Rouen - Territorial Force base depot

[manxman]

"The long long trail" lists the various base depots located in France. Rouen is described as being the base depot for the Territorial force (amongst other Corps and units).

Can anyone shed light on whether this held true throughout the war?

My particular interest is My Great Grandfather, he was a conscript who joined the Liverpool Scottish (pre war Territorial unit). After training with the 3/10th he was sent overseas to France in June 1917. I have information that he joined the 1/10th Battalion (Liverpool Scottish) from an entrenching Battalion in August 1917 (presumably after passing through a base depot). He was one of 479 men who joined the battalion in three drafts in that month (no doubt almost all conscripts given their number and the late stage of the war).

Despite the fact that they were conscripts, did the fact that they were trained by, and destined for a Territorial unit (at least on paper) mean that they would have been routed through Rouen? rather than perhaps Entaples?

I'm just trying to fill in the missing pieces, can anyone who knows the route that other Territorial drafts(to any Regiment) took pse add your thoughts to the thread

ta

[charlesmessenger]

The TF Base Depot dealt with drafts other than infantry and your Great Grandfather would have certainly passed through an Infantry Base Depot, most likely Etaples. While it is realtively easy to identify which IBD it would have been for soldiers posted to France up until August 1916, since each division had its own IBD, it is very much more difficult after that. IBDs switched to processing drafts for particular groups of regiments, but few war diaries remain in existence for them.

It is the same with entreching bns. In summer 1917 there ten in existence, excluding Dominion bns, plus the Guards Entrenching Bn and most seem to have been part of Second and Third Armies.

Charles M