No. 1 MET Company, 1940

Discussion in 'Royal Engineers' started by RE864CoyPaul, May 30, 2021.

  1. RE864CoyPaul

    RE864CoyPaul Active Member

    Hi all.
    I'm trying to find out any information on this company and was hoping someone here might be able to help please?

    I've scoured NA Discovery but have yet to find anything.

    On my Grandads service record it says "No. 1 Mechanical Equipment....unreadable...Company" and in several other areas it's just abbreviated to MET Coy.

    I'm thinking maybe it's Mechanical Equipment Training Company perhaps? As it's the first place he goes to after enlistment.

    I've also seen MET as an abbreviation of Mechanised Transport too, but looking on Discovery at either possiblity brings no results that could possibly be any kind of record or company diary etc.

    He is in 1 MET Coy between June-September 1940, before going to 135 ME Coy and then finally to 864 ME Coy. I have all the relevant diaries for the last two but I just can't uncover anything about the first one!

    I have family photos of him during this time, at Hatfield (in uniform) so I'm assuming 1 MET Coy was there, so I've also hunted online for any information about RE in Hatfield but I haven't come up with much so far.

    Any help or advice is much appreciated.
    Thanks!
     
  2. Temujin

    Temujin Member

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  3. RE864CoyPaul

    RE864CoyPaul Active Member

    Thank you Temujin.

    135 ME Coy was a mechanical equipment company too. He was a part of that for the remainder of '40 and all of '41 and that company was UK based for that period.
    He then went to 864 in the UK too, before they shipped out to India in July '42. They worked in and around Imphal and Kohima before eventually being flown out in mid '44 and then he was eventually shipped back to the UK at the end of '45
     
  4. RE864CoyPaul

    RE864CoyPaul Active Member

    Royal Engineers training in Hatfield 1 July 1940~2.jpg

    This is the photo that my grandad annotated saying it was 'Royal engineers training at Hatfield, 1st July 1940'.

    The building behind kind of looks like the DeHaviland factory complex in Hatfield (the white colouration in particular), but it also kind of doesn't and I can't find any photos of the factory complex that have this specific look to them, but I also can't find so far, anything as substantial as that building in wartime Hatfield either, that isn't that factory complex.

    So it's a bit of a mystery at the moment lol
     
  5. Temujin

    Temujin Member

  6. Tricky Dicky

    Tricky Dicky Don'tre member

    Its always best to upload a copy of the document for others to read as its possible you may be reading it incorrectly, and other can then provide alternative interpretations

    TD
     
  7. RE864CoyPaul

    RE864CoyPaul Active Member

    Attached are pics of the particular areas of the documents with this on.
    Thanks

    IMG_20210531_112538814~2.jpg

    IMG_20210531_112556139~2.jpg
     
  8. Tricky Dicky

    Tricky Dicky Don'tre member

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  9. RE864CoyPaul

    RE864CoyPaul Active Member

    Thanks TrickyDicky, yes, it was his first assignment after enlisting and he was there for three months.

    After some more hunting, I've solved the mystery! The photo from July '40 was taken outside the Olding & Co factory in Hatfield! I took a punt on a book about Hatfield in the war as it had one entry for the RE in the index, and it came up lucky! Below is the excerpt:
    IMG_20210601_153338186.jpg
    IMG_20210601_153400968.jpg

    So I'm thinking maybe because it was a kind of official/unofficial training centre, maybe that's why I've been unable to unearth any diary or records of 1 MET Coy on the NA site so far.

    Looking on the britainfromabove site, I also found a load of photos of the Factory from '49-53 and the main entrance is definitely the location of my Grandads photo! (Especially of you zoom in on the original)

    EAW021781.jpg
     
  10. RE864CoyPaul

    RE864CoyPaul Active Member

    I've found another fun fact too - after the war, Olding and Co dropped their association with caterpillar and went 'all in' with Vickers on the Vickers Vigor tractor (which was powered by a Rolls Royce engine!).
    Ultimately that failed, however a plastic toy model of the Vigor tractor was used as the base model for two of the vehicles that were carried by Thunderbird 2 in the popular TV show ('Mole' and 'Firefly').

    So it's fun to think that for years my dad and grandad watched Thunderbirds together, and then again in the 90s with me and my brother, and the whole time we were inadvertently seeing a model of a tractor that was from the exact factory that trained my grandad to operate Caterpillar tractors in the beginning of his time during the war! And we didn't have a clue lol

    A Vigor
    Vickers_Vigor_Bulldozer.JPG

    'Mole' from Thunderbirds
    latest.png
     
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