I am a newbie both in this forum and also in trying to work in this area, so forgive me if I ask basic questions. I am wanting to visit India and base that visit on my Fathers service there in 43 - 46 by visiting the places that he served, and, if possible, seeing where he lived. He was in the UK Royal Signals and served in the following places: Agra Oct 43 - Mar 44 509 command Wrkshops IEME Saharanpur Mar 44 - Jun 44 2 L of C Signals Ramchi Jun 44 - Oct 44 2 L of C Signals Comilla* Oct 44 - Jan 45 2 L of C Signals Mhow Jan 45 - Jul 46 STC (B) (comissioned as a trainer) Deolali Jul 46 En route home * - I realise that this is in what is now Bangladesh Can anyone tell me anything about these locations or units, or suggest where I can go or what I can read to find out more?
Hi Johndrury & Welcome to the forum ! The best advice I could possibly offer you is to get yourself poste haste to Trip Advisor ! If you want to get help on matters relating to your Dad's service then by all means post your queries here. You will find that this forum has the most helpful & friendly people you could imagine amongst its members but, if it's help on travel, then TripAdvisor.com is the place to get answers. Go to GOOGLE, key in "Tripadvisor Agra" and you will see exactly what I mean. Good luck ! Ron!
Hi John, I was lucky enough to have travelled through Burma in 2008, covering a lot of the places my Grandfather would have seen action at in 1943. I was fortunate that the tour was organized by Poppy Travel, a department of the The Royal British Legion. They had to obtain special permission for us all to travel within the Northern areas of the country. We spent three amazing days on an old diesel train and travelled from Myitkhina near the Chinese border right the way down to Mandalay. You will need to take advice from a good travel company as has already been stated. I wish you well and good luck, if it comes off for you, it really will be an experience of a life time. Bamboo.
Hi John...I had a great uncle who was RAMC in India and was in Agra...however just checked his dates and he was there later than your father, in 1945. Shame as I have some photos of him and fellow officers from that time. However, his photo album does include a few photos of Agra, albeit mostly temples and such tourist sites, a few street scenes, but if they might be of value in getting a "feel of the atmosphere", I could scan some for you - PM me if interested. I've never been to India - it's on my list !
Dear All Thanks very much for your speedy responses. I seem to have expressed myself wrong - I am quite happy about how to get to the locations, how to find hotels etc. What I want to find out is more about 509 command Wrkshops IEME in Agra (for example). Where were they located in the city, is the barracks still there and so on. Tripadvisor will not help me very much with that, I am afraid
Going off the potted history of the EME available here - Corps of Electrical & Mechanical Engineers [EME] - would indicate that "509 Command Workshops IEME" exists today as "509 Army Base Workshop EME" The history of that individual unit doesn't have a page link but there is one for it's sister unit, 508 ABW. From what can be gleaned from the two pages, I would hazard a guess that the current 509 ABW is in the same barracks / depot as the WW2 509th. It appears to be at "36/147/1d devry road agra" according to this link (which also gives an aerial shot of the facility) - 509 Army Base Workshop V J Handa Worked here for 20 years India
