Pioneer Smoke Company. See Trux section of this forum in Miscellaneous units. They operated smoke generators in NW Europe. Some were used on the Normandy beaches. Mike
good daynijmegen.yesterday.08:18pm.re: a smoke company.unusual post,i did not know so I went to google.i think you will find some answers about smoke products,regards bernard85
Could be very useful, but would always depend on the wind direction, so most of the time problematic, I guess. 43 Division requested the deployment of the Smoke Company, for 23 September.
Royal Pioneer's at Compton Verney Royal Pioneer's smoke school Haslan smoke machine. I can only describe the Haslan as a mass of pipes, knobs, gauges and valves contained about a twenty foot long trailer. Diesel oil was fed from a 500 gallon tank on the lorry itself and passed through all the above mentioned paraphernalia to the base of a huge cowled metal chimney at the rear end of the trailer. Smoke was Produced by priming an aperture at the base of the chimney with paraffin soaked cotton waste after the outlet valve had been opened. The idea, I think, was that the oil would be shot up the chimney in a fine spray which would be converted into fine globules as it became warmer. By the time the globules reached the top of the chimney they had been converted into Thick black smoke which emerged from below the cowl, as from the funnel of a destroyer protecting its convoy. http://andyworld.co.uk/page9.htm
Quite apart from units that were specifically designed to produce smoke screens, occasionally units such as my own (The 49th LAA) were given the job of providing local smoke cover. During the time that my unit was at Monte Cassino the smoke-laying was an every day part of their activity as the Regimental Diary points out: As a wireless operator who was permanently on communications I was never called upon to do any of these "odd jobs" (which included stretcher bearing) a matter for which I remain most thankful to this day. Ron
I can imagine! Wireless operator would have been more interesting, I think. Always "on top of the news".
The smoke was requested for the Driel area. Could have been helpful, concealing efforts to cross the Rhine River. Does anybody know what "Pnr" in "112 Pnr Coy" means?
Thanks Swiper! This led me to http://www.wlu.ca/lcmsds/cmh/back%20issues/CMH/volume%208/Issue%201/Bond%20-%20The%20Fog%20of%20War%20-%20Large-Scale%20Smoke%20Screening%20Operations%20of%20the%20First%20Canadian%20Army%20in%20Northwest%20Europe%201944-1945.pdf 24 September:
Here a link to an article on the operation of Smoke units during WWII: http://www.wlu.ca/lcmsds/cmh/back%20issues/CMH/volume%208/Issue%201/Bond%20-%20The%20Fog%20of%20War%20-%20Large-Scale%20Smoke%20Screening%20Operations%20of%20the%20First%20Canadian%20Army%20in%20Northwest%20Europe%201944-1945.pdf
Dominating wind direction 22 September: south-south-east 23 September: west-south-west 24 September: south 25 September: west
