Howard Gilbert Nalder served as an officer in the Royal Naval Armoured Car Division (RNACD), one of the improvised naval armoured formations created in 1914. He was a Devon man, the son of the Rev. Gilbert Nalder, and his name appears on a family grave in Chudleigh Cemetery, confirming his return to the parish after service overseas.
Nalder was posted to No. 1 Squadron, Royal Naval Armoured Car Division, originally formed under Lieutenant-Commander W. Whittall for service in German South-West Africa. The squadron left Britain in March 1915 with Rolls-Royce armoured cars, the heavier Seabrook lorries being left behind as unsuitable for the terrain. When the South-West Africa campaign ended in July 1915, a section of four cars under Nalder was detached for service in East Africa, where the campaign against German forces was expected to continue.
The East African theatre presented difficult conditions: long distances, poor roads, mechanical strain and shortages of fuel and water. Nalder’s section operated throughout late 1915 and 1916, carrying out reconnaissance and supporting mobile columns. Lieutenant-Commander Whittall later joined the detachment, which was redesignated the 10th (Royal Naval) Armoured Motor Battery. The retention of the naval designation suggests either that the men preferred to remain under Admiralty authority or that there were insufficient trained army personnel to replace them.
In January 1917 the battery was transferred to Egypt as part of the wider reorganisation of armoured car units under army control. Nalder’s subsequent career is not recorded in the surviving material, but his burial in Chudleigh indicates that he returned to Devon after the war or during its later stages. His presence in the parish record provides the local endpoint to a career that spanned several of the RNACD’s dispersed theatres. The picture above is actually of the 10th (Royal Naval) Armoured Motor Battery in East Africa. Howard Gilbert Nalder may actually be one of the people in the picture?
