help needed deciphering records

D/E - Direct Entry
DETAPO - Direct Entry TA Potential Officer

 

OK ta, so what does Direct Entry mean, and how does that square with his being sent to the reserves. Does it mean he went straight into officer training?

 

Direct Entry is usually direct from civilian life. Usually means a potential officer is posted directly to basic training and preselection. It is possible that a candidate is expected to continue with training with his unit or continue education as an enlisted man until the next OCTU course starts.

Other categories - Late entry are soldiers commissioned from the ranks.

 

That makes sense. He didn't need the basic level of army training - he'd spent three years in the cadets at Ampleforth and done basic drill and some work with rifle and bren gun.

Have a look at this one. This is where we find A&S 66. It's in a block with the date 4-1-45 which I think was when he was actually called up, so 66 is presumably either the Grenadiers or where he was first training.

What do we make of the bit at middle right which says A.G.2.(O) War Office, next to a date 29 May 1947? At that point he was a 2nd Lt in the Ox & Bucks LI, based either in India or the Middle East, and this date is not obviously associated with any other event.

 

Would not matter about cadet training he would still have to complete basic infantry training.
AG 2 (O) The AG is the Adjutant General who is responsible for amongst other things manning, including (O) Officers, the 2, represents the grade of the officer representing the AG. AG 1, 2 etc.


The AG is the second most senior general after the Chief of the General Staff.

A & S 66 ? Arm and Service 66 The number remains as yet Unknown,as you say it is possibly an arm/unit indicator.

 

OK, well, the date accompanying the AG2(O) stamp was a few weeks after he returned from LIAP, and he was an officer at this point, so it probably has something to do with his being posted somewhere.

If that RI thing stands for Recruit Intake, would it make sense for it to say vide Recruit Intake Number W/611? Vide sounds like a direction to a page which has more information. Somebody on Rootschat has suggested it might be Regimental Index N° - I'm not sure whether that goes with vide either.

 

OK, well, the date accompanying the AG2(O) stamp was a few weeks after he returned from LIAP, and he was an officer at this point, so it probably has something to do with his being posted somewhere.

If that RI thing stands for Recruit Intake, would it make sense for it to say vide Recruit Intake Number W/611? Vide sounds like a direction to a page which has more information. Somebody on Rootschat has suggested it might be Regimental Index N° - I'm not sure whether that goes with vide either.

See my post #31 re vide

Lesley

 

See my post #31 re vide

Lesley

Yes, exactly, it means "refer to this number", with the implication that if you do so you'll get more information - otherwise why look it up?

Does that make sense if RI is Recruit Intake? Could you look up a Recruit Intake Number on some list and find extra information written beside it?

 

Could you look up a Recruit Intake Number on some list and find extra information written beside it? Yes that is exactly what it is a file reference. Reasonably convinced it is his Recruit Intake number W/611 and I believe that to be his pre selection course number for a pre selection course at Wrotham (pre selection course centre) probably number 611 on the intake list.

 

OK good. Probably not Wrotham though. Moving on to the next page, below, you'll see that he was recalled from the reserves on 5.1.45 and against this is written TRG. BN. WELSH GUARDS, so logic suggests the W probably stands for Welsh.

Do you think PALC on the left stands for Palace Corps - bearing in mind he was a guardsman - or for something ending in Lance Corporal or what?

 

Or Paid Acting Lance Corporal as it is next to rank etc...

 

That's odd, because there's another form - which we'll come to in time - which has both U/A/L/Cpl (presumably "Unpaid ...") and P/A/L/Cpl both dated 21.2.46, which sounds as though he might have got demoted and re-promoted - since he was already a PALC on a form on which the latest date given is 18.5.45. Or perhaps "PALC" was added to the form after 21.2.46 but just wasn't dated - it is in a different hand from most of the rest of the form.

Now we start to get onto the complicated stuff, below. TBWG is clearly Training Bn. Welsh Guards. But what's CTBA, and "f.a.p. w.e.f."? And why was he rejected for OCTU?

 

No, WG is long accepted for Welsh Guards. U and PA Lcpl unpaid and paid acting.
CTBA Ceased to be attached, wef, with effect - date.
ITC Infantry Training Centre,

f.a.p. For all purposes. Pay, rations etc.

Rejection? All I can suggest is asking Mons College if they have archives with records of OCTU 161/ Pre selection 148.

It would be helpful if all documents are put on here together. You will never get the full picture as some routine files will have been destroyed by the WO/MoD over the years. It is difficult to read parts of a document.



With a few exceptions, all officer cadets would now be required to attend this newly formed pre-O.C.T.U. ‘Wrotham Camp’ which was to be situated on what is now the site of Vigo Village. Training areas would extend northwards through all of ‘Happy Valley’, almost to Meopham, and south to farmland beyond the Pilgrims Way. It would handle the vast majority of officers for the British Army for the next four years. It would be big – up to 10,000 men at any one time.


Search: wrotham (Hansard)

inquiry into the conditions prevailing at 148 pre-O.C.T.U. training establishment at Wrotham camp, Kent. Rejected candidates. Contrary to popular belief, potential officers were given a hard time. If they could not hack it they were 'rifted' ( Guards terminology for the boot).

 

It seems unlikely that he was deemed unsuitable for officer training, or too soft for it - he'd already done four years of cadet training at Ampleforth, and would go on to make full Lieutenant at twenty (and would later be one of the senior civil servants in the Malayan Emergency). I wondered if it was something to do with the fact that he claimed on his Attestation form that his father was English, when he was in fact half Southern Irish and half Burmese - maybe the army found out.

Perhaps he just didn't take it seriously enough. My mother failed the test to be taken on for officer training because she was supposed to get a team of girls to erect a pole on her instructions only, and she started laughing - and at one point while he was in the South Staffs my father got two weeks' CB for being insolent to a warrant officer and conducting himself in a slovenly and unsoldierlike manner.

IF he got the number when he went to Wrotham that presumably means not till he joined 148 Sherwood Foresters, who were at Wrotham. What we appear to have is:

6/1/45 - starts with Training Bn Welsh Guards
12/2/45 - authorised to join Sherwood Foresters at Wrotham
18/2/45 - joins pre-OCTU Wing at Pirbright
17/5/45 - actually joins Sherwood Foresters at Wrotham
1/6/45 - sent to 161 OCTU at Mons Cadet School
4/8/45 - rejected from OCTU (and posted to Training Bn Grenadier Guards?)
6/9/45 - posted to 23 Infantry Training Centre at Worcester
7/9/45 - transferred to South Staffs

Or have I misunderstood something here?

Why does it say "Eduted (???) 8.1.45" in an entry made on 4/8/45? Do you think the "posted to Tg Bn Gren Gds" relates to 8/1/45 or 4/8/45? If the former, what did he do between 4/8/45 and 6/9/45?

I've been trying to upload the forms only as we come to them, to avoid having to keep referring back to previous posts which may be pages ago, and there's so much of this stuff that I don't want to clog up the server by reloading the same file more than once. I think the simplest thing to do is to upload the pages to my website and then give links referring to them as we go along. This then is the full set:

http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1944-Attestation1.jpg
http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1944-Attestation2.jpg
http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1944-Attestation3.jpg

http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1944-1945-B199A.jpg

http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1944-1945-B200B.jpg

http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1944-1945-Statement_of_Services.jpg

http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1944-1946-postings.jpg

http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1944-Military_History.jpg

http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1945-1947-B102.jpg

http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1945-Service_and_Casualty_Form1.jpg

http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1945-Service_and_Casualty_Form2.jpg

http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1945-1946-Service_and_Casualty_Form3.jpg

http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1946-Service_and_Casualty_Form4.jpg

http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1947-1952-Particulars_of_Service.jpg

 

Eduted - the E is part of AG (Offrs) E - then dated 08/1

He attended a second course for commission at OTS Bangalore -Officer Training School where it would appear he was commissioned.

His rejection for OCTU appears to be under para 2 sub para (a) of WOUM100 Offrs (E). I will try and find it.

 

Thanks - I thought somebody had tried to write "educated" and left a couple of letters out. So it sounds like the 8.1.45 is the date on which the regulation was composed, rather than being directly relevant to my father's army history.

 

I take it there was no luck finding para 2 sub para (a) of WOUM100 Offrs (E). I'm not even sure where to look for it.

Can we have a look at this one?

http://www.whitehound.co.uk/family/artwork/RLR-1944-1946-postings.jpg

What's the CCI to which/whom amemndment slips are despatched?