I've been having great luck and speed with MoD requests. Here is one I received today for an A&SH officer who had extensive pre-war service from China to India to Palestine. As usual, these get a little messy between typed, handwritten, corrected, inserted, and overwritten postings, but am I correct in understand that from 1940 he was: Palestine: 17 Apr 1939 - 7 Sep 1940 (noted in section 11) Egypt: 7 Sep - 27 Oct 1940 (noted in section 11) ---leaving the Argylls at this time Cyprus: 27 Oct 1940 - 1 June 1941(start date noted in section 11) ---posted to 1st Bn, ultimately 2 i/c, relinquishing this on posting to 7th Div to get him to 1st A&SH Eritrea: 29 Sep 1941 - 28 Mar 1942 ---from Cyprus on 9 Sep to Egypt to join IBD, then posted to Bn (the large green script) on 13 Sep, leaving the 1st A&SH on posting to transit camp in Kassala (Sudan) and ultimately back to the Cyprus regiment and then to Palestine again to command 1st Battalion. All in all a lot of really interesting jobs without a lot of 'operational' service. Sadly I don't know his company for those 6 months in East Africa, but that seems to be closest to the sharp end. More research to come and just wanted to sure I'm looking at this correctly before investing the time. Thanks! Robert
Andrew Stewart in his book on pg. 231 'The First Victory' refers to 1 A&SH being the only British troops involved in the final assault on Gondar, which began on 27/11/1941. Neither: Battle of Gondar | Operations & Codenames of WWII and Battle of Gondar - Wikipedia mention of 1 A&SH though. I think the kilted sentries and at a parade shown are A&SH. See: See: 1st Battalion Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders especially dryan67's Post 19 If you view that thread and use the tags more threads appear. Remarkably, as the Italians fought well, no deaths at Gondar, the last was two weeks before. See: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2540643/gilbert-james-moncur/
If you are prepared to post the name I'll dig this out and have a look for you. There's a possibility there may be a photo. Kind regards, always, Jim.
Thanks David, dryan67's post is super helpful, I pulled some of that for my notes. It was maybe the best presentation of information I found online last night. I'll look into Gondar (sounds like LotR). Jim, that would be great, I have no problem sharing. Eventually I'll post his story to my website. Lt. Col. David Robertson Stevenson For most of the war he was a Major or Lt.Col. depending on his assignment. The tunic I have has majors crowns and only his India GSM and GSM ribbons. Thanks to you both! Robert