Hi folks- Got a few questions about 101st General Transport Company, particularly their role in the D-Day landings and their amphibious vehicles. My grandfather was part of 101st Company as a driver and embarked 4th June '44 for the D-Day landings. Since he'd spoken when he was alive about driving a DUKW during the war we thought perhaps that was what he'd done during the landings, especially since 101st is noted for being one of the companies who supplied DUKWs. However, his records seem to say that he didn't become part of the amphibious part of 101st coy (GT- Amph.) until 13 July 1945, just before he embarked for Palestine with the company. This is a little confusing as I'm having a hard time working out whether there were two different parts of 101st coy dealing with amphibious and non-amphibious transport, or whether they were only separated some time later. Were 101st coy and 101st coy (Gt Amph) separate during WWII? If so, what would a non-amphibious vehicle driver be doing on D-Day? Was there suddenly a need for distinction between the two sections after the war?
Hi, Please have a look here for some details for the company war diary for June 1944. War Diary - 101 Coy RASC (GT) I'm not entirely sure I completely understand your question. There were non-amphibious vehicles in the company - normally referred to as "domestic"; things like 15 cwt water trucks, jeeps, 3-ton cooks' lorries, motorcycles, etc. So there is a possibility that your grandfather drove one of those during the NW Europe campaign and then trained to become an amphibian driver after the war had finished. It is also worth noting that the company lost its DUKWS in October 1944 and converted back to being a 3-ton lorry equipped GT Company. Perhaps they converted back to DUKWs after the war had ended? Regards Tom
Thanks for the info, he probably was just driving a domestic. We only know two things about his service that he said firsthand- that he was there on D-Day, and that at some point during his service he had driven a DUKW. According to the "British Army units from 1945 on" website when 101st GT-Amph. was sent to Palestine they did have some DUKWs with them, but started training with Neptunes in Sept/Oct '46 and by the time the company moved onto Egypt they were using mostly Neptunes. My grandfather left 101st in June '47 and didn't go to Egypt, and we have no idea if he learned to drive a Neptune while he was in Palestine, but my mother doesn't remember him ever mentioning it and she seems fairly certain that he was mostly driving trucks out there. I'm waiting to get scanned copies of the documents so I can get a clearer idea of when he was abroad and when he was home, but we were just struggling to wrap our heads round the difference between 101st and 101st Amph, especially since there's not a great deal of publicly available documentation on either.
