Hi, I have been trying to find out about my Grandad, Spr Beadnell who was a Driver with the 507 Field Company Royal Engineers. I am in the process of sending off for his War records but wondered if anyone could give me some information about The 507th Field Company RE? He wrote this on the back of a photograph taken 12/07/1939 when he was at Halton Camp in Lancaster, it says TIME EXP. HALTON CAMP. 507 FD. CO. R.E. Nr Lancaster. We were told by my Gran that he was at Dunkirk but of course, I presume I need his records to confirm this. He died over 15 years ago and never spoke of his time during the War to my Dad. Any information on the 507th Field Company would be greatly appreciated.
Welcome to the forum 507th Field Coy RE 2nd line TA; 3 Sep 1939: Newcastle-on-Tyne; embodied 3 Sep 1939 (23rd (Northumbrian) Division became operational 2 Oct 1939); relieved 29 Jun 1940. Under London Defence Tps RE Sep1940. Assigned 148th Infantry Brigade Group 29 Nov 1940; relieved 24 Jul 1942. Assigned 47th (London) Infantry Division 24 Sep 1943; relieved 30 Jul 1944. Assigned 47th Infantry (Res) Division 29 Jan 1945. Disbanded Sep 1945+. Hope this helps
23rd (Northumbrian) Division RE Went to France Apr 1940 for training and labour duties Disbanded 30 June 40 So he was more than likely at Dunkirk the only way to really find out would be obtaining the war diary from the National Archieve
Thank you for your help How do I go about obtaining the war diary? Would I have to visit the National Archives?
Hello rosegold21 There are a couple of members on here who will copy them for you at very reasonable rates. They should be along soon with the file numbers to help you. Lesley
here ya go mate, here is the references from the national war archives War Office: Home Forces: War Diaries, Second World... WO 166/481 War Office: British Expeditionary Force, France: W... WO 167/264 War Cabinet and Cabinet Office: Historical Section... CAB 106/284 If you speak to psyorg or drew5233 they will copy them for you for a small fee
Halton Camp - There's a place I hated going to, you had to walk for miles to the only pub, the showers were communial and always cold and the accomodation was Nissan Huts with stone floors covered in dirt. A lot of the SBS Reserves train there now flying out to the Oil Rigs off the coast.
Anyway here are the 507 War Diaries at Kew. All of them are Home Forces except for the last one, a two month spell in France. WO 166/3773 507 Field Company. 1939 Sept.-1940 Jan., Apr., July - 1941 Dec. WO 166/8204 507 Company 1942 Jan.-Dec. WO 166/12147 507 Company 1943 Apr.-Dec. WO 166/15311 507 Company 1944 Jan.-July WO 167/1015 507 Field Company Royal Engineers 1940 May-June
The War Diary for this Field Company is in the process of being typed up and uploaded to the Memorial Website of 70th Infantry Bride - to whom they were attached for part of their service. Work has just started to document the War Diary and to creatte a list of the personnel who served. As the War Diaries are copyright to The National Archives and should not be used in their raw state, they have been photographed and then typed up - naturally this takes time. Mention of your relative is particularly useful - if you can contact me at 70brigade@newmp.org.uk with any information about him I will add it to his page on the Website when that is created. Regards John L Dixon Lead Researcher
John, Out of curiosity is the entire war diary being typed up or just the daily entries? The R.C.E. war diaries are now coming online and I find it annoying that only the daily entries are being included. Missing are most of the files, including plans for bridges, roads etc.
Dear John You can only photograph, and then type up, what is actually in the file at The National Archives. As I mentioned I have a Directory of about 7,500 pages covering the units that were part of the Brigade Group. Where I could I photo'd appendices, maps, returns etc and include them on the Website. It is clear that many documents have been weeded from the original files - possibly because they were seen as duplicates - the downside is that one almost never finds out where the "master copy" of the document is kept - or whether in fact it still exists. I have examples of sections of a War Diary that were lost, due to being destroyed en route to Dunkirk. Some key periods - such as the month in which the Brigade was disbanded - are missing altogether. In addition I found, in respect of Iceland, that documents that would have been part of the files on each Brigade have been weeded so that they only exist in one of the folders - and if you aren't looking at that unit, you never get to see them. I got several copies of Iceland Force Orders from an Icelandic contact who found them in the files of 146 and 147 Brigades, which he was studying for one of his articles - and they were not on the 70 Brigade files, having presumably been selectively culled as duplicates. I appreciate your frustration but we can only deal with things as they are. If there is evidence that material was at one time in the file, then I mention it and list it as missing. As it happens, with regard to the original enquiry which started this topic, the work I have already done on the 507 Field Company RE Diaries include a couple of mentions of Sapper Beadnell, so he will be going on my manpower list in due course. Regards John
