RootsChat.Com

Hi,

We have just recently found out that my paternal Grandfather served with 110th from March 1943 until his "notification of impending release" papers were written in Vienna in 1946. He very rarely spoke of his time in the army in the years that followed until his death in 1990 and the family respected his wishes and didn't ask too many questions so we don't know much about his service or where he went. He showed no interest in reunions and never claimed the medals he was entitled to until the early 80s (under strong encouragement from his family) whereupon he scarcely looked at them before passing them to me as a young child. He was awarded the Italy Star and North Africa star so until now that's about all we knew about his wartime whereabouts!

My Dad (Grandad's only child) had until recently never really sought to find out about Grandad's service until recently - I assume out of respect for his wishes to forget about the wartime and just live his life - but has recently started showing an interest and hence we ordered a copy of his service records and found out he served in this unit.

My Grandfather's name was Alexander (Sandy) Robertson and was from Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland. I know there was mention of another Scot from Aberdeen in the unit too. His army trade was a Turner. I have looked closely at the photos and can't recognise him in any of them.

I wonder if some of you more knowledgeable folks might indulge me with some (probably very basic) questions:

1 - Do you know roughly how many men would make up the unit?
2 - Would the men in the unit remain together throughout? I read that Elaine had pieced together her relative's timeline - can I assume my grandfather shared the same timeline and went to the same places for the time they served in the same unit or does it not necessarily work like that?
3 - Is my next step to order the unit's war diaries for the time period my granddad was in the 110th? Do I just order them in full from National Archives website or am I supposed to search for subsets somehow?
4 - Any idea what a Turner did in the army in WW2!? Repairs to machinery??

It amused me that, on discharge, his conduct was recorded as exemplary and amongst his remarks the CO noted that he'd been with the unit "for about a year". By that point it had been well over 3 years. Perhaps Grandad liked to keep his head down!! :-)

Any help gratefully appreciated!