1st Division Train

Shoulder patch

Motor repair park of 1 Div Ammunition Sub-Park France April 1915 AWM P03050.002

Brief History

Division (and Brigade) Trains were logistic support and supply units under Command of the Division to which its numeric designator corresponded. Without logistics there is no combat. Ammunition, food, water and equipment supply and maintenance are vital components of the combat power of an Army. Division Trains were a prime mechanism to ensure the Army could move and fight. The tasks of the trains and motorised columns varied. The basic tasks of train companies were to carry baggage and resupply food, forage and water for the headquarters and units of the division.

The 1st Division Train comprised the following elements:

• 1st Army Service Corps Company
• 2nd Army Service Corps Company
• 3rd Army Service Corps Company
• 4th Army Service Corps Company
• 1st Division Ammunition sub-Park (this entity started life as the 8th Army Service Corps Company)
• 1st Division Supply Column (having started life as the 9th Army Service Corps Company. Disbanded March 1918.)

In addition the Train companies supported Division units with a wide variety of general tasks from providing drivers for formation headquarters and field ambulances to carting roadmaking materials and engineer stores, operating snow ploughs, providing transport for postal deliveries, repairing unit equipment, and operating ad hoc pack transport units.

The supply columns and ammunition sub-parks, in addition to their basic tasks, hauled lumber, road metal, ordnance and postal cargo, petrol, quicklime, rails and medical comforts, as well as emergency mass medical evacuation and incidentally filling in as medical assistants at dressing stations, 1 Division Ammunition Sub-Park also published the AIF newspaper Rising Sun, later renamed Aussie.

Unit Personnel

• Henry Melville Hardinge

Individual Honours

Notes

Information comes from Steve Larkins, published on the Virtual War Memorial website.