RACTD or base depot at Abbassia, near Cairo please

Do you have his date of birth and where he was born - trying to find him in the 1939 Register

TD

 

3RTR received their first American tanks at the beginning of September 1941. They took them into battle with 4th Armoured Brigade in November on Op CRUSADER.

 

Thanks TD and Mark, Dennis was born 11 JUL 1911 in India and his parents were Alfred Rowland who was to become Chief Engineer railways, retiring 11 FEB 18, and Mary Dorothea Rowland nee Murphy, Alfred's second wife. An aside but Bob Crisp of 3 RTR fame was also born in 1911 in India to a railway engineer.

According to a newspaper clipping, Dennis was captured at the time of Op Crusader and was in captivity for two weeks before escaping which led to him being mentioned in despatches. I had an enquiry into the TNA about this but did not get a reply before lock down.

I guess the american tanks were Honeys for Op Crusader?

Graeme Dah dit dah

 

Hes not showing up on the 1939 register unfortunately for me at the moment, he could be transcribed incorrectly (my father is) or he could be there but redacted and is awaiting confirmation of his death details as per below

Redactions
Images have been redacted to protect the privacy of those still alive and we will be annually adding records for those with birth dates older than 100 years or if a record of the death has been reported to The National Archives. Images will also be updated to reflect the opening of the record. All indexes have been created from redacted images as provided by The National Archives and as such, some indexes may not include all information as originally recorded, where it is obscured from view.

It would have been interesting to #find out where he was and what he was doing - ah well

TD

 

Many thanks for trying. It is possible that he is recorded as Rowlands as the 3 RTR war diary adds the s to his name when it appears there. His casuality card was originally with Rowlands and the s has been crossed out. Sadly there are a number of items not completed - the date it was filled in and the NOK part. For rank it originally showed A/P/ Cpl and the A/P/ has been crossed out. Regt is shown as 7th R T R R A C. The first casuality shown is 10 OCT 40 Gastro Enteritis. At least his service number is correct 3768768

On the Honours and Awards list I got from the Tank Museum, his name is spelt correctly without the S.

Graeme