And here’s where I have got to:
Recruited into RAFVR, Edinburgh 20 December 1941. 3RC - 3rd recruitment centre maybe?
10(S)RC- other than the RC probably standing for recruitment centre I have no idea what it means.
2 Signals School - would be the training undertaken at Blackpool from 2 July 1942
44 Mobile Unit, Edzell, as of 22 October 1942
Newbold Revel (RAF wireless training subsequent to his training in Blackpool) - from 19 May 1943
350 Signals Depot - was this the unit he was in while stationed at Newbold Revel?
1 Personnel Despatch Centre (Sup.) - I don’t know what the significance of “1” is, nor do I know what “Sup.” stands for, but this is obviously reference to his processing in preparation for posting to India. The date given is 4 November 1943 and is followed by an entry “India Renamed SE Asia” with a movement date of 11 November 1943 and an arrival date of 16 November 1943. (Although arrival where, I don’t know, as it would have taken a lot longer than that to get to India).
Now here comes the interesting bit. My father told me that while his ship was on its way to India, a couple of weeks or so after leaving the UK, it was torpedoed after it passed Malta, started to take water as a result of the damage sustained, and just managed to make it as far as Alexandria, where all the men who were travelling on her to India had to disembark and wait in Egypt for the next available boat to India. From my father’s photograph album, I can tell that he spent Christmas in Egypt, although I don’t know how much longer he had to wait after that. From what I can see, this means that the ship he left the UK on would have been the HMS Birmingham, as it is the only ship whose movements correspond with this version of events. Any comments?
It appears that he arrived in India in January 1944, possibly the 22nd, judging from the entry on his card. It would appear that the rather badly written entry under “Unit” indicates that his first posting in India was to Worli camp.
From 1 February to 3 August, 1944, he is shown as being attached to 385 (not sure if it is MU for Mobile Unit of WU for Wireless Unit, followed by a period of hospitalisation, first at 2 India General Hospital, then at Shillong followed by a Medical Field Hospital. I have no idea what this was for but it was for an exceptionally long period. As far as I am aware, he had no war injuries at all, so I can only assume it was something like malaria or maybe dysentary, although I do remember him telling me once that he sent his mother into a panic when he wrote home to say he had gangrene…..
I have no idea what the entry for HD 164 S Wing, other than that I believe HD stands for Home Defence.
The entries for 368 WU and 376 WU tie in with some of the few things that my father told me about his war service - firstly that he had to learn Japanese Morse Code in addition to the standard Morse, and that the Japanese messages he intercepted were given to others to be interpreted. It also fits in with his last posting being to Hong Kong.
His postings, roughly in chronological order (the order may not be 100% accurate), seem to have been Bombay, Kashmir, Calcutta, Bangalore, Rangoon, Singapore, Malaya and Hong Kong.
Also, the entry for Home Embarkation speaks for itself, but can anyone tell me what “Compan. Snds” means?
