Unit Returns - Lists of Officers and Other Ranks

I've been trying to find lists / documentation that shows the individual unit returns 10 May - 4 June 1940.

I've drawn a blank - can anyone help / point me in the right direction, please?

 

There are officer returns in the war diaries, is this what you mean?

 

More info please, what unit? And are you looking for someone specific? And Adam is correct, normally in the War Diaries it list ALL officers on the unit returns, but I have seen in “some” Canadian War Diaries they may list “all ranks” (eg when they landed on D Day) but this isn’t normal, it’s just a few units did this.

Also ALL Canadian (or mostly all) nominal rolls do show up in the ship files on sailing to England. Individuals, also show up …….but searching for them is a LOT of work (it helps if you know WHEN they sailed to England, it really cuts down on the search time)

 

Apologies, then I was looking for Rolls which show names of officers and other ranks or if not this then the totals for officers and other ranks. I don't understand how the official numbers were arrived at if they weren't based on returns?

I know this is a massive task - however I have the listings from WO 417 (by name) so know the reported dead, wounded, missing, POWs etc.

Separately I was also looking for records of the individual ships and the numbers of soldiers evacuated (The Dunkirk List ?) so again I can see how these numbers were collated.

Any help appreciated.

 

Thank you. For British Records I’ll have to leave that to the UK and other members to answer.

As for Canadians, yes the War Diaries of all the units include “weekly” returns, showing ALL names of Officers, supernumerary Officers and “attached” Officers (such as MO’s or RCASC etc). They also give you the totals for the Other Ranks in the Battalion or unit……so you can have the numbers in each unit.

But to do this would be a massive job as you said……..good luck and maybe another member can give you better clues or where to access this information quicker

Cheers

 

Quick follow up on Canadian War Diaries and the weekly unit returns. I’ve included two screen shots of what a Canadian Weekly manpower return looks like. First page is all the officers (includes all their names), Second pages shows all the Other Ranks, but it’s just total numbers, broken down by ranks

So in the first page it lists 39 Officers and 2 Attached Officers in Excess of W.E.

Then second pages shows 813 OR’s against the W.E., PLUS 15 OR’s surplus to W.E. And 13 Reinforcements

 

Also, many Canadian WD also list their “casualties” for the time period

The list below is the Regina Rifle Regiments casualties (KIA, Wounded & Missing) from 6 Jun until 31 Aug 1944.’

You can see in approx 3 months they had more casualties than the number of Officers & OR’s in the Battalion.

Also you can see the numbers of Enemy PW’s taken, the Approx number of enemy killed or wounded and finally the number of RRR Wounded personnel that had returned to the unit

 

for British units in the BEF you will need to consult the war diary for each individual unit. The War Diary should contain flimsy pages with the unit personnel return totals like this:



These were made up each week and so the totals changed as men were moved in and out. There are no names for the Other Ranks, the officers are named.
Bear in mind that some units completely destroyed their War Dairies before leaving France & Flanders and that any 'recreated' War Diary will be unlikely to retain the Field Returns.
Also bear in mind that some/most units did not complete returns for some weeks in May 1940 as conditions became chaotic.

Good luck!

Nick

 

Sorry, for some reason the picture didn't load with the text

 

Some more example pages for you here. As Nick says, no names of Other Ranks generally, those few mentioned being individuals the regiment wants back and then three men who have been attached from other Corps.

 

Thank you

 

Thank you - I think as long as I can find the numbers for the last return before / on 10 May 1940 then I can work out the numbers who were evacuated etc. after deducting the numbers from the casualty returns.

Mike