Ian Fenwick, the famous cartoonist killed in 1944 with 1 SAS, was by the first day of 1943 the commandant of No.4 Special Training School at Cranleigh in Surrey. Looking through his papers I see that he wrote that he had joined 'Room 98' in September 1942 and attended a parachute course the following month. Can anyone tell me what 'Room 98' was? Cheers, Skip
The various organisations such as SOE, SIS and PWE all had as cover addresses rooms at the War Office in London - I would say that Room 98 was a cover for the SOE STS (Special Training Schools) whose address was Room 98 Horseguards.
Thanks Steven, In your experience would a parachute course be standard for those becoming instructors at any STS?
The Instructors went through the same courses as the students only with an MOI (methods of Instruction) and an 'Instructors' course - so they would do the Paramilitary, the Beaulieu Finishing School together with a Sabotage Course at STS 17 and often the Lysander & Eureka Course as well as the parachuting at STS 51. Most of the SAS Personnel in 2SAS were trained in parachuting by SOE - indeed many of the Cadre of 2SAS were members of SOE and its own 'Private Army' 62 Commando (Small Scale Raiding Force) In the later group were Anders Lassen VC and Geoffrey Appleyard.
That's spot on - cheers Steven. My next question is how can I get hold of the parachute course nominal rolls so that I can cross reference with other information about certain 2 SAS casualties?
The simple answer is there are no consolidated STS51 and STS 52 rolls the courses were often done for a small group of trainees and everything was done in from 3 - 5 days, much of the ground training having been done earlier at the various STSs. Some SOE P/Fs include a list of trainees for a particular group but everything was very compartmentalized on security grounds and the training records of the schools have not survived.
Skip, you have access to Fenwick's papers? A chum of mine has become slightly fixated with placing him in Turkey during (?)1942, and also seeks clarification of how he got the Africa Star and the Italy Star when KRRC (which was in both theatres) records make no mention of him having been there... Apparently the van Straubenzee family photo album (his sister married one?) has pix of him, and there are drawings made by him in Turkey. Can you shed any light?
Hi, I’ve been shown a letter about my father [SIS] from Room 98, not a designation I’ve come on while researching around his unpublished memoir. Does anyone know if it really was a room, and if so was it any more than a post room. If the latter I assume there were clerks with a high security clearance who knew who everyone was is SIS/SOE etc. Thanks, Colin
