On 21st June 1940 SS Hodder arrived in Southampton Water, carrying 11 Officers and 193 Other Ranks of the Royal Jersey Militia. Formed for defence of the Island, the Militia no longer had a role when the UK Government decided that the Channel Islands were not to be defended. The Militia formed the nucleus of a new unit, 11th (Royal Militia Island of Jersey) Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment, which many other Channel Island joined. Mindful of the effect on a close-knit community of losses, the Battalion was not to see action as a formed unit. Instead, it became a training and drafting unit, providing many reinforcements, especially to other Battalions of the Hampshire Regiment. The Battalion had an itinerant life, moving from the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth, to Devon, East Yorkshire and the North East, before disbandment in Blandford, Dorset in April 1946.
