EEF Places

[ddycher]

All

Does anyone know if there was an active Reinforcement Depot in Alexandria in late 1917 ? Trying to determine if this was still the case at this point in the war or whether this was replaced with Reinforcement Depots / IBD's at Advanced Bases like Kantara.

Anybody any the wiser ?

Regards

Dave

[aconnolly]

Dave

I cannot see a specific Reinforcement Depot for Alexandria District in late 1917. The Alexandra District from July 1917 onward had:

Headquarters

Mounted Troops of the Bikanir Camel Corps (Companies 2,4,5,8,9,10)

Coast Defence Artillery

Royal Engineers (13th Base Park Company)

Infantry (2 companies of 1st Garrison Royal Scots, 5th [Reserve] battalion British West Indies Regiment, 1/70th Burma Rifles)

RASC - Mechanical Transport, Horse Transport, Camel Transport, Supply companies

Army Employment Group number 1

Miscellaneous - Command Depot (Sidi Bashr)

I must say I do not know what a command depot function was in Egypt. My only knowledge of them comes from the Long Long Trail - convalescent units in broad terms.

Regards

Andrew

[aconnolly]

Dave

Further to the above, the Line of Communication for the Palestine theatre were Port Said and Kantara.

Other LoC did include Alexandria for some Labour units. I cannot see Mounted troops in relation to Alexandria under LoC.

Andrew

[ddycher]

Andrew

Thanks for this.

Agree - I cant find any ref in Allenby's EEF of a Reinforcement camp in Alex. either. However drafts continued to disembark there. At the moment I am assuming that drafts were immediately despatched by the MLO's via train to Port Said and Kantara but this pure guesswork. In general detail on Alexandria during the war seems very scant.

Must be a ref out there somewhere but stumped at present. If you have any further insights I would be really grateful.

Regards

Dave

[aconnolly]

Dave

Possibly some progress from the Official Medical history concerning Egypt. Apparently "Reception stations" were unique to Egypt. The first one was formed at Mustapha (near Alex) in August 1915 and continued there until August 1917 when it moved to Kantara along with various base depots of the EEF. The role of the Reception Station at Kantara was amongst other things to "examine all drafts arriving from the UK...."

If I interpret this right, it seems the arrivals at Alexandria were then moved (presumably quickly) to Kantara to allow the medics of the Reception Station to do their check-ups. Seems unrealistic that the men would then go back to Alexandria given the Front was the other way.

Regards

Andrew

[ddycher]

Andrew

Big help thanks. This could be the link I was looking for. I previously had ref's of the Reception Stations in Mustafa up until atleast early 1917 (RAMC in Egypt makes ref to this ) but had no indication of any move. Does the Medical History tie this to any particular event ? Understand this will be during Allenby's reorganisation of the force into XXth, XX1st and Desert Mounted Corps but as yet have little sense on what this met to the DAG support staff at this time.

Regards

Dave