My Dad has been trying to find his Dad's movements in the REME and was recently sent a copy of his tracer card. Specifically we are trying to establish where his Dad would have been around February 1944. The card has a line that seems to be "Holding Btn and SOS 21AG 17.2.44" What does that mean please? Is that likely to be near home (South Yorkshire)? If anyone can shed any light on where he'd be before and after that date we'd really appreciate it. Thank you.
Your best bet would be to obtain a copy of his service records - forms are on this link Request records of deceased service personnel Holding Btn - is a 'place' where men where held until they were found a regiment or position to go to SOS means 'Struck Off Strength' ie they are no longer with the unit mentioned 21 AG is 21st Army Group [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Army_Group] His service records will be a better source of information TD
Thank you for taking the time to reply. The service records would prove tricky (although not impossible) to get. I was hoping it might not be necessary.
Hi, Welcome to the forum. As TD says your best bet will be to obtain his full service records. I don’t fully understand all the abbreviations but I’d hazard a guess - according to this tracer card - his only overseas service was in East Africa. Steve
Can you explain the comment - we have members here who obtain service records for non family members all the time, so dont understand your comment TD
As far as I understand it we would need a copy of his death certificate. We don't have that but could apply for a copy, which would take time and money so I was hoping it might not be necessary
It will take far less time and probably money to obtain his service records than to try and find out the same from this forum or by searching the internet - we have gone through this process with many others who have come to this site asking the same questions as yourself but wanting to do it for free - sorry its impossible, especially when you compare that small sacrifice you need to make for what the soldier made. Do you have his name, when he died and where he died so that we can help porvide the details to you to obtain his death certificate, you already have the link for the MOD forms TD
I completely understand and I'm sorry if you feel I am wasting your time, or disrespecting my grandfather in some way.
Neither really - we have explained the best and quickest way to answer your question, its up to you if you want to follow that or not, but please realise that the information you are searching for does not come for free. In respect of your grandfather, he sacrificed his time, many men and women sacrificed their lives for our freedom to be able to sit here today to do what we are doing. His service records will cost you £30 and his death certificate around £10, its not much in comparison to what they did. His service records will tell you which units he served with and when - without knowing that you could be forever going around in circles especially as he was REME and they had numerous different sections - Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers - Wikipedia - so he could be fixing Radar equipment/ Tanks/Trucks / etc etc. From that actual factual information you can then obtain the War Diaries written at the time which will detail daily where that unit was and what it was doing - without his service record knowledge you have no details from which to start TD
Hi, TYPING THIS WHILE TD POSTED ABOVE. The difference between researching WW1 and WW2 soldiers is that a lot of WW1 material is in the public domain - albeit often only available on paid for genealogy sites - but the most valuable source of information for WW2 personnel (service record) is still held by MOD. There is no shortcut to getting full chapter and verse on a soldiers military history other than having sight of a service record. The tracer card you have attached is very helpful but the information is presented in such an abbreviated form as to be difficult to decipher. All the material on it will be repeated (likely with additions) on the B103 forms in his service record. There is more space on a B103 than the tracer card (there are usually 3 or 4 B103 forms in a file) so there may be fuller entries than the "acronym full" tracer card. They usually include unit locations within UK - which may assist you in your search for his unit UK location about Feb 1944. You could ask the REME museum to decipher the tracer card more fully but they will likely charge and or expect a donation. Once you have a service record with units listed you can then look to search UK national archives for unit war diaries. Good Luck Steve
