I am tracing my fathers ww2 movements and generally making good progress. There are however, a number of acronyms in war diaries and correspondance that I would be grateful if someone could decipher and perhaps indicate if this particular unit is likely to have a diary as nothing jumps out from Kew. 3. Coy, 6th BATT, Ro. I. G. R. T. D, RASC, C.M.F This appears as the recipients address on a 1943 Christmas Greetings Airgraph with a Southend postmark of 29 Nov 43 although interestingly its been crossed out and my fathers later unit address added in pencil at the side. Its the bold italic part I am stumped on except that R T D could be Return to Duties which would tie in with a period after a severe bout of Malaria
Hi Hutt, I am fairly sure G.R.T.D stands for General Reinforcements Training Depot. I am not sure about the Ro, but the I may be a 1. There is a diary for this, but it seems as if the dates don't tally: WO 170/38371 General Reinforcement Training Depot 6 Battalion1944 May, June I am sure one of the forum will get to the bottom of this. Cheers Colin
Many thanks for the 2 replies so far. The sugested wording looks very likely. I'll ignore the possible Ro or 1/I at this stage as I only have one document with this address and it could quite easily be a mistake by the sender in the UK especially as my father appears to have been in the unit for no more than a couple of weeks before being posted onwards. I guess a further question is, would this be the type of unit you would have been posted to if it was impractical to return you to your original unit after a spell in hospital. My father certainly never went back to the unit he appears to have served in through North Africa and initailly in Sicily. I hope to be at Kew again later this week so will certainly request the diary suggested if only to get some idea of what this type of unit was up to.
