My late father was a POW during WW2, having been captured in June 1940. He talked about being in a Davie's Battalion and i used to think he was getting things muddled up from that time. Recently i have found out there was a Davie's Battalion formed as part of 'Vic' force. So it seems that whereas i thought he was with 2nd Battalion East Kents in Belgium at the time i was wrong. He was in an IBD (Infantry Base Depot) somewhere near Rouen, nowhere near Belgium! He claims to have been captured near a place he called Neuf Chappelle (not sure on the spelling), there is one near Rouen according to my map of France. Has any one any information on these scratch Battalions which were 'cobbled' together using personnel who were in IBD's? Would the Archives at Kew have info?
Good question ! These ad-hoc formations are quite difficult to follow. Ellis's Official history simply records their formation and mentions that Davie's formed part of Vicforce. He does however quote his unpublished sources - There is reference to documents forming part of the "Archivist's and Librarian's General Series" which were part of the documents held in Cabinet Office Archives. I think that it's reasonable to assume that these are now in the National Archives. I don't know if this reference will still help. A.L.1200/4, p.7; W.D./B.E.F./351/1,Vicforce May I'll have a look in some other publications.
Thank you for your information Rich, i will be going up to Kew in the new year to do some research. Paul
