- Mon Nov 17, 2014 7:38 pm
#42171
A little background...
Wentworth Hall was 'borrowed' by the Intelligence Corps and the guys on the bikes are Intelligence officers. There was a whole course to become one. The motorcycle was the intelligence officer's main mode of travel, and so part of their training was the motorcycle course.
Here follows a section from Maurice Vila's recollections of his time serving in the war.
"My posting to the Intelligence Corps finally arrived and I left Longmoor Camp on the 13th July 1943. On my way I spent the night at my home in London (then still at 112 Edith Road, West Kensington, W14) and left the following day for my new training depot of the Intelligence Corps at Wentworth Woodhouse, near Rotherham, Yorkshire, in the No 2 Company. During training at Wentworth, all soldiers retained their previous regiment’s denomination (in my case a sapper) and as a result there was a wide variety of service personnel from different units. The training there was more intensive and strenuous than anything I had done before; it included a three weeks’ course at Smedley’s Hydro at Matlock, Derbyshire, where we attended lectures on all aspects of security.
I completed my training at the Wentworth Depot in October 1943. The training included motor cycle maintenance, as these machines were to be our normal method of transport. I was then posted to No 49 Field Security Section which was stationed at Fort William, Inverness-shire, on the 6th October with the rank of Lance Corporal in the Intelligence Corps."
British Military History waded in with...
To organise and train the necessary personnel for the new corps, a headquarter and depot structure was formed. An Officers’ Training Wing was established at Oxford University, with other ranks trained at Winchester. A new headquarters and depot for the corps was established at Wentworth Woodhouse, near Rotherham in Yorkshire, with Schools of Military Intelligence opened at Matlock in Derbyshire and Cambridge. In December 1942, Brigadier W. J. JERVOIS, M.C., p.s.c. was appointed the Commandant, Intelligence Training Establishments, reporting to the Director of Military Training at the War Office.
The Yorkshire Film Archive managed this useful snippet,
"Given the wide variety of terrains that these motorcyclists in the film train on, and the high level of skill they acquire, they would have probably been trained for operations abroad, perhaps for the final push in 1944-45, and their role may well have been either reconnaissance or combat. At the time Wentworth House was being used by the Intelligence Corps of the Northern Command."
But then they shot themselves in the foot with,
"Many dispatch riders come under the Navy, Army and Airforce Institute; but there was also the Royal Armoured Service Corps, or Royal Corps of Signals, Dispatch Riders, Military Police motorcyclists, and the Women’s' Royal Navy Dispatch Riders."
???
Who could blame the guys from wanting to come under the Navy Army Air Force Instate, or NAAFI as it was known?
Far from being a fighting wing of the services, it was actually the place where you could buy food, beer, cigarettes, get hot food, etc. I think that all serving personnel would want to come under that! LOL!
They say that an army marches on it's stomach, and so I guess in the end, it was the NAAFI that was responsible for winning WWII.
REOC 15084
Tabellarius de verbis. Ostensor gaudium
