Apologies for the vagueness of this post. My father was a Staff Sergeant in the REME and posted to India in October 1943 on draft RDGG. I have his Service Records which, disappointingly, lack a lot of the detail that I'd hoped for. In January 1944, he was Taken On Strength (TOS) at 'No.1 India Base W/S'. In July 1944, he was 'Discharged from Hospital' (he'd contracted 3 tropical diseases) and subsequently repatriated to the UK at the end of the year. So, my first question is can anyone tell me where No.1 India Base W/S (which I assume means Workshops) was located? My father told me that he started (and finished) in Deolali Transit Camp but had also been posted to the North East of India and over the border into Burma. He did receive the Burma Star. Can anyone suggest any other source that might help me locate him during the first 6 months of 1944? I must say that, if his Service Record doesn't have it, I'm not very hopeful. But thanks in advance for ANY tidbits of information.
Not one document, no. You have to piece it together from various location statements, orders of battle and the like.
Why don't you post the pages and we will see if we can add anything to what you have gleaned from his records.
These are the 3 bits relevant to India plus a picture in Deolali. Hope you're able to zoom in on them. Thanks in advance for anything you can tell me.
My mother told me that he was still very poorly when he got back to the UK. In her words, he'd contracted concurrently "3 of the 4 major tropical diseases" (I wish I could remember which she said they were) and was so ill that he contemplated suicide (whilst still in India). They consciously put off having children until the 1950s because "there was no way we could have one then the state your father was in".
Spent a lot of his time on the Xii list, which you prob already know generally means hospitalised outside of active areas... my dad had reccurrent bouts of malaria for many many years...
Lovely image of your Dad at Deolali. There is a decent thread about the Reinforcement Camp on the forum here: Base Reinforcement Camp, Deolali.
I really appreciate these contributions, thank you. It's a subject we didn't talk about too much when he was alive but I've been able to build up quite a bit about his service in WW2 from his Service Records and the odd family anecdotes. This thread is starting to fill the big gap on where he was and what he did whilst in India/Burma. [Edit - I'm actually writing the 'story' of my mother and father, from their births, growing up, meeting, WW2, post-war, family, children, grand-children, etc. I just want my kids and their kids (and beyond) to know about them as people and not just names and dates on a family tree. This is helping flesh out that story and things like the map of Deolali are going into the more detailed Appendices. So, again, thanks!]
