Dors. in War Diaries

Hi,
I am hoping someone will be able to help. I am transcribing some war diaries and the following acronym/phrase keeps catching me out and can't find any information related to the word.

Dors - In context "...leaving behind 50 dors." or "50 dors. under Captain J Airman Smith" or "DAQMG Bone sub-area ordered 100 dors and 3 officers to return by train..."

 

Bone being a seaport I would guess Dockside Other Ranks and Officers

 

Would make sense as this is only really used in the sections related to the sea transport and dockside. Strange seeing at is isn't capitalised but I can't think of anything else it could be.

 

What about short for "Stevedore"?
There were two units listed in the "Index to field force units", starting February 1942, with many amendments (WO 33/1903):
1211 Stevedore Battalion, R.E. (less H.Q and two coys)
"C" Stevedore Battalion, R.E. (less H.Q).

 

Stevedore occurred to me after I had shut down my computer and climbed the wooden hill to bed.
Forgot about it until now.
Perhaps they shortened their name to the acronym dors. in their War Diaries.

stevedore - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

 

Can you show us the war diary entry?

IORs = Indian Other Ranks and AORs = African Other Ranks. Not sure what the D could stand for?

 

One example from 8th March 1943 - "Orders received from Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General Algier sub-area for regiment to embark on ferry lifts Royal Ulsterman and Royal Scotsman bound for Bone on 9th March 1943. This leaves behind 50 dors. and 2 officers to offload MT ship G25 on arrival at Algier docks."
Another example from 17th March 1943 - "Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General Bône sub-area ordered 100 dors and 3 officers to return by train to Algiers for offloading of MT ship G26."
Image attached of the 8th March 1943 extract. It looks like dors to me on this section.

 

Do you think it could be 50 dvrs meaning drivers?
Just looking at the previous words i.e. leaving, the letter v looks the same.

 

What is the unit, Tom?

 

These are war diary extracts from the 54th Heavy Regiment RA.

 

I wonder if it could just be a pecularity of what was written, and the author meant ORs, i.e. Other Ranks.

 

Now that I look at it again, "dvrs" seems plausible.

 

"... offloading ..." perfectly fits to Stevedore.

As the trade "Stevedore" might be not too well known, I'll try to show that it lived throughout the war.

The standard Field Force had the respective war establishment for a Stevedore Battalion, R.E. under IV/22 B/1, effective from 11.10.1939 - 11.12.1940.
IV/22 B/2 did not supersede IV/22 B/1, it became already effective on 29.05.1940, and its title was now A Docks Operating Company, R.E., as was the title of the superseding IV/22 B/3, effective until the 19.07.1946.
Although the name "Stevedore" disappeared in the title of these war establishments, the mass of their tradesmen were still called "Stevedores" (about 50 % of all ranks).
Middle East got a special war establishment for this purpose again under the title Stevedore Battalion, R.E. (VI/748/1, effective 27.03.1943 - 12.04.1944).
In December 1943, Volume IV reintroduced the title "Stevedore" in two war establishments:
IV/207/1 - Headquarters, Stevedore, Battalion, R.E.
IV/208/1 - A Stevedore Company, R.E.
both effective 03.12.1943 - 03.04.1947.
272 tradesmen of 356 all ranks in the company were "Stevedores".

In the United Kingdom, war establishment V/84 B/1 - Stevedore Training Battalion, R.E., was effective from 29.05.1940 - 29.05.1946 and provided training for "Stevedore" tradesmen. Unfortunately, no notes on training capacity or duration of the courses are given.

 

Looks like Dvrs to me - and context fits as well. You need Drivers to off-load an MT Ship.

Regards

Tom

 

Just by context, I would think it means ors (ORs) since it separately added two officers. Since it is the regiment that is leaving behind the personnel, stevedores would not seem to fit and why would drivers be needed to offload a ship?

 

I think it is 'drivers'.

You need to drivers to drive the MT where it is needed once unloaded? Or is 'MT ship G.25' a drive-on, drive-off design, so they would be literally unloading the ship?

 

Drivers seems to be the best bet.
Any inclination as to what 'MT' is? These war diaries also reference HMT, which appears to be His Majesty's Trawlers but the ship in question (Bouissevain) is not a trawler. Does this mean anything else?

 

HMT - His/Her Majesty's Troopship
MT- Motor transport
Kyle

 

Could anyone also let me know why some ranks in war diaries have prefixes, for instance A/Lieut, or W/Capt?

 

General wartime prefixes, Acting Lieutenant Wartime Captain not exactly correct but depends on the clerk keeping the Diary. W/Sergeant Honorary Captain Temporary Major, Honorary Colonel etc.

The Regular Army was diluted by part time soldiers, in for the duration of the war. Territorials and Conscripts.
After the war the army strengths were reduced which left many senior NCO's and Officers without men to command.
The army had to create a situation where they could choose who would stay and who would go.
This happened in the First then Second World War.

Temporary gentlemen - Wikipedia