Hi, I am trying to find someone who would know whether there were links (be it through training/posting/social/barracks etc) between Brecon and St Athan during WW2? I am trying to establish whether someone stationed at St Athan would have had cause to be in Brecon...(and maybe meet a girl! Genealogical research!)
Not as far as I can think . Brecon and Sennybridge is all army . St Athan and it’s satellites were a SOTT and an MU. It’s a fair distance apart but you could have got a train there at the time and Brecon had always been a popular tourist / walking area, so maybe a “ non work related “ connection so to speak
Brecon was home to Sennybridge Training Camp with RA Gunnery Ranges. Lt Beadle GPO 266 Battery RA May 1942 I am writing from the midst of a practice camp from which we depart on Thursday. It will take us two days to get there and on the evening of the second day we go into a night occupation on the ranges at Sennybridge. All that night we shall be at work on barrages and so on. Which will be fired at dawn. We shall be there for ten days, not firing the whole time but making pretty heavy weather with the whole gamut of targets that artillery has ever fired.
Cant think of a connection militarily, perhaps they met at St Athan living in Brecon or vice versa. There is a Railway line from Rhoose (nr St Athan) to Brecon and there was a Railway Station at Sennybridge Artillery Range. Google Maps
Brecon, Sennybridge and Crickhowell(Cwrt Y Gollen) although running along the line of the A40 are at the time not connected. Brecon has Brecon Barracks and HQ to the South Wales Borderers. Sennybridge is the school of infantry training and RA. Crickhowell is actually an American camp at the time. Strangely with an airstrip, if you have been there you will see why this is a weird thing. St Athen is the RAF base in the South. The nearest regular barracks would be Maindy(Cardiff) and HQ of the Welsh Regiment. There IS a train connection via the old Brecon and Merthyr Tydfil line. Running North from Cardiff Via Merthyr onwards to Brecon. The only thing I can think of is RAF radio ops possibly being located at Brecon to help run the air control net. There are A LOT of planes on the Brecon Becons that piled in to the hill sides. I'm not RAF but sure they did run "circuits" around South/Mid Wales so having radio ops at Brecon does make sense there. I spent a large amount in green based with 160 Brigade, I know this area inside out.
