British 2nd army vehicle returns?

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone had charts for 2nd Army vehicle returns within the period from September 44 to February 45?

Thanks,
Chris

 

In a bit of a rush but I think Peter Brown prepared various Vehicle Returns for that period of time.

 

Thanks SDP, I'll have to see if I can get in touch with him.

 

There are a few AFV returns in the UK National Archives.

The ones SDP mentions are, I think, the quarterly RAC returns. I have the Jun44 ones but couldn't get the Dec44 and Jun45 issues. There is also an incomplete run of AFV returns for various dates across Jan45 to May45. The quality of my copies is quite poor in places, some figures are unreadable. If there's something specific you're interested in let me know and I'll see if they shed any light. Because they are on A3 pages they are a swine to scan. There's also a set of returns for Oct44 I've seen mention of but don't have.

Note these are AFV returns, no carriers, LRCs or B vehicles included, I don't know where that info might be.

Gary

 

Hi Gary,

Thanks for your response!

What I'm actually looking for is any reports for number of Valentine 17-Pounder SPs, aka Archers, which as I'm sure you know would have been in the infantry divisions rather than RAC units.

Chris

 

As the Archers were AT guns the would not be in RAC returns

 

I can give you figures for Jan and Feb45; the AFV returns I have copies of are not restricted to RAC, as Michael points out they wouldn't have figures for anti-tank equipment. I did try to get hold of RA returns for 21AG myself a fair few years back now, I wanted to see when the SP Valentines first appeared, but my researcher couldn't find anything on the matter.

I'll dig the figures out for 1945 for you, will be towards the end of the week but I won't forget!

Gary

 

Thanks very much, Gary!

I have some end of war AFV Reports for 1st Canadian Army which do include both infantry and armour divisions. Maybe you folks would like them? Happy to share

Numbers for 49 West Riding Division are there as well Poles and us Canucks:

1st Canadian Army AFV Reports

 

As promised, attached (I hope) are the cobbled together notes of Valentine tank issues for 21 Army Group in 1945, both self-propelled 17-pr anti-tank guns and chargers. As mentioned the AFV returns I have are incomplete, and one week proved totally unreadable for charger issues. I've only put the information in for the Br and Cdn Inf Divs. For reasons I don't recall finding out 30th Armd Bde reported 17 SP Valentines for the last two weeks of returns; there's a note on the last entry but it is unreadable.

Hope they were what you were after. Thanks for posting your own findings, I haven't compared the two but hopefully they aren't doo divergent.

Gary

 

Thank you very much, Gary! I can't wait to be done work so I can take a look

 

While my work computer is busy doing something I just downloaded the PDF to my laptop.

Gary, I owe you a great debt of gratitude for compiling those tables! It's quite incredible and far more detailed than I had any reason to expect. The numbers do look like the correspond correctly with 3rd Canadian AT receiving their first Valentine SPs on the 7th - I have to double check, did it have 3 batteries or 4? They distributed the SPs as one troop per battery.

And also 1st Canadian AT did not receive any until after Operation Goldflake (the movement of Canadian troops in Italy to NWE). Ironically I spent some time last night combing through their records trying to determine whey they first received any.

Is there anything you are researching that I might be able to help with from here in Canada, or might enjoy reading?

e.g. docs I have scanned: some 21st AG and 8th Army AFV Technical Reports, the original report on the Kingforce Churchills, some docs to do with Churchill use in Tunisia I haven't had a chance to read.