99 LAA Rgt

Thank you for your post.. My father kept in touch with some of his comrades and regularly went to the Army Reunion in November each year. He was in 'C' Troop 327 battalion, if that relates to the people you are taking out in May. I have seen several reference to Lt Col Wilkinson.

 

Well, the troops could board a ship days before it actually sailed, so that could explain any discrepancy in those dates - assuming those two ships are indeed the right candidates, of course!

The war diary for that period may be your best bet, as suggested in my post #14 - no guarantees, what amount of detail may or may not be written down can differ from diary to diary, but could be well worth a shot. Nothing to lose really.

Ships’ names are certainly recorded in a couple of my grandfather’s regiment’s diaries.

 

Forgot to say, when you reply to someone’s post, you don’t need to do two posts. When you press “Reply”, as you know you get this:


Then just type your response under that final [/QUOTE], thus:

 

A few of the convoys, notably with troopships, called in at Freetown, Sierra Leone (not a very healthy place) and many, if not all called at Cape Town, South Africa and the luckier ones at Durban (very friendly English-speaking population). At Durban in particular troops were offloaded, to enable those in demand reached their destination first; this could take weeks, if not months.

There was a recent post / website item that convoys before the Operation Torch landings were diverted away from the southern route to Freetown, calling in at Natal, Brazil and then proceeding south. Just to confuse Durban is also in a South African province called Natal.

 

C Troop 327 Battery - rather than Battalion.

Battalion is an infantry term and denotes a grouping of Companies.

Battery is an Artillery term. A grouping of Batteries make a Regiment.

Off the top of my head, 327 Battery was commanded by Lord Ebury.

Regards

Frank

 

Thank you Frank for giving the correct terms I should be using. I don't know very number about the numbers involved. How many men would be in a troop and how many would many would make up a battery?

 

I would be interested in seeing these war diaries. How would I go about getting a copy from you?

 

Beeby posed a question elsewhere, which had two replies. See: Units in Burma/India

 

I have the breakdown of subunits in 99 LAA Regt RA.

I will post tomorrow when I am on my PC.

Regards

Frank

 

Here is the breakdown:



Regards

Frank

 

Apologies, I missed this. As I have the files, my cost is £0.09 per page. For all those months, there are 427 pages; if you only want specific months, that's okay.

 

Thank you Frank, that's very interesting. I am re-reading my father's letters in light of what I have discovered from this site and other information.

 

Hi Gary, I think I would like to see all of the pages of this important time, please.

 

Through reading my Father's letter again, I found that after the 99th LAA was disbanded, he was assigned to the O 2 E based near Naples in the Cas section and following VE day, he was moved the Rep section, preparing paperwork for the release of the troops. He moved to Milan and finally Villach. He was released at the end of April 1946.

I am keen to get in touch with Gary Tankard regarding 2 of the War Diaries he has copies of.

 

You could send Gary a Private Message (PM), you have x16 posts and the system only needs x5 before you can use a PM.

If you hover over the name of the member in their avatar it will show a new text box and within is the date of their last logged visit. Some members "flag" their interest in a thread, which means they get a system alert. Once you have posted five times - a measure to stop spam - you can send a private message (PM) to members using 'Start a private conversation' accessed via your avatar. Such messages depend on their email given at registration is still valid. You can receive and reply to a PM already.

 

Thank you, I will try and send Gary a private message