752 Recruit Squad, RM Depot, Lympstone 1944

The 19th Battalion RM was formerly the R.M. Auxiliary Battalion. It was renamed the 19th Bn on 1st October 1942 and disbanded 15th July 1943




Regards
Hugh

 

I don't know if you are still following this thread, but I've been investigating my own Grandfather's time with the RM (1942 - 46). He appears in a similar photo taken in 1942, and he wrote on the back "King's Squad" a breadcrumb of a clue, which led me to (a) Your Grandad's photo, and (b) To a special edition of the journal of the Royal Marines Historical Society titled "100 Years of the Kings Badge"*.

It honours and commemorates 100 years of the award of the King's Badge to the most
outstanding recruit in the King's Squad, the senior recruit squad passing for duty on completion of training.

More immediately relevant, it lists every King's Badge Winner from 1918 to 2018 together with their King's Squad number. Like you, I had taken it that the number "370" pencilled on the back of the print was his squad number, but it does not tally with the Squad numbers for 1942 shown in the list.

When I saw the reverse of your old boy's photo I compared it with the list, the penny finally dropped. In both cases, the 3-digit number is just the photographer's identifier for that specific frame in his roll of film, for ordering reprints: the Squad numbers run sequentially right through the war years and beyond, not reaching the 700s until the 1960s.

The Squad numbers for 1944 were in the range from 416 to 421. Sadly, the author did not include their repective dates.

Now, my Grandad spent most of his service administered by HBL RMTG, but in three different units, and exploring that has been a bit of an education.

Your man's Royal Marine Register Number was EX2001

If that is correct, then he was a pre-war member of the Royal Marines. An informed guess, based on his Register Number, says he was a reservist, called up for National Service in 1940, going through an initial six weeks' disciplinary training at the Royal Marines Reserve Depot (Exton), before being posted (as were many others like him) to MNBDO II.​

Your man was in MNBDO II from Feb 1940 to 5 May 44.

That organisation was disbanded in May 1944 (about 5 weeks before D-Day) , and the usual throwaway line used by RM history buffs is nicked from Ladd's By Sea By Land which says "they were sent to crew Landing Craft" - but that's only a partial truth, your Grandad being a case in point. Some went straight to Combined Ops with no further training, others went elsewhere.
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He was 7 months at RM Training Group (Devon) from 6 May to 6 Dec '44.

Someone has dated his passout photo as "April 44" but that doesn't tally with his Service Record which places him at RMTG(D) from 6 May 1944 to 6 Dec '44. His record shows that he was 7 months on the books of RMTG (Devon), apparently as a trainee, not an instructor,

That was a protracted retention at RMTG: 30 weeks was more than double the 18-week duration of what, by 1944, was the standard training package for new recruits. I wonder if he was subject to injury/illness - but the foliage on the trees in the background of his passout photo, when he must have been fit to fight - looks like it was taken between late spring and early autumn '44 at the very latest. Puzzling.
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Posted to HMS "Proper Swine"

Posted in Dec '44 to the shore establishment HMS Proserpine. Note in brackets (19th Bn) is interesting. Now read on:​

Reference to 19th Bn RM

Prior to disbandment in 1943 (almost a year prior to him going to RMTG(D)) 19th Bn RM were in MNBDO II.
19th Bn was an Auxiliary Bn, which never attained full strength.
Aux Bns seem to have been pools of dock workers/ labourers, in RM uniform.
The post (up-thread) by davidbfpo has a link that lists the skillsets that - on disbandment - went from 19th Bn to HMS Proserpine. ​

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I wonder:

If 19th Bn was his MNBDO II unit prior to May '44, it might explain why, in May '44 he went to RMTG(D) to acquire (or re-learn?) basic military skills, in expectation of assignment to a combat role. I can't explain why he remained at RMTG until the winter, but:
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Dec 1944

was, in any case, a time when - with war's end in sight, and an ongoing manpower crisis in the Armed Services and in industry - the Royal Marines were "combing out" all their UK Home Base units, to get best value out of every last man-jack on strength. Maybe Proserpine (formerly 19th Bn) was the square hole for his square peg?
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I hope this helps somebody . . . .
= = = =
* I have accumulated several documents/ URLs/ morsels of information of potential future use to those researching WW2 Royal Marine ancestors, and I plan to bundle them into a coherent resource, and park the lot in a thread of their own, in this Forum, in the near future.