John Weir, Royal Engineers

My Grandfather served in the Royal Engineers. He never talked about his experience. He was conscripted in his mid 40s and was a sapper. The only thing he ever mentioned was his experiences at Arnhem. He was there at the battle to retake Arnhem in 1945. I think that would make him a member of the 617th Assault Squadron of the RE. They were I think attached to the Canadians. At the end of the war he guarded German POWs and I think he didn’t get back until 1947. I have no idea how to find his service record or even what else the 617th was involved in. He was Scottish, lived in Motherwell. Can anyone point me in the right direction. John Weir was a gentle man, my mother told me that what he saw in Arnhem changed him, he saw the effects of the hunger winter in Arnhem. Can anyone shed any light on John Weir ?
Thank You
Alan Weir Clark

 

Welcome aboard to this often fascinating website. Others may be along shortly, I will send a PM with some research tips based on my experience here. This includes how to obtain John's Service Record, although there is a long wait for the Army to reply.

It might help if you could add his full name, Date of Birth and Service Number here - you can alter the title to accommodate that.

You do have some immediate options - using this website - to identify threads on the 617th Assault Squadron, the winter of 1944-45 (especially hard for the Dutch civilians in occupied territory) and the taking of Arnhem in 1945.

On a quick search the 617th appear only in: Operation Clipper - Geilenkirchen and the SRY - November 1944

When you drop th a search returns one more: 617 Assault Squadron Royal Engineers

If John was with 617 Assault Squadron that was part of the 42 Assault Regiment Royal Engineers (ARRE), part of the famous 79th Armoured Division; not my area of interest, their units were allocated to other divisions when required. Useful thread on organization: Assault brigade royal engineers

Only one easily found for Arnhem 1945: Arnhem 1945 (liberation) 2013 Then & Now On my scan this was not by the Canadians, but by the 49th British infantry division, known as the Polar Bears; which neatly fits with Owen's post next. There are many posts on them, alas on a scan minus which units formed it! Though somewhere that will be recorded. Ah, Wiki has a list and the 617 Assault Squadron is not shown on their organization: 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division - Wikipedia

 

Hi Alan

Here is the results from a search of the RE database 1900-1949 on FMP.

If anyone has his pay book or medals then we should be able to establish his service number.



Hope this helps

Gus

 

Welcome to the forum
dont make it difficult for yourself assuming stuff

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Good luck in your search, I'll follow with interest being Motherwell born myself and still living just along the road in Wishaw - do you have any further details on his date of birth/death as that may help tie down some more general info on where in Motherwell he lived etc

 

My suggestion - from looking at the tracer cards that gmyles mentioned the below one had a date of birth that looked sensible, I had a look on Ancestry family trees for a John Weir in Motherwell born 1903 and got one hit - born 1903 but without an exact date (but in Carluke which is fairly nearby) but married in Motherwell in 1927 and died there in 1977, so looking good, went on Scotlands people and downloaded his Birth Certificate and it confirms the date of birth matches the tracer card and ties in with the parents on the family tree, so this seems to be him.

I'm rubbish at reading the tracer cards so hopefully someone else can help with that

I'll do a bit more digging in the morning, its past bedtime but this one caught my interest

 

Hi

Here is info on 617 Assault Sqn extracted from an RE OOB I found on the internet many year ago.

617th Field Sqn RE
17th Field Sqn RE, assigned 42nd Armoured Division, renumbered 1 Mar 1943 as the 617 ; relieved 17 Sep 1943.

Converted Sep 1943 as 617th Assault Sqn RE (42nd Armoured Division RE re-designated 28 Sep 1943 as 42nd Assault Troops RE; re-designated 26 Nov 1943 as 42nd Assault Regt RE).

Re-designated 22 Apr 1945 as 617th Armoured Engr Sqn (and regiment re-designated 42nd Armoured Engr Regt).

Disbanded Sep 1945+.

Hope this helps

Gus

 

Alan
Re the above Tracer Card(s), based on your OP, I'm not too sure whether relates to your Grandfather, as the Tracer Card seems to suggest a Railway operative of some kind / Movement Controller and he appears to have been in the UK at the time of Arnhem.

However I have deciphered these for the benefit of other members.

Left Hand side -
After enlistment on 3/6/43, the subject is shown as posted as follows -
15/7/43 - posted to Field Works (Fld.Wks.) Wing
18/8/43 - posted to Depot (Dep) Wing, Transportation Training Centre (Tn.T.C.)
31/8/43 - posted to Technical Training (T.T.) Wing, Tn.T.C.
26/1/44 - posted to 155 Railway Workshops (Rly W/Shps) Coy
7/6/44 - posted to Transportation Training Centre (Tn.T.C.)
8/6/44 - posted back to Depot (Dep) Wing, Transportation Training Centre (Tn.T.C.)
16/10/44 - Struck off Strength (SOS) of the Depot (Dep) Wing, Transportation Training Centre (Tn.T.C.) for Draft RJAGB.
15/10/44 - (belated entry?) - Embarks for B/A X4 list. Category X4 refers to un-posted reinforcements i.e. not yet allocated to a unit.
21/10/44 - appears to have been posted to Transportation Training Centre (Tn.T.C.) at Woolmer. Woolmer is adjacent to the Longmoor Military Railway near Aldershot (not to be confused with Woolmer in the North East), and trained personnel in Movement Control (see next entry).
1/3/45 - now posted to the X4 list of Movement Control (M.C.) Pool
24/4/45 - posted to M.C. Pool of 21AGp (21 Army Group).

Right Hand side -
These entries refer to the individual Unit orders in which his various posting are shown / authorised. These are numbered sequentially, in year order.

Steve W

ETA - amendment to wording opening paragraph.