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General => Armed Forces => World War Two => Topic started by: riley64 on Thursday 16 January 14 20:40 GMT (UK)
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I have my grandfathers service records and towards the end of his service I think he was in Germany. Does anyone know what these means:
NWE HAM GARR & TRANSIT UNIT
B.A.O.R. No. 6 Leave centre
H.Q.B.T.B
X (2) List
He also served in Palestine, Burma and was evacuated from Dunkirk so I have lots more of things I can't understand on his records. Hope someone can help me.
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Hi
It is a little difficult to be sure without seeing the original - perhaps you could scan and post some of the bits you are not sure of (just bits not the whole thing)
Hopefully a WW2 British Army in Germany expert may pop along at some point but in the meantime here are my initial thoughts ..
BAOR = British Army of the Rhine (British Army in the British Zone of Occupied Germany after WW2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army_of_the_Rhine#1945.E2.80.931994
I think NWE may be North West Europe but others may have other thoughts
HAM GARR & TRANSIT UNIT... presumably GARR - Garrison.
There is a website here with locations.
http://www.baor-locations.org/Hamburg.aspx.html
Presumably Ham is the name of the garrison. I am thinking this may be either HAMM Garrison -
or perhaps it is short for HAMBURG??
There is info on both of those on the website above and you could google for more.
How is it laid out on the service papers and are there dates... ? it is hard to interpret properly without seeing it.
Is it that he was sent to NWE at Ham garrison and the transit unit there
and then at a later time went to the BAOR No 6 Leave Centre for a short family visit?
There is a bit about leave centres here
http://www.baor-locations.org/LeaveCentre.aspx.html
"In the early years with restricted opportunities to travel back to the UK four Families Leave Centres (for use by all ranks) were opened up in Hotels in former civilian tourist resorts. They were Nordeney on one of the Friesian Islands off the North West Coast of Germany between the Ems and Weser Estuaries, Scharbeutz on the Baltic Coast to the north of Lubeck. Bad Harzburg and Winterberg (to the south of Lippstadt) were Health Spa resorts particularly popular in the Winter Skiing Season. All closed in the early 50s due to declining demand and increasing overheads."
You can click on one of the links that shows No1 Leave Centre was at Nordeney but they have not identified the others so that needs a bit more research
http://www.baor-locations.org/nordeney.aspx.html
More images of the Nordeney brochure here which tells you about all the facilities available
http://bfg-locations.editboard.com/t68-no-1baor-leave-centre?highlight=leave+centre
No 4 was at Bad Harzburg - there is a leaflet here on ebay
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0xm0/
Milly
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A bit more digging and it looks like BNo 6 leave centre was at Bad Winterburg
http://www.rawes.co.uk/bryant/baor.htm#tag26
http://strathconas.ca/uploads/files/newsletters/fall03.pdf
http://www.delcampe.co.uk/page/item/id,214009105,var,GERMANY--KURHAUS-NO-6-LEAVE-CENTRE-WINTERBERG,language,E.html
http://bfg-locations.editboard.com/t538-winterberg-leave-centre
Milly
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Thank you millymcb for the information about the Leave Centre at Bad Hartzburg (and thank you Riley64 for asking the question in the first place). My uncle was at Bad Hatzburg at the start of his demobilisation in 1946. This info helps to paint the picture