What was the normal size for a reme unit? My grandfathers was 1 officer and 22-24 o.r's is the normal? What would it be broken down into? I know his had 4 drivers and a cool plus another 17-19 men
Hutchie There were numerous different types of REME unit, ranging from LADs (which would likely have been about the size you quote. but would differ depending exactly what unit they were supporting - could be an infantry brigade or an armoured or motor battalion) right up to fourth line workshops where vehicles were stripped down and rebuilt after overhaul which would have been very much bigger. And of course there were various other sizes of workshops in between. Chris
Oddly enough 1 officer and 24 ORs would be right for an LAD Type "C", intended to service an Armoured Regt or Tank Bn. As mentioned above though, REME units were legion and there were a shed-load of different types. Do you have any details on the type of work your grandfather undertook? If he was in the Port Wksp referenced in your signature that would be a very different unit to an LAD, and your details are likely for a subsection of that. Gary
yes you are right gary it is the port wksp in my sig. in the war diaries it had strength as 1 officer and 22/24 OR, there tasks ranged from recovering vehicles to be returned to britain for an overhaul to repairing them there selfs it says in the diaries repairs to "a" & "b" vehicles before shipment and also Second Echelon repairs to local units. they also inspected vehicles as well prior to hand over to other divisions etc
Gotcha, not a unit I have the establishment table for. If you're interested in chasing it down I can have a look at where it's likely to be in the National Archives WO24 series. There might be a few candidates as both Middle East and North Africa (later Central Mediterranean) WEs were used in Italy. Gary
These films are post WW2 (1955) but informative and entertaining. They illustrate what REME did, and how they are set up, very well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqLvUOHFVtE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLPLzxZFx2s
I copied a couple of REME LAD field returns today that were attached to a RA Regt. in the Far East. It will be a good few days before I have sorted them out but get back to me in a week with a link to this thread and I'll post the pages on here for you. What you have described sounds similar to this LAD unit.
singeager it was me who posted them on here a week ago lol thanks drew just trying to figure out how this unit was made up