Help tracing Squadron histories

[adicol]

Hello,

We have recently received my husband's grandfather's war records and we are having some difficulty tracing details on the squadrons and regiments he was listed as being in. We really would like to unpack some of the details a little more with war diaries etc., if possible.

The documents were printed on A3 so we cannot scan them in, but this is what we have learned so far about his service:

4/2/43 PTW Unit 63
14/4/43 Transferred to 4th Field Training Reg
18/8/43 147th Field Reg Royal Artillery 511 Battery
31/10/43 Appointed Driver
4/12/43 Transferred to RASC Unit 2TB (D)
20/2/44 London Dist. Ass Centre Draft RZYZG
12/3/44 North Africa
21/3/44 Disembarked Oran
21/3/44 TOS x4 list on disembarkation
23/3/44 SOS to ME33 North Africa
23/3/44 TOS ex x4 list
12/4/44 SOS to Special Force Unit
12/4/44 TOS. ex ME33
24/8/44 Special Force Unit Central Med Force Wounded (B.C)  AFW3014/624 ? 15.9.44
24/8/44 Oran? hospital & SOS to x(2)
2.10.44 Transferred to Y Con Depot? CMF
30/11/44 RASC/TD B Transit TOS from x(2) list
01/06/45 SOS to 4th Field Surg Unit
01/06/45 TOS from x(4)
28/1/46 Det'd from LIAP
9/2/46 97 Br Gen Hosp

*UPDATED WITH SOME EXTRA INFORMATION*


Please could anyone give us a little more info about his time in North Africa and where he would have been between joining up and arriving in Oran, please?

Thanks,

Colleen

[Andy J2022]

Hi Colleen,

He started off at the Primary Training Wing No 63 where he was given his basic training. He then went to the Royal Artillery and began his training as a gunner in the 4th Field Training Regt RA which was then based at Bulford on the edge of Salisbury Plain. He trained as a driver RA and was posted to 511 Battery, part of 147 Field Regiment. 147 Regiment was a TA unit whose full title was  147th (Essex Yeomanry) Field Regiment, RA. They were equipped with Sexton Self Propelled 25 Pounder guns.
However just a few months later he transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps as a driver. This may have been at his own request or part of a general reorganisation. As the Royal Artillery introduced more self-propelled guns, they needed fewer drivers overall, whereas the RASC was effectively the Army's transport corps and so offered more varied types of driving jobs. He was initially assigned to Number 2 Training Battalion RASC based at Badajos Barracks, Aldershot.
On 20 April 1944 he was sent to the London District Assembly Centre as part of draft BZYZG. This was the code name of his contingent of troops who were to move by troopship to North Africa. As you can see, he arrived 22 days later, and seems to have been stationed in Oran, in Algiers. He was then attached (as an RASC driver) to the unit Middle East 33. I assume this was some kind of holding unit, although it may have been an RASC Motor Transport Company. I cannot find out anything about the unit. There was no fighting going in North Africa at that stage in the war, so maybe Oran served as a staging post or logiistic base for operations across the Mediterranean in Italy. Anyway he wasn't there long before he joined the RASC Special Force Unit. This was probably one of the composite special units set up to conduct operations to recapture some of the Greek Islands from the Germans.
Once he had been wounded he was held on the posted strength of the Central Mediterranean Force (CMF), before being moved to the B Transit Unit for his return to the UK.
I don't know what 4th Field SW Unit refers to. SW can stand for static workshop, but if it was that that would have been a REME unit, not RASC.
 

[Andy J2022]

I see you've added some more detail while I was writing my earlier posting.

TOS means Taken on Strength - it's the formal date on which he joined a unit.
SOS means Struck off Strength. It's what happens when someone leaves a unit.

The various X lists are lists on which personnel can be held when not actually on the strength of a unit. The X (4) List comprises all unposted reinforcements and incoming reinforcement drafts. Personnel discharged from X (2) to Training Depots, fit for duty, are transferred to the X (4) list of their corps, until posted to a unit, when they are struck off X (4) and taken on unit strength. Reinforcements in transit between the Base and a unit remain on X (4) (and the Base Depot strength) until they actually reach and are taken on the strength by the unit to which they are proceeding. Escaped PoWs [Prisoners of War] who until such escape have been on the X (3) list are transferred to X (4) list on reaching their respective training depots. Later on when he is wounded he goes on the X(2) list which comprises all ranks evacuated on medical grounds beyond Unit First Aid Post.

The AFW3014 reference is to the Army Form W3014 - the W series are all medical forms - so I assume this is some type of casualty notification form. The next three numbers are the serial number followed by the date.

You've now discovered what the 4th Fd SW unit actually was.

LIAP means Leave in addition to Python. Python was the codename for the scheme introduced in January 1943 for 'home duty for long term veterans of overseas service'. Prior to this date, a soldier could serve overseas for six years before being eligible for a posting back to the U.K.. When introduced, the qualifying time served overseas was 4 years and 9 months in a European theatre (including Tunisia, Sicily and later Italy), and 4 years in India and South East Asia. In September 1944. Python allowed for 28 days home leave (usually plus two weeks embarkation leave), then two months on duty in the U.K., before becoming eligible for posting to the British Liberation Army in N. W. Europe.

I think that just leaves Y Con Depot to be explained. I will need to do some research on that and will let you know if I find out its meaning.

[Andy J2022]

Just to confirm what I said about the Army Form W3014 mentioned in the previous posting. Its full title was Daily Casualty Return of ORs [other ranks] and Enrolled Civilians. It was completed by Royal Army Medical Corps units such as Field Hospitals, General Hospitals and Base Hospitals and forwarded to the War Office for distribution to the Record Offices.

No luck so far with the Y Con Depot.

[adicol]

Andy, thank you so much for all this information! We are so very grateful!

Grandad only told us that he was 'blown up' in the war and was for some weeks missing presumed dead. Grandma received a letter saying that too. He claimed in that time he was taken in by a family who spoke French and he thought they were French, but we have no idea how or what happened after. He never told the family any more than that. He said he was a driver but never mentioned where he had been except for Greece.

We note in his records it says 'North Africa' so we wonder if he was in a region which was French speaking when he was injured and then went to Greece afterwards, but his records don't have that level of detail really so we are trying to piece this all together.

Your help so far with this has been invaluable, so thank you!

[Andy J2022]

Hi Colleen,

Oran is in Algeria which was then a French colony  and French was the official language there alongside Arabic, so that could have been where your husband's grandfather was taken in by the French speaking family, but it seems less probable since there were British medical facilities in Oran at the time.

Given the date he was injured, around 24 August 1944, I suspect that he might have been part of Operation Dragoon, which was the Allied landings in Southern France that started on 15 August 1944, and resulted in the capture of Marseilles and Toulon. I didn't think many British troops were involved in the operation, the main part of the force being Americans, French and Canadians, but it does seem to fit the facts.

[adicol]

Hi Andy,

This would definitely make sense. I am trying to upload photographs of his actual records so that they are clear enough to be uploaded here. They have more detail which may make sense to you!

[adicol]

Annoyingly, my photo's won't upload because they are too large. I have no idea how to reduce their size.

[Andy J2022]

Some tips on how to resize images here: https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=130922.0