question Confused about the 7RTR and the 8th Army?

[martg68]

Am trying to establish a few details about my grandads service life. He never spoke about it and sadly is long gone now :-(

 

I have obtained his service records from the APC and am slowly working my way through them as best i can.

 

So far

 

Enlisted 27/6/40 ITC Duke of Wellington Regt.

Transferred 20/3/41 RAC 51st training Regt

R.W.G.H.Y 8/1/42 (< What does this mean? List of abbreviations does not show this)

Disembarked Egypt 7/3/42

7RTR 24/5/42

POW 21/6/42

Escaped ??/6/44 (in Italy iirc by jumping off a train! this bit he did mention at some point)

Back in UK 6/7/44

(then BAOR in 45 More questions of which later concerning the 27th Armrd)

 

 

Not understanding the British Army levels much, can anyone shed light on the following.

 

After transferring from the DWR are all connections to that regiment severed? Meaning, insignia etc. to be replaced by RAC legends and titles?

Every time i look for 7RTR they never seem to be mentioned in any Order of battle in the 8th Army. Am i barking up the wrong tree here or missing something?

How do the 8th Army 'layers' break down? i can see X, XIII and XXX Corps and am assuming they form the main backbone and then break down further? Do 7RTR (and the 4th) feature in one of these Corps?

 

Thanks for looking am just hoping to fill a few blanks here

Martyn

[bonnie_scott]

Disembarked Egypt 7/3/42

7RTR 24/5/42

POW 21/6/42

 

Every time i look for 7RTR they never seem to be mentioned in any Order of battle in the 8th Army. Am i barking up the wrong tree here or missing something?

How do the 8th Army 'layers' break down? i can see X, XIII and XXX Corps and am assuming they form the main backbone and then break down further? Do 7RTR (and the 4th) feature in one of these Corps?

Martyn

Always relish a chance to stretch myself surfing the net - lol

 

Seems to be a good page on 7RTR on wikipedia (bearing in mind the issues with wikipedia...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_Royal_Tank_Regiment this states that the 7 RTR was captured at Tobruk and the date that Tobruk fell is given as 21/6/42 same date he was captured.

 

Again according to wikipedia 7RTR were part of the Western Desert Force, which did become the 8th Army in September 41. According to a site giving the British Army Order of Battle 32 Tank Brigade were in Tobruk at the time of its capture, and several other bits I have found mention 7RTR being attached to 32 Tank Brigade. So while I haven't found the 'smoking gun' I think it's a fair guess to say that they were attached to this unit. A lot of the references have 7RTR supporting various infantry divisions around late 41 and early 42 which would fit with them being in an independent tank brigade rather than a larger armoured divison.

 

Hope this helps, now to pin down the other missing unit which I would have laid money on being some unit of Royal Yeomanry. Unfortunately none of the lists of yeomanry I find have anything like that combination of initals.

 

Hope the above helps,

 

as always happy to be corrected if my conclusions are wrong :-)

 

Regards,

Julian

 

P.S forgot to put a link onto a good site about the history of 4th and 7th RTR see here

Edited July 17, 2012 by bonnie_scott
added further link