164 OCTU – Information Request

Hello Marie,

The only pages that I copied are what I posted on here unfortunately.

166 OCTU at Chisleden [sic] (Chiseldon Camp) for w/e 19 September 1939 but with at total strength of ‘-‘. Did it ever open here with cadets or did it start operating at Colchester?

For w/e 19 June 1940 166 OCTU is located at Colchester with at total strength of 30 Officers and 626 Other Ranks.

Richard

 

May be worth checking Post 9: 117664 Lt Stuart Robertson SUTHERLAND, Wiltshire Regiment: 13/11/1942 As the author has added a PDF on OCTU activity.

 

Should I add it again here David as I have some other questions as to how they actually worked and when officers were commissioned?

 

Not a problem Richard and one day when we are over in the UK, I hope to find time to look for the reference you gave.

 

I am really interesting in what courses a cadet would receive over the four months...transmissions, weapons, drill that sort of thing. I haven't yet looked in the London Gazette the nominations which correspond to your second attachment of the week ending 18th June 1940 but would I be right in thinking that there were around 100 cadets each month who could have been commissioned (and most did I suppose) but were there any failures and, if so, what would happen to those cadets? Many thanks in advance and no rush...

 

you could look at a book called 'Prunes for Breakfast' by Searancke, describing his father's war. He was at OCTU 166 (at that time in Douglas Isle of Man), and there is a description of the coursework.

 

Many thanks indeed Jimbo09 and will do...our father had said that there was a second OCTU in Colchester, 164, with one or two famous men training at the same time as his training in 166. I attach their names from the London Gazette and wonder if you know who he might have been referring to and probably a future/past Rugby Union player (or cricketer). Many thanks in advance but if you don't recognise anyone, not a problem either. Have a nice day

 

The only sportsman that I am aware of during this period was Hedley Verity but he is not mentioned in the lists that you posted.
He died in a POW camp in Caserta, Italy in 1943.
Probably someone else, there must have been many sportsmen in the Army at that time.

Hedley Verity - Wikipedia

 

Many thanks Uncle Target and very interesting. I am not at all sure what our father meant by "famous" people and only a guess that it was future sportsmen and yes, there must have been many whose careers were stopped by the War.

 

apart from putting each name into google individually, you might take a look at this thread on this forum
Actors, Politicians, and Celebrities
It looks like this is several enquiries, all now connected in the same thread because there is a lot of repetition, but it might be a starting point anyway
(or you could copy your post onto that thread and see if anyone there can identify them)

 

Great idea Jimbo09!! Many thanks

 

I have started searching and came across a website (which I have seen before) and may interest others. Although not complete by far, quite a good place to look for British officers...
British Army Officers 1939-1945  -  A

 

Good morning Uncle Target and I have started searching name by name and under the R. War. R. there is Peter Cranmer who was not only a very famous rugby XV player and even captained England but also a well known cricketer. I am halfway down the second column and there are historians (John Simon Gabriel Simmons, James Bysse Joll) and high civil service administrators (Oswald Edmund Branford Hughes and Robin Horton John Thorne) and editors/press in Charles Vere Wintour. But I suspect he meant men such as Cranmer so I shall continue hunting...

 

Good morning and just carrying on from previous note about 164 OCTU and our father certainly meant sportsmen and we found one or two others: John Stanning of Worc. R. (cricket), Alan Pennington of Border R. (sprinter) and Peter Henry Blagg of KS.L.I. (cricket). Others became more famous after the War (judges, diplomats, politicians, historians etc) and one of the cadets was the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Francis Forman Fisher of Foresters)...