pieces of the puzzle. 3rd Inf Div RA

Whereabouts are you from Tim, or more to the point, which army did your Grandfather serve in ?

 

cheers for the responses guys. Pretty sure gramps was london based. deffo 3rd battalion. he was expeditionary force. dunkirk all the way through to Dday. black triangular patch with inverted red triangle in the middle. when I get the camera I'll take some images. (I think the missus has wandered off with it for the weekend.)

Tim

 

Hi Tim

Battalions in the British Army are associated with infantry regiments and Batteries are associated with Royal Artillery units.

 

I just wanted to check that he was British Army Tim. Lots of Commonwealth formations were similarly organised but different.

You're looking at 3rd Division and probably 7th Field Regiment Royal Artillery.

Photos would certainly help.

 

cheers for the responses guys. Pretty sure gramps was london based. deffo 3rd battalion. he was expeditionary force. dunkirk all the way through to Dday. black triangular patch with inverted red triangle in the middle. when I get the camera I'll take some images. (I think the missus has wandered off with it for the weekend.)

Tim

I take it that this is what you mean.



From Peters great website.
British Formation Signs

Regards
Tom

 

The badges are in the link below I think. It might be best keeping both threads together?

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/royal-artillery/20642-pieces-puzzle-3rd-inf-div-ra.html#post212612


3 Div had five artillery units in France during 1940:

HQ 3rd Division Artillery
7th Field Regiment
33rd Field Regiment
76th Field Regiment
20th Anti-Tank Regiment

Did you apply for his service records back in 2009 ?

 

that is the badge but the or glory bit has been snapped off!

 

the power of ms paint

 

sorry, should have looked through the old posts, its been a while. any idea which regt. the 4 in the H denotes?

thanks again owen, amazing knowledge

 

Hopefully one of the artillery chaps will be able to answer your question, failing that all of his units will be listed in his service records. If you can ID who he was with in France during 1940 I'll be able to tell you what he was doing etc from the units war diary.

 

cheers Drew, I will look into it. its amazing how much I've found out from this site. An odd medal I found in the collection was an egyptian Khedive star from 1882. I gather it can't have been his but possibly an earlier relative.

 

The badge with the H and 4 is 76 Field Regt RA another of 3 Division's field regts. The Div's artillery all seem to have worn a black diamond with a number. Presumably the H for 76 (Highland) Fld Rgt stands for "Highland".

 

The badge with the H and 4 is 76 Field Regt RA another of 3 Division's field regts. The Div's artillery all seem to have worn a black diamond with a number. Presumably the H for 76 (Highland) Fld Rgt stands for "Highland".

There was also a version of the H 4 flash which incorporated a small red equilateral triangle in the design - to confirm membership of 3 I nf Div perhaps?

To complete the set:
5 was worn by 33 Fd Regt RA, 6 was worn by 20 ATk Regt RA and 7 should have been worn by 92 LAA Regt RA (but they chose not to - having been formed from a battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire Regt they wore a small red rose on a khaki disc instead. And got away with it!).

 

I very recently recieved John's war records from Glasgow. very interesting and a very touching final report of him from his Major on his notification of impending release. it turns out that he ended up with 302 bty 74th field regt RA as a w/Bdr. 12 months in france, 1 in belgium, 2 holland and 6 in germany.

he joined up well before the war at 19 in 1929 and was a farm labourer prior to 3 years with the coulours and 9 in reserve. He trained at woolwich at the longmoor camp and ended up with a second class certificate of education.

M.T local 3rd med Bde RA for classification to A1 I.C? 12.4.30

his service trade was Dr/mech (might have misread the hand writing and don't know what this is!). other ranks and promotions I don't understand: u/a/Bdr. A Bdr.

it does say he turned down a promotion and this fits with what my dad told me. He didn't want to be moved from his troop.

no mention of being wounded? he died in 1947 when my dad was three. My gran who has also now passed away was always bitter that he died after having survived not only dunkirk but D-Day and the rest.

anyway, thank you all for your help and if it wasn't for this site, I would never have found the links to track down his records. I am collating all of the records together to give to my father who doesn't know theyve arrived yet. If anyone knows any of the abreviations above, I'd love to know what they mean.

thanks again,

Tim

 

Tim
Pleased you have received the records at last. Sometimes they throw up more questions than answers! Would you care to scan them and put them up here? Members will be able to help you regarding abbreviations.

Driver/mechanic
u/a/bdr unpaid acting bombardier
a/bdr acting bombardier.

I think the above are correct although other members will tell me if I am wrong

Lesley

 

Cheers Lesley. that makes alot of sence. I will endeavour to scan everything of relevance in as soon as my wife returns! (I am a bit of a techno-prat). would there be any way to find out which vehicles he drove or would it have been a range of them? In older posts it indicated that he earned a gun layers badge. Would that fit with the driver / mechanic role. My dad always said he was in tanks but would it have made more sence that he was in self propelled artillery like the priest?

sorry for so many questions and thanks again

 

Was it not true that Dvr/Mech indicated that he was qualified to drive mechanical transport, since the (plain) driver qualification dated from horsedrawn days and indicated he was qualified to drive a team of horses? If so, I wonder when it changed.

Chris