The 'Introduce yourself' Thread

Hi Jack, Welcome to the forum.

Hello again guys...

Thank you for the warm welcome.

See you around!!

Thank you so much for all of that wonderful information, Mr. Becker! I have printed it all out, and will have another look at the documents that the MOD sent me, to see if I can now make more sense of what they contain. I will definitely check into the Rifle Brigade yearbooks! I so appreciate your help!

All good wishes,

Carol Barton

kebecker;98212 wrote:

welcome aboard.

I may not have all of this correct, but here goes!

GNR = gunner which is the Artillary version of private (pte)

AA would be likely be anti aircraft in the context you have quoted RA is Royal Artillery

The Leicestershire Artillary is likely the Leicestershire Yoemenry, which I think was at that time an artillery Regiment. This likely explains the rank of Lance Corporal, the RA rank would have been Lance Bombardier.

Confusing, yes but a army career well worth filling in the gaps

for further reading, and I have not looked into this, you may find that his Regiment (s) published "year books" (eg The Rifle Bigade Association published The Rifle Brigade Chronicles) If these were published for your fathers Regiment, they can probably be picked up used from something like ABE Books

Hope this helps in a small way

Thank you so much, Paul (if I may). I have printed out your response, too, and will have to take these phrase by phrase when I can assimilate them against the information in the actual documents. It would be easier if I were in London ("oh, to be in England . . . ") but I haven't been able to cross the pond in a couple of years, thanks to this atrocious economy. Not being military myself (and except for what is considered my "backwards"--English style--salute, knowing only the little I've gleaned from working in the US military/aerospace community) I am at sea when it comes to guessing at British command structure in WWII, so your narrative is immensely helpful. I will do some more research, armed with your information, and let you know what I discover. Many thanks, once again, for your thoughtful response!

Carol

norwichpaul;98216 wrote:

Welcome to AiX Carol. That is a difficult one to give a definitive answer straight away. You have to first understand a little about the command structure. At the start of war, Anti-Aircraft Command was divided into seven AA divisions (1 to 7), it was then re-organised in the spring of 1941 into 12 divisions under three Corps, but all this changed at the end of 1942 when divisions and corps were replaced by six AA groups. At the lower end of the hierarchy there were three main tiers of command which actually stayed constant throughout the war. Below a division, was a brigade, below that were regiments and then regiments were sub-divided into batteries which were made up of platoons which manned the guns. The 1st AA Division as far as I can tell were responsible for the defence of London. The Z may refer to ZAA, a 3 in or 2 in rocket projector, the launchers have up to 20 barrels - the small versions used against low flying aircraft and the 3 in against high flying aircraft.

You can see thae nature of the problem, as the info you have appears to be the higher formations, and it would be good to know more about regiment level - I hope that make some sense. I did a quick search at the national archives and I cannot find anything using the key words that you supplied (but that does not mean they dont have anything that would be of help - it simply means their search engine is not very good).

Carol;98612 wrote:

Thank you so much for all of that wonderful information, Mr. Becker! I have printed it all out, and will have another look at the documents that the MOD sent me, to see if I can now make more sense of what they contain. I will definitely check into the Rifle Brigade yearbooks! I so appreciate your help!

All good wishes,

Carol Barton

You may find this link to the Royal Artillery Associations web site helpful, or at least a start to your reserach www.theraa.co.uk/

PS I only used the RB Chroinicles as an example, but I suspect the RA and its associated regiments must have somethiong similar

Hi The book is currently for sale on Amazon. It would be lovely for it to go back to family members. Kind regards, Trudy

Hi Sorry for the delay in answering. The book is currently for sale on Amazon if you are still interested. Thanks for your response. Kind regards, Trudy

Until very recently the Museum of Army Flying at Middle Wallop had a display case about Sqn Ldr Hervey. It included pictures of the escape tunnels he helped with, an Edwardian Great Escape.

I just composed a full transcription, and the system timed out on me, Paul! If you can give me your e-mail address, I'll send you a scan of the "STATEMENT of SERVICES" so you can see it for yourself--but I think his first assignment was to the 1st Anti-Aircraft Division Z Training Regimen, Royal Artillery. The second looks like the 515 G Regiment of the Leicestershire [Artillery?], WOUN. Ref 44331 (AG6a) dated 29 November 1943, and the rank is private (PTE). Then (at Donna Nook) he is a lance sergeant (L SGT)--is there such a rank?--at the first reprimand (for lying and failing to comply with an order) on 3 December 1945; the rank at 24 April 1946 (also at 292 PW Working Group) is Lance Corporal (L/CPL), but it says that he was "deprived of L/appt" by the commandant for being AWOL from his post as duty clerk.

Does any of that help?