My sister recently obtained my fathers war records. He was with the Yorks & Lancs and ended up in India. He was eventually repatriated and discharged class E Code E10 (unfit). He never spoke in detail about his service, the odd nugget. A mystery to the family , there were no medals or discharge paperwork in his personal possession when he died. I do recall him telling me after I had served myself for a number of years, " we didn't salute the officers, we had no respect for them", which intrigued me. He also told me he had thrown his medals away I am looking for assistance with the abbreviations on his record. BBRC =British Base Reinforcement Camp? YITC = Yorkshire Infantry Training Camp? RPAAK BBSTE The RPAAK one would be really useful, it may indicate where and what happened to him, and why he ended up on the X(ii) list. The medical record describes Hysteria-Sensory unconnected. His discharge paperwork has no other references for wounds etc. I've attached a couple of the pages and would be really grateful to the Sherlock Holmes out there. I am planning to visit the regimental archive in Rotherham and to the IWM. BTW he blagged himself into the Army as a 15yo, so he would have been around 16/17 when this was going on. He was offered a war pension but turned it down...'Give to them that needs it'
Hi, You might be better to have started a new topic to attract more members. Your Y ITC is 7 ITC - see link for details. http://ww2talk.com/index.php?attachments/itcs-xls.47443/ RPAAK looks to be a Draft Code - used to identify a man and his equipment whilst en route overseas from UK - like a flight number is used nowadays as mentioned by the oft missed late forum member Tricky Dicky There will be medical records in your fathers file but MOD don’t release them. Steve PS The “unconnected” in relation to his medical discharge means his illness was not considered to have been caused or aggravated by his military service so he would not have had a pension entitlement. His only medal entitlement would appear to be for The War Medal. If there is no Medal Office stamp on his papers showing it was issued post war you can still claim it as NOK.
Thank you for the response, any snipit is always helpful. Deciphering old documents which have hand written entries is a real challenge. My sister claimed the War Medal, we have a photo of my father with his brother and the thing that puzzled us is that it shows my father with two ribbons. It's a B&W photo, it just adds to the enigma of what happened to him and where he was. Once again thank you. Chris
Hi Chris, for my two cents I can see: Military History Sheet: Served in Indian theatre. Order/Postings Sheet: York & Lancs Regiment, 7th Infantry Training Centre (thanks to the above post). *removed text* 7th *something* Battalion (before and during his time in India) *removed text* Looks like he was only in India for a few weeks before he picked up that injury/illness, then you can see all those corresponding X/Y List entries at the bottom of the Order/Postings sheet. Cheers, James
Hi James, Many thanks for the contribution. RPAAK & BBSTE are proving to be very difficult to chase down. Kind regards, Chris
Four battalions of the York and Lancaster Regiment served in India/Burma during WW2, but I can see no evidence that this soldier ever served in any of them. The '7 Something Bn' to which you refer is 7 Holding Battalion; his posting before he was sent to India. RPAAK is simply his draft code and has no other significance. I don't know what BBSTE is. I'm sad that you think 7 Y&L contributed nothing to the defeat of the Japanese, especially in view of the fact that they lost well over 30 men killed and mortally wounded during their short time there.
Hi Charpoy Chindit, I'm very sorry for including that last part of text in my post - their loses are very sad indeed, as is any loss of life. I had put a couple of (c) Wikipedia citations in my post in hopes of denoting that all of the accompanying text was copied and pasted from there, which I did primarily to add to the original posters understanding of the suggested regiments actions. However, I can see how leaving that last part of the paragraph in there was careless, and for some, upsetting to read. I have edited my post to remove all of the Wikipedia text. I will for sure be more careful in the future. Kind Regards James
