Hi Everyone! New to this forum – in fact pretty new to any forum! My Dad recently passed away and left us with many questions about what happened to him during WW2. Hope someone can help! He was called up or possibly volunteered (?) as soon as he was 18 having served with his local Home Guard from the beginning of the war, near Newmarket. The facts from his Army Record, which I have recently obtained, are that he joined Dec 1943, The East Surreys, TA, was sent for initial training (I think to Colchester) and posted to the Suffolk Regt mid-January 1944. He has told us at the end of his training, volunteers were sort to go to the Orkneys, and to his eternal regret many of mates from training perished in the D-Day landings. First question – does anyone know what ‘P.A. 3 C.I.D.’ means, this is dated 7th June 1944. I see no obvious mention of the Orkneys in the details I have been sent. I am trying to establish what happened to him between Jan and June 1944 – so my second question is, does anyone know of a dangerous mission to Norway from the Orkneys in this time frame. He told us that something he experienced in this period is what led to him being ‘Discharged – Permanently unfit for any form of Military Service’ later in 1944, suffering increasing mental problem for the rest of his life. He also mentioned something to do with a nuclear reactor, but from my research have only found information about Vemork, which was attacked and disabled in early 1943 and the only thing I can find in February 1944 is about the sinking of the SF Hydro, which seems to have been executed by a single commando. Hope this question is not too long winded!
berrybrook, Hello and welcome to the forum. There are members of this forum extremely experienced at interpreting Service records, so it may pay, if you wish, to scan the records and publish them for the experts to look over and perhaps be able to provide you with answers or point you in the right direction in order to continue your research. It sounds like a very interesting piece of research and I wish you luck on your quest for answers. Regards Tom
Thank you Smudger Jnr, I will look into your suggestion and see if I can do that. Would be glad of any pointers on how to go about this? Berrybrook
The main maritime operations in 1944 were carried out by the Shetland Bus service who used Norwegian fishing boats plus two Norwegian manned US Sub chasers and a few MTBs. It may have been that some British troops were used to man AA Guns on these vessels. There may also have been Commando manned Combined Ops raids to Norway during the time frame mentioned. Steven
Thank you Jedburgh Sounds like an interesting scenario and a good possibility for my father. Perhaps I can find out more about the Shetland Bus service. What are MTBs? Diane
Diane MTBs are Moror Torpedo Boats and would usually have had Naval Crews. David Howarth wrote a book called The Shetland Bus - a good starting point.
