New South Wales Recruit Reception & General Details Depot
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Contents
Brief History
When the 2nd AIF was formed in late 1939, a Recruit Training Depot was established at the RAS Showground in Moore Park, Sydney. As in other states, its function was to receive, enlist, and provide a base level of training before they were allocated to their Corps or unit for specialised training. With the growth in size of the AIF, they moved to Greta, and a separate Eastern Command Recruit & Reinforcement Reception Depot was established in May 1940 at the Showground. By December 1940 it had expanded to become Eastern Command General Details Depot which acted as a transit camp for troops moving to and from leave and those passing through Sydney, as well as a Discharge Details Depot for handling troops returning from the Middle East for discharge.
In April the unit was renamed New South Wales Lines of Communication Ara General Details Depot. In September the unit had become too large and it was split with the formation of a Recruit Reception Depot (RRD) that remained at the Showgrounds, a General Details Depot (GDD), also at the Showgrounds and a Leave & Transit Depot (LTD) at Marrickville. By November 1943 changes to the way recruits were handled meant that the workload of the RRD was reduced to the point that it was absorbed into the renamed New South Wales Lines of Communication Area Recruit reception & General Details Depot. This unit retained the role of discharging individual soldiers until July 1945 when a separate New South Wales Lines of Communication Area Discharge Depot was formed at the Showground to handle the demobilizing of the army at the conclusion of the war.
Transiting, or awaiting reposting
- Donald Norman MacLeod Lyall 31 Aug - 5 Sep 1944
- Henry George Price 15 Oct - 18 Nov 1944
- James David Watts 3 Mar - 7 May 1945
- Harry Wallace Benson 24 - 31 Jul 1945
- Donald Norman MacLeod Lyall 21 Aug - 26 Sep 1945
Discharge
- Harry Wallace Benson 8 Jan -19 Feb 1946
Notes
Content has come from The Unit Guide - Volume 6 - The Australian Army 1939-1945, page 6.404 - Graham R McKenzie-Smith - Big Sky Publishing - 2018