What happened to WW2 POW camps?

[DW58]

There was quite an interesting documentary about the Nazi murder(s) at Cultybraggan a couple of years back - it's repeated from time to time on either/both Yesterday or History channels.

[Chuck]

Did they not rename one of them Cumbernauld????

[Jenks]

Laurie..

The summer I spent at Cultybraggan we had school and university cadet forces coming to do various outdoor activities. I wonder if your school was one? I was only involved in the shooting side of things. Inspecting the firearms prior to their use on the range attending the range to assist with zeroing. Occasionally we would have a company of regulars... Cameronians,, (Poison Dwarfs) come down and demonstrate. Mortars and Machine guns in the sustained fire role, all huge fun. I remember at that time there was a desperate shortage of right hand-guards for the L1AI (SLR)
I managed to persuade my Boss a Sapper Major ( A thoroughly decent chap) to provide me with transport to visit the Base Workshop in Stirling. When I got there upon reporting to the guard room I was told to report to the unit CO. It turned out he had been the assistant commandant and senior REME Officer when I was at Carlisle Army apprentice school. Anyway after a short chat I ended up in the armourers section. Of course the chap running the show new what I was after.... Right Handguards! I came away with a couple of dozen. A similar thing happened When I visited A Canadian workshop (Wainright Alberta) a year or so later. Upon welcoming me the canadian 'Tiffy' said with a wink,,,'' I know what you are after.''I never did find out the reason for the shortage of right Hand-guards.

Jenks

[Laurie]

Apart from one mega weekend with ACF units from all over Scotland - it was a Part 2 qualification examination do - we seemed to go to a nearly deserted facility, and were always on our own on the range.

I never got to shoot anything other than the 303 Number 4. The SLR was then just being introduced to cadets, but I don't think anybody in our unit got to fire one just then - a Terry NCO used to bring a Landie's worth of them up to the school on Friday evenings, but people just did parade ground drill with them, learned to strip them and suchlike.

My unit (Perth Academy ACF) was regarded as a black sheep it seems. I never got to fire a Bren thanks to some of my predecessors' behaviour. The unit armoury only had a couple of DP Brens and the local Black Watch TA depot down on Tay Street had previously supplied live-firing Brens for weekend and summer camps. On one such up at Fort George, a bunch of sixth formers masquerading as senior NCOs were left to their own devices with a couple of the guns and lots of ammo and were told to fire them slowly - four by seven round bursts per mag, change barrels before they got too hot. After a few mags worth went downrange, they thought 'Hey! This is boring' or something similar, and proceeded to see how fast they could get rid of the ammo. Then .... targets seemed a bit boring, so let's shoot at the target numbers. Whacko! We've knocked that sucker down! ... and its neighbour too! Change barrels? Why bother?

Anyway, the company got sent home in disgrace, were never allowed back to Ft. George, and the local TA lads wouldn't ever trust us to fire anything of theirs again after they got their Brens back and the armourer had kittens. So, no Brens, no Vickers, no GPMG when I was a lowly cadet private suffering from sweat rashes in an overheated school from wearing that ghastly WW2 itchy wool BD uniform every Friday, not to mention the tackedy-boots that felt like they weighed a cwt each.

[Jenks]

Laurie..

On the subject of Cadets and Bren Guns. Sometimes a school/unit would turn up with a couple and before firing commenced I gave them all the once over. To be fair they were all pretty well used. On one occasion a school turned up and I can't remember how many guns they had probably three. I very quickly discovered that they all had loose barrels...very loose barrels. I had no new barrel locking nuts so there was nothing that I could do I think I tried swapping the nuts between guns in the hope I might get one gun into a serviceable state.. but no luck. I was forced to tell the senior officer a Colonel. That in my opinion they were unsafe to fire. He wouldn't have it so I said it was his responsibility and that I was taking myself off to sit in my vehicle out of the way. Well I can tell you I was a bit anxious!!!! In the event (and much to my relief) it all went well and the boys all got to shoot the bren. A very forgiving gun the old Bren.

First four of these pictures show Barrel locking nuts:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bren+ ... QsAQ&dpr=1



At the time I was stationed at 8 Inf Wksps in Colchester and as a minor unit our LMGs were the L4A2 7.62 MM version of the Bren and fine bit of kit they were.



Jenks