RASC - ITALY - Allied Forces HQ

[Rootes75]

My Grandfather served in the RASC and was involved in the planning of Operation Torch and then further work in Sicily and Italy. I have many of his military possessions and one of them is his pass to AFHQ at Casserta.
He was not based at Casserta but near it and he ran an office of between 6-8 clerks. I am trying to find out anything regards the RASC in this area and especially trying to find photos etc.

Any ideas?

[MaxD]

Have you considered applying for his record which will still be with the Ministry of Defence?

The RASC was a multi-faceted organisation which ran everything from clerking to transport to bakeries to petrol supply to ports to etc etc, sometimes working as formed RASC units and sometimes as RASC sections large and small working within another organisation.  This link to the Italy war diaries that relate to the RASC should illustrate the point.
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_cr=WO+170&_dss=range&_ro=any&_p=1925&_q=%28royal+AND+army+AND+service+AND+corps%29+AND+%22italy%22

it sounds as if he was, as was the case with many elements of the RASC, working in or for a headquarters that would have employed men from a number of different arms and services.  You really need to know what part of the RASC he was employed with so as to know what sort of photos you are looking for and what sort of employment he had.

Does his pass have any unit information?

MaxD

[Rootes75]

I have my Grandfathers diary from 1943-44, I am transcribing it and finding out information as I go.

He is with AFHQ Advanced Admin Echelon based near Naples and one of his moves so far (mid July) was to Maddeloni to run the AFHQ Message Control Centre.

[MaxD]

That would add up with him being in the clerk element of what was an element of AFHQ.  Large HQ such as AFHQ had a number of elements, or echelons, usually located separately from the main HQ and as the name implies here, a relatively small part of the HQ that was deployed forward of the main  HQ.
There are a number of papers relating to the AFHQ Advanced Admin Echelon at the National Archives (not digitised):
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_aq=advanced%20administrative%20echelon&_cr=WO%20204&_dss=range&_ro=any&_st=adv

The three histories given here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_Force_Headquarters will be of interest.  Part 3 particularly has a lot about the role of the Adv Admin Ech.

MaxD