My father (RASC Tipper) went missing overnight while under command of 246 Field Co. He was working with a platoon mending roads. In the war diary the area named is Oorloo to Kastenraij. B225. Would Oorloo be Overloon? Cannot find anything resembling Kastenraij. My father said he took a wrong turning and ended up behind enemy lines. He hid in a forest (or woods) overnight and some German tanks passed by. He made his way back the following day. I am presuming that he had been fetching materials for road mending whether from a quarry or general rubble dump. This took place on 2nd/ 3rd December 1944 and I am wondering how near the above named places were to the German lines and what forests / woods are in the area.
One of our Veteran members 'sapper' was in 246 Fd Coy. I know Andy copied all their war diaries. I'll PM him to ask him to have a look. edit: found his thread. December 1944 are in there post #11. http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/29012-246-field-company-royal-engineers-war-diary-1944/
Thanks Owen but the info I got was from the War Diaries in this forum. I have also read Sappers great accounts but I think he was out of action by 2nd December. I have noticed that the spelling of some places in war diaries does not relate to names on a map!
Oh sorry , thought you were referring to the RASC diaries. Maybe the coordinates given in the war diary can be translated . http://www.echodelta.net/mbs/eng-translator.php
what you're looking for is Oirlo, and Castenray is part of that community: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oirlo
Thank you everyone. I would never have found the area without your help. I was just talking to my elder brother (who has a better memory than I but don't tell him I said that !) and he says that my father was on his own in the tipper and it was an orchard that he hid in. Well, I knew it was something to do with trees!
