Aixman, thanks to you I know have what I was originally looking for: the British Pioneer Bn. Now...the search continues for other things so I will just throw them out and if can help with some of them, great. They are both R.E.: Mechanical Equipment Company and Mechanical Equipment Workshop and Park Company. Later the Workshop was taken out and transferred to the REME. Great work at Kew! That is quite the task.
Aixman, You're blowing me out of the water with that ambition. It was probably about ten years ago I started tentatively searching WO24, with very little idea what I was after and all done either via a researcher or the (often double-edged) online service. It's taken me a long time to pull together around 800-900 WEs for the particular units and formations I'm interested in, and they're all on paper, not digital. If you're going to gather all the available WEs that's pretty much it. I'm sure you know how they fit together in the grander scheme for Divs and Corps, so then it's just a matter of presenting them in whatever format you're going with. I might just have my British Inf and Armds Divs (1937-45) development outlined by then! Gary Oh, if you find a mis-filed HQ Armd Recce Bde, I/1931/2F/1 in the first half of 1940, let Alan Philson know, he's been trying to track that down for yonks.
John There are quite a few WEs for the units you mentioned. The former (IV/22C and IV/22D) come in two tables (company HQ and section) in 2 and 3 versions. The latter (IV/22E) comes as a whole in 2 versions. Later, there are more for 21 Army Group (volume XIV) and the "Light" units (volume XV). As I have little time at the moment, I will sort it out for you during the weekend and PM you the desired tables.
Gary What an honour for me, as I am an admirer of your work, especially for the combining explanations that are needed badly and so often don't come out of the tables (monthly returns ...). What you see on the photo is what I did during a week's visit one year ago. It took me four months to put it into a kind of catalogue and about ten months to organize the photos. To avoid misunderstandings: I have already about 90 % of the years 1932 to April 1945, and am now after 1931 (to get the basic - hopefully), to redo some flaw copies and the time from Mai 1945 onwards, referring to WW II. As I learned from your books, I have to look at least as far as 5th Novermber, 1947 for the Light Field Ambulance ... Thank you for that useful hint. I would not have expected. And no, I feel further away from understanding the whole system as when I started. Always more new questions than answers. I have photos, mostly 2.5 MB large. Presenting them? No idea. Especially, if it should be in a comfortable way, at both ends (for me and for the researcher). If I only imagine what Mike (Trux) has done for a great work by transcribing the 21 Army Group. The truth is, that I ended up lying flat under an unbelievable heap of information - and with by far not enough time to get the fruits out of it. But I am glad to help here and there a little bit. For your new project, I could offer to see if I don't have more WEs than you. And provide you probably with the remainder. If you like. As for Alan Philson: Volume I holds under table "2": 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D and 2 E, no "pure" 2, and nothing above 2E, between 1938 and 1942. in one to three versions. By now, I am able to say that it is definitely NOT in WO 24. If I only could find the weekly published A.C.Is. ... By the way: Is Alan a member in here, too? Aixman
If you're trying to understand the overall reference system, the problem is that there wasn't a single, cohesive one used throughout. The 1931 volume is a good place to start, and it's the one I don't have the index for, I'm not sure there is one as for later volumes. That's when they had a straightforward enough approach, only had Vols I-V to at point probably (though possibly some VI), and only the basic Division (not really prefixed as Infantry then) and the Cavalry Division. So the WE tables were numbered in order of the line for Divs, generally HQs (Div and Bde), Cav, RA, RE, RCS, Inf, RASC, RAMC, RAOC, Provost and Postal. Then as the number of unit types began to multiply that system can't cope and they move to the 1941 type refs, which just seem to be a 'take a number' approach. 1942 rolls around and there's a move to get back to a sort of system; so there's a sort of 'bracket' approach, for example Inf related WEs coming in the 230-240 range, Recce in 250-259, RASC in 260-269 range and so on. Even that breaks down after a while so RA units, which look to have been estimated to only need 170-190 end up having to go to 190A, 190B and so on. That approach also leaves a lot of seemingly unused numbers in some ranges. Corps level is worse, as they carried over a lot of refs from the 1930 issues, then just allocate the next available number to WEs as they were issued, so no attempt to differentiate between arms of service. I would say that tackling it the way you have I can see it being overwhelming. It's easy to let the acquisition become more important than the context in some respects. I went for the chipping away approach, my interest initially being restricted to Battalion sized units, then gradually nudging up to say Brigade, then extending to say just the combat arms of the Divisions, then suddenly realising that's the larger part of the Div, so it's no big deal going into the S&T and workshops and so on is it? Trouble is that when you look at all that stuff you want to put it into some sort of presentable format, and just for my limited NWE project that was close on 200 tables to replicate, ranging from 1 to over 20 pages. It took a long time gather everything required in, then there's the time to format it yourself (involving much swearing at Word and Excel, which doesn't actually help) and try and add something on the small arms issue. There is some stuff in the 1946-47 volumes, a handful of superseding tables for those issued in the war years, but oddly those tables have some remarkable errors in accounting (III6/6 being a glaring example). Most of the WEs from those volumes were new, but surprisingly few on the combat arms; no new Inf or Mot Bn, but reissued Armd and Div RAC Regts (the latter replacing the Recce Regt). The main emphasis though is on the service units for the Divs and Corps, so lots of RAOC and REME. 1948 sees swathes of Lower Establishment tables as the forces contracted further, and really breaks the link from the wartime era. Gary
Gary A very instructive account (yours) and a good example for having lots of information without realizing (at least parts of) its content (mine). I always wondered what the lots of letters meant, if there were so many unused numbers at hand. I surely realized sometimes something like batches (we talked some months ago about 'your' battery without transport). But as they don't come in the volumes as sorted as you showed and my overview suffers from too much of information, you just gave me some kick in the right direction. Thank you for that. After Kew, I will have some time to 'digest' this new approach. >>> "... some remarkable errors in accounting ..." That is what I nearly always found, more or less, in secondary literature (except your books, of course, and some other good examples), and for what I was after the original tables. As I always cling to numerical data I am rather intolerant at that point. As far as I saw, the clerks writing the wartime WEs could calculate satisfactorily. A miracle!!! So post war clerks don't seem to be as good ... >>> "... involving much swearing at Word and Excel, which doesn't actually help .." I know too good what you mean. It seems as if I should contact you in future in case the question marks become overpowering. Aixman
Aixman: thank you again, and I am looking forward to looking at what you send. Gary: I enjoyed your book on the Airborne Divisions, especially the Royal Engineer's part. Interesting that we don't know exactly when the squadrons changed their WE in 1945.
