Hi Has anyone any idea just how many Royal Marines would normally serve on board a cruiser like HMS Orion. And who would normally command them? A Royal Marine officer or an officer from the ships complement. And would the detachment have their own war diary? Or was it entered the ships log? Thanks in advance Gus
Hi, They would have a Royal Marine officer in charge of the RM Detachment. The Detachment was about 60 strong. There were around 20 RM Bandsmen on-board as well. In late 1943 the number of Marines increased on ships with RM Detachments as they had to man a quarter of the “Close in Defence Weapons”. Apart from some War Diaries for Ships Detachments in the British Pacific Fleet in 1945 nothing shows up on Discovery. Not sure if the Detachments used them that much. It seems to be “Letters” and “Proceedings” from the few documents that I have looked at. Is it the Med area that you are interested in ? You might find something in ADM 202/444 - Royal Marines: War Diaries, Unit Diaries, Detachment Reports and Orders. Periodical Letters. Fleet Royal Marine Officer, to Mediterranean Fleet: monthly letters. - 01/05/1941 - 28/02/1943, when Kew opens up again. Doubt if there would be much information, if any, in the ships log. These are pretty basic, location, date, time etc. If you are lucky one or two lines with a scrap of information. A search on Discovery with “proceedings”, “Mediterranean” shows up a few files that might have information in them. Regards Danny
Hi Thanks or this. Navy HQ at Piraeus gets attacked on 04 Dec 44 and is reinforced by a det of marines from HMS Orion. 1 member of Copp 10 is killed and 2 marines are wounded, But thats' about all I can establish at the moment. So anything else will be a bonus. Gus
Hi, The casualty from COPP 10 was Leading Seaman E.W. Harding. He was killed two days after he had been awarded the D.S.M. COPP 10 returned to the UK on 21/12/44. Regards Danny
