes expected to go anywhere. A friend of my father's was an army despatch rider during the war but he broke two legs rather badly in a motorcycle accident during his service. Some of the riders were trained to ride and shoot, which was no mean feat.
Really interesting footage. I really like motorcycles from this period. You can see that the soldiers had strong training. I wonder what year the movie is from. Greetings from Poland.
I would think it would be about 1940/41 ?..
Signpost in situ at around 9:30 - weren't they all taken down? Or possibly this sequence not filmed during the war?
Thanks for this Alpha, as a s#*t motorcyclist I have no trouble identifying with these unfortunates!
Thanks for posting this mate!
Nuestros abuelos pilotando!
Gracias RUclips
I presume that the music used is a later addition and did not accompany the original film. The opening piece by Liszt is particularly inappropriate for a British WWII film as this music was used constantly on Nazi news bulletins to announce their invasion (and expected conquest) of the Soviet Union. Fortunately, the Soviet people repelled the invaders and the rest is history!
That turned out to be a bit of an error. The soundtrack was taken from a 1930's flash gordon series. It was not until later that I realised that they had used Listz's Les Preludes for the signature tune. (If you are wondering, I have two accounts on youtube, this is the other one.)
After all of this time, I don't think it is a serious enough problem to go edit and change it.
Also, Listz was Hungarian... I mean, the nazis ate bread, I am not giving up bread because they also ate it.
Royal Enfields?
No, unfortunately. I think they are BSA’s…
MATCHLESS G3 for most of them
Yamaha's.😂 Wait, wrong Army.
I know that some DR bikes were Royal Enfields because a neighbour when I was younger had been a despatch rider in WWII and I remember him telling me that he'd ridden one during his service.
At one point, after America entered the war, he had been issued with a Harley Davidson, but they were considered too heavy and cumbersome. After an incident when the Harley he was riding fell over and trapped him in waist deep mud, he went back to using a Royal Enfield.