Robert Charlton Hall

Robert Charlton Hall was a First World War vetern having served in the Machine Gun Corps. He was badly injured in severe hand to hand combat at Passchendaele (hands and arms). He reached the rank of Lieutenant in the Machine Gun Corps.

When WW2 started he was one of the first to join the newly formed Local Defence Volunteers (L.D.V.) as the Home Guard formed into proper battalions he became a Major in the 14th Battalion Northumberland Home Guard (Bedlington). He was also a Captain and Group Commander in the Auxiliary Units. Huge amounts of explosives were stored in his wooden garage at his home on East Riggs Road.

At the same time in "Civilian" life he was a respected Banker and Bank Manger.

Early in 1941 he was approached to form the secret underground army in the south east of Northumberland. He would become the Group 5 Group Commander. He had four Patrols under him. These were Acklington (Chevington Drift), Stobswood, East Hartford & Choppington. Many of the men he picked personally and were miners or from a mining background. This was deliberate as these men already had a good working knowledge of using and handling explosives.

Major Hall lost a thumb and part of a finger while demonstrating explosives to one of his Patrols.

One of his major roles in May 1944 was to organise a troop train containing 201 Battalion Scottish & Northumberland Auxiliers to go to the Isle of Wight to act as the island garrison in the run up to D-Day. The fear was the Germans would launch a counter attack from the Channel Islands when they realised where the actual D-Day landings were going to be, however they did not. The regular army had been mainly moved to go to France and this left the island vulnerable.

The Auxiliers guarded various sites including the power station and the golf club along with a building disguised as a hospital which in fact contained the end of the "Pluto" pipeline. This had been laid under the German's noses all the way from the Isle of Wight to a beach head on the French coast. This pipe line was vital to the success of the D-Day landings as it was to supply the invading forces with petrol pumped under the Channel.

He was also part of the Auxiliary Units that protected the Royal Family at Balmoral - see certificate.

In Dec 1945 Hall was taken to court for possession of an unlicensed revolver. His teenage son shot himself accidentally in the foot and Hall went to the police to hand the weapon in. He was fined 10/-. The Morpeth Herald reported that he had needed the weapon as he was part of a "special branch of the Home Guard". Inspector Durman agreed that from "personal knowledge he knew that Mr Hall was in charge of a special section of the Home Guard involving dangerous duties and a revolver would be a necessary part of his equipment".