Spent a most enjoyable and productive day in the Library of the Imperial War Museum in London seeking more information for Steve's /my project. Detailed results will appear in due course but I came across one gem which does not easily fit into the framework of our researches
The BAOR Training Centre was set in the Paderborn area up to provide a Centre of Excellence equivalent to the current Warminster and the various individual Arms schools where specialist individual and collective courses were run to retain and enhance operational skills and experience. This was clearly in contrast to the various centres spread throughout the British Occupation Zone design to ease the return to civilian life of the Hostilities Only Service personnel awaiting return to the UK and demobilisation Some of these have been identified by Steve.
An outline organisation and location is as follows (many place names will be familiar 65 years later)
Headquarters Bad Lippespringe
Sennelager 1
School of Infantry
War Dog School (RAVC)
Sennelager 2
CMP Training School (RMP)
P and RTC School (APTC)
Panzer Viking Barracks Paderborn (future Barker Barracks?)
School of Operational Air Support
School of Hygene
Technical Traing School (REME)
Schloss Neuhaus
Infantry Demonstration Battalion
Schlangen
Demonstration Battery RA
Bad Driburg
School of Administration
School of Military Intelligence
Lippstadt
4 (Training) Brigade RASC
Responsible for following
Clerical training
Supplies (Rations, POL)
Transport
Comment
1. It would appear that certain capbages ran a separate centre of excellence elsewhere in BAOR ie Royal Armoured Corps
Royal Artillery (near to a major Range complex?)
Royal Engineers (Hameln- there was a significant concentration of Sapper units in the area)
Royal Signals
2. We have debated elsewhere on the site who is the longest serving unit in BAOR. The clear winners are the RAVC at Sennelager though the unit title may have changed there has clearly been a continuous Vets presence for the past 65 years
Help wanted
Any additional information would be most welcome
In addition there was The University of BAOR located at Gottingen but little else is known about its role, staff and students. More details would be appreciated
Schlangen