Help needed with 8th Army Signals abbreviations please

[cpercival]

Just a brief conclusion to my research of the troop convoy.  The four vessels I mentioned previously were joined in Suez by a further two later the same day but they were from an earlier 'slow' section of the same convoy that left UK four days prior to your Grandfather's embarkation.  So we are left with the four vessels I mentioned as his possible transport.  All six ships were carrying a total of 13,786 troops but I cannot find any record of the regiments or units they were carrying or in which vessel. One small piece of information I unearthed is the fact that 'Georgic' embarked her troops in the Clyde whereas the other three embarked in Liverpool.  Interesting perhaps but unless you have any idea where he embarked it won't help.
Good luck with the rest of your research.

Clive

[tyshapuzzle]

So yesterday I was able to view the War diaries for 4 L of C Signals and made a start with 1940 and 1941. I will go back in the next couple of weeks to continue. However, The very first statement says that they indeed disembarked from the HMT Orontes so thank you cpercival, you were bang on there.

I took images of all of the official diaries through to Dec 1941 if anyone is interested, plus some of the additional papers including daily "orders" sheets which make interesting reading and often mention individual other ranks by name if they were promoted, sent on a training course or the subject of an inquiry and the like.

[MaxD]

Good start!  Do let me know if the July 1942 confirms the change of designation and about the Italy deployment later.

You'll note how many different elements there were to such a regiment, all scattered over miles and miles of desert, pity his docs don't say which element he was in, fingers crossed he comes up in a routine order somewhere.

MaxD

[tyshapuzzle]

what does the 4th bit mean in 4th L of C? is it 4th unit or division or something?

It's confusing because I think one of the earlier documents (jgeorge4) refers to 4 Coy but another (jgeorge7) to 2 Com Section

[MaxD]

4 LofC Signals distinguishes it from, for example, 2 Line of Communication Signals.  There were a number of different LofC Signals regiments, each with a different number.

Within 4 LofC, as with other regiments, there were a number of companies and alongside these a number of sections as you can see from the sheet you posted.  The extract shows only No 1 Company deploying initially with the sections listed.  We only see him in 4 Company in 1940.  2 Construction Section (my error earlier calling it Communications section) is on the sheet so he is on the page you posted!

MaxD

[tyshapuzzle]

oh that's interesting... roughly how many men to a section / company?

[MaxD]

A real expert has already done the work and, as usual, there is no one answer as signal regiments varied in their tasks.  Look at the top three threads at this link:

http://www.rootschat.com/links/01o1k/

MaxD