Thread: Hello Everyone :)

Hello David, welcome to the forum.

Rosy what else do you need to know immediately?

Kitty, until I get my great uncle's service record I am happy to make an educated (!) guess about where he went from Sicily into Italy. I would like to try to find out roughly where he lost his life. As he was in 2nd Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment I have read tonight that he would have been a part of The Fifth Army Infantry Division and then later Eighth Army. So I guess he was part of Operation Baytown into Calabria and then made slow progress up to Salerno. I know for a fact that he was near Foggia but after that I don't know where the Nothamptonshire Regiment went nor his battalion. I am looking for the Regiments movements after Foggia - did they go Campobasso, Larino, Termoli route or did they head north west...I can't seem to find any record of them and the local library here doesn't have books about British Regiments!

Also I have some military abbreviations that I could do with some help with please. They are IRTD, BNAF & CMF

Thanks again

Quote{ My last question, which is perhaps a bit strange is, does anyone know what the weather was like where he was on the day he was killed?} End Quote

Welcome RosyRedd hope you enjoy the site.
For this information you will need to know where he was killed. From his army records you will find much. However they also do not include much information about what the soldier was actually doing usually just things like postings and other basic info. You may need both army records and info from the Regt for this, However once you know where he was killed I would first try googling for the information, I imagine their are several sites dealing with historical weather conditions then contact the local Village, Town or Cities historical society they usually have weather reports, or contact the local meteorological group who could point you in the right direction for such information.

Good luck

I will try that Cobber thanks. :-) I am pretty sure where he was killed now.

I'm sorry I have another question ;-/ I hope you don't mind...Does anyone know how long the Northamptonshire Regiment trained for before sending the men on Active Service...I have one of my Great Uncle's letters that he sent from Newquay and a picture that he drew in Lincoln while he was stationed there. Unfortunately he hasn't dated it and I still don't know when he joined so I haven't been able to work the information backwards. He writes that everything at the NAFFI is so expensive compared to Lincoln and he doesn't think his money will last until Christmas! I think he was probably trying to get his mum to send him more money :-D

Thank you again.

IRTD = Infantry Reinforcement Training Depot
BNAF = British North African Forces
CMF = [Australian] citizens Military forces