Item details: A silver replica of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps regimental badge in a presentation case, along with a framed typed letter.

About the Item

This silver replica of the (KRRC) regimental badge was presented to John Tyler Tuttle in September 1945, in recognition of his service with the Regiment during the Second World War. The badge was one of a limited number given to American citizens who served in the KRRC before the United States entered the war, a symbolic gesture acknowledging the renewal of historic ties between Britain and America first forged by the Regiment’s origins as the 60th (Royal American) Regiment, raised in the American colonies nearly two centuries earlier.

The United States formally entered the war in December 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, months before this, a number of American volunteers had crossed the Atlantic to enlist with the British Army. In the spring of 1941, with the approval of His Majesty the Colonel-in-Chief, an agreement between the War Office and the U.S. Government allowed a small number of American citizens to be granted temporary British nationality to join the KRRC.

After completing a recruit course with the Training Battalion, these volunteers were commissioned as officers in the Regiment. Seventeen Americans in total were accepted under this arrangement, selected from a large number of applicants, and according to the Regimental History, all “proved themselves capable and gallant leaders” on the front lines.

The badge was accompanied by the following letter, sent to each of the surviving American officers who had served with the KRRC during the war:

We are sending to you by separate post a silver replica of our regimental badge, worn on the Officers’ cross-belt, which we ask you to accept as a small gift from the Officers of our Regiment.

This letter is being addressed to all the surviving Americans who, like yourself, came across the Atlantic in the early and critical days of the war to enlist in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, and were subsequently granted the King’s Commission. In the case of those who died in action, we are sending the badge to their relatives.

It is not easy for us to put into words what we feel about the service which our American officers all rendered in this Second World War to “the old country” and to our Regiment in particular. It seemed of course, only natural to us that The 60th Royal Americans, raised in America nearly two hundred years ago and so prominent in early American history, should be the Regiment of their choice. But you may not all have fully realised what it meant to us. History repeated itself. The old ties were re-forged. American Officers led British Riflemen to victory. R.H. Cox of Vermont, L.F. Brister of New Hampshire, and G.C.E. Cumming of New York fell in battle; C.G. Bolté, H. Cutting and W.P. Durkee were seriously wounded.

The Regiment will not forget it’s [sic] American Officers, what they did, their comradeship, their devotion and their valour, the example they set.

We can only add—and here we speak for every Officer and Rifleman in The 60th—that we hope that you will keep up your connection with us. We shall always be glad to hear from you and to pass on what news you can write. If you revisit England, a warm welcome awaits you at Winchester or wherever a unit of the Regiment may be.

By the unanimous desire of all the Officers of the Regiment, past and present, you have been elected an Honorary Life Member of the Celer et Audux Club, and you will be sent the Annual Reports of the Club and the Regimental Chronicle every year.

With all our best wishes.
Yours very sincerely
Colonels Commandant, The King’s Royal Rifle Corps

About John Tyler Tuttle

John Tyler Tuttle was born in 1919 in Brooklyn, New York. He attended schools in Mamaroneck and Oneida, NY, and was a graduate of Blair Academy and Williams College. After graduation, he enlisted with the British Army where he served with the KRRC.

Following the war, John Tyler Tuttle returned to the United States, where he worked as an advertising salesman for House & Garden and American Home magazines in New York. He later returned to his hometown of Oneida, New York, succeeding his father as editor and publisher of the Oneida Daily Dispatch.

In 1947, he married Charlotte W. Davenport of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and the couple went on to have three children. John Tuttle died on 9 March 2017, aged 98.