Asking on behalf of someone else. Can anyone provide detail of which Diaries he might target and where? KEW / CHATHAM or other. Thanks in advance. From my father's war records, I have found that he was sent to France very shortly after war was declared. He was in Movement Control which at that time was part of the Royal Engineers. His pre war job was something clerical to do with the railways - might have been with the Great Northern as he later played cricket with them at Gordon Hill - or it might have been London Midland, but certainly a London based company. For him to be mobilised so quickly and without any obvious entry of training in his record, I can only assume that he was already part of some Territorial Force that specialised in moving trains around. I know of Longmoor Camp and that might be another line of research to follow, but does anyone have any knowledge of such a Territorial Force made up of railwaymen? I am going to try and get to Kew Archives before Christmas to examine the RE War Diaries but if anyone has any knowledge of a pre war group, it would be useful to go there armed with more than a hunch. This is one reply he has received to date:- A three volume series on the Longmoor Railway has just been published - http://lightmoor.co.uk/view_book.php?ref=L9693 and this may provide some leads & background. Railwaymen were traditionally a reserved occupation, so I'd guess they'd normally only serve in engineering units to support logistics. If you've not already looked, I'd suggest a look at the order of battle of the TA to see what engineering units existed. Have you approached the TA themselves? Or the Imperial War Museum? Pen & Sword are publishers concentrating on military matters.
Hello Bryan, If his War Records are his Service Records, it should be possible to determine which unit he served with from them. If held, could you post them onto the forum? If not, then his Service Records should be applied for; link: https://www.gov.uk/r...service-records Alternatively, is there any other information, i.e. mail from Belgium/France, photographs in uniform, names of colleagues killed, etc.? Best, Steve.
