Royal Armoured School – Italy

[Brendon Read]

Hello,

My Great Uncle fought with the New Zealand 18th Armoured Regiment in Italy during WW2. During his service he attended the RAC School CMF – Gunnery Wing for 5 days from 16 Oct to 21 Oct 1944 completing the 17-pdr conversion course. I am struggling to find out anything about even where the RAC School was based in Italy during this time so any hints, tips or any information would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,

Brendon

[Brendon Read]

partial picture of the course record from his service records

Brendon

[Frank de Planta]

Brendon.

My money would be on Caserta.  The RAC School would need to have had access to field firing ranges and be anywhere south of Florence.  The Italians set up their Armoured Troops School at Caserta in 1947 and any sensible person may well have opted for facilities built and then left behind by the Allies at the end of the war.

The Cavalry School was in Turin, which was in German hands until the end of the war so that could not have been the RAC School site.

Regards

Frank

[Brendon Read]

Many thanks for the response Frank – much appreciated. It seems logical to me. I will do some research around Caserta and if I find anything to confirm the above I will post it in here.

Cheers,

Brendon

[Gary Tankard]

Brendon,

The RAC school has a war diary in the National Archives – https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C960221

Whenever the archives open again I will have a look for you.

Cheers,

Gary.

[Brendon Read]

Hi Gary,

Thanks so much for the offer – that’s very kind. Are you planning a trip to the archives yourself? I wouldn’t want you to invest your time and effort just for my question. It would be a bit rude of me to expect you to do that. I am based in London so perhaps this is something I can follow up myself.

Cheers,

Brendon

[Brendon Read]

Hi all,

In the event this thread is helpful to anyone else in the future, I recently found a Royal Armoured Corps (“RAC”) publication relating to the Italian campaign. In here it states that the RAC training Depot, which included the RAC School I was originally looking for was moved from the Middle East to a town called Bovino near Foggia in March 1944. It then moved further north to Rieti in September 1944. Based on these dates I figure the RAC School my Great Uncle attended was in Rieti. See pictures attached.

 

[Frank de Planta]

Brendon.

Great find.  That booklet was produced by the RAC and a copy was given to every RAC soldier who served in Italy.

The drawings and watercolours were produced by Eric Manning who was a serving RAC officer in Italy.  I was lucky enough a few years ago to get the original for his watercolour of Lake Bracciano.  I would kill to get the one he did of Cassino.

Regards

Frank

 

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