Proceeded on draft RPHNM

Discussion in 'General' started by Welshbob, Sep 20, 2016.

  1. Welshbob

    Welshbob Member

    Hi All

    I am transcribing into book form my late Uncles army service record and I have hit a brick wall. He was transferred to The Royal Welch Fusiliers in April 45 after returning from NWE after landing on D-day as a stretcher bearer with 293 company on Juno beach. He was a North Wales born man so no doubt requested to join the RWF.

    His record sates: -

    Proceeded on draft RPHNM 26/06/45

    Embarked UK 27/07/45
    Disembarked Bombay 17/07/45 (I am guessing dates wrong way round)
    TOS India Command dame date and posted X4(a) list
    Proceeded to BBRC ?asik Road.

    My question is what is RPHNM? I have done the usual searches and hit a wall, I am OK with the India stuff after but wondered if RPHNM was related to India? He remained in India until March 46 when he was posted to Japan.

    Any ideas? :)

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  2. ClankyPencil

    ClankyPencil Senior Member

    RPHNM is just an administrative code.

    Reinforcements from various units, travelling between theatres would usually be grouped together into a draft, which would be given a code (in this case RPHNM). This was so they could easily be allocated things like rations, space on ships etc

    Once they reached the destination they would be dispersed to their units or transferred onto an X list.
    For info about X lists see this thread
    http://www.ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/x-lists-service-records.15663/

    So from that X4 would indicate he was an unposted reinforcement for a time
     
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  3. ClankyPencil

    ClankyPencil Senior Member

    Also based on the Draft date of 26/06/45 i suspect the Embarked UK date should read 27/06/45 and the Disembarked Bombay date of 17/07/45 being correct.
     
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  4. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    Hi Welshbob,

    ClankyPencil is spot on. We discussed these codes before on the forum. Here:
    Draft recognition codes.

    BBRC is British Base Reinforcement Camp. This refers to the infamous Deolali Camp, where almost all Army personnel posted to India spent sometime. The camp was in the Nashik district of the Bombay hinterland. I would think this would be the camp mentioned on your Uncles records.

    Deolali - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Nasik Road railway station - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
     
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  5. Welshbob

    Welshbob Member

    Thank ClankyPencil thats great, it has helped a lot and I can no proceed with my transcript. :cheers:
     
  6. Welshbob

    Welshbob Member

    Thanks bamboo43 thats very interesting, I did not know about the BBRC. I will be using this info in my booklet on my uncle. :cheers:
     

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