9th Infantry Base Depot

[Steve Bramley]

I have the records of a soldier who first arrived at No 9 BD in Aug' '16 before joining his battalion. He was wounded in June 17, returning home. After recovery he was again posted to No 9 BD (jan '18) before moving on to a different battalion of the same regiment. He only spent a couple of days at the depot each time.

Did he arrive at the same depot purely by coincidence? Does anyone know the function/procedure?

Cheers,

Steve

[sotonmate]

Steve

Are you able to mention the Regt or Battalion ?

I'm trying hard to remember about Base Depots,as I read a bit some time ago,it seems to have involved the Artillery though. They had Base Depots for different home regions.

I think that new soldiers were first posted to Base Depots,to bring them up to the standard of the Regt,or to allow wounded and recuperated soldiers to come up to fighting speed again before they were fed back into the battalion system as required.

Best wishes

Sotonmate

[Steve Bramley]

'They had Base Depots for different home regions.'

Hi Sotonmate,

I was wondering if the above was the reason. He was in the Lincolnshire Regiment (N.M.Division). I know that I have read somewhere (If memory serves) that those returning in 1917 were quite likely to get posted to another unit than their original. I was also under the impression that after a while this practice stopped and men were more likely to return to their own unit. I may have got this completly wrong here!!

This is why I thought that my man would have perhaps been sent back to his own unit (5th) rather than the 10th as he did.

Excuse me if I've got it all ar*e about face here

Steve.

[charlesmessenger]

Steve

To clarify matters, each infantry division originally had its own IBD, which was established as it crossed to France. Thus 9 IBD would have supported 9th (Scottish) Division and would have supplied reinforcements to all the battalions in it, each regiment having its own camp within the IBD. The divisions taking part in the first phase of the Somme had such heavy casualties that their IBDs were unable to bring them back up to strength, which meant calling on other IBDs, with reinforcements often having to change their cap badges as a result. At the beginning of August 1916 a new policy was introduced as a result. Each IBD would be responsible for supplying drafts for all battalions of particular regiments, usually three or four per IBD.

It is clear therefore that 9 IBD supplied the battalion of the Lincolns among others and, whenever possible, a man was sent to a battalion of his own regiment. Matters changed again in December 1917 when the IBDs were given letter prefixes rather than numbers. Thus, 29 IBD became D IBD. The number of IBDs was also reduced and so each was supporting a greater number of regiments. For instance, 29 IBD was largely supplying battalions of the Royal Warwicks, but D IBD was looking after nine regiments, including the R Warwicks.

Hope this helps

Charles M

PS It might be a very useful exercise to compile a list of IBDs and the regiments each supported from late summer 1916 onwards. What about it Chris Baker?

[Steve Bramley]

Now all becomes a little clearer

Many thanks Charles for your reply, much appreciated.

And also a good idea:

'PS It might be a very useful exercise to compile a list of IBDs and the regiments each supported from late summer 1916 onwards. What about it Chris Baker?'

Regards,

Steve