Staff Sergeant 7641906 George James Lynch, 8 Armoured Workshop, REME (attached to 11th Armoured Division)
Pre-Enlistment
George James Lynch was, at the start of the Second World War, a railway fitter working for. He soon volunteered for the Auxiliary Fire Service in London, which saw him attend various call-outs related to German bombing raids. Not much is known about his time in the Auxiliary Fire Service, with the exception of when his service with them came to an end - which was only upon his enlistment in the Army.
Enlistment and War Service
George enlisted on 5th September 1940, just as the Battle of Britain was reaching it's climax. He was given the service number 7641906 and was enlisted in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (Engineering Branch). It would be here that he would learn how to do most of the basic skills that he would require for his later role in the REME. He started as a Fitter M.V. (Motor Vehicle) - cars, jeeps, vans, trucks and prime movers - qualifying 1st class on 18th June 1941. When he completed his training and qualified as Armoured Articifier M.V. on 1st September 1941, he was promoted to Acting (Unpaid) Staff Sergeant, with Staff Sergeant pay commencing on 22nd September 1941, just 21 days later. George would find himself on a 9-week retraining course at 9 AFVRTC from 14th January - 18th March 1942, where he qualified as "good". It was only a month later that he would find himself on the Armoured Vehicle Recovery Course, which ran from 22nd April - 12th May 1942, where he again qualified as "good". For a brief period, George was temporarily promoted to a Warrant Officer 2nd Class, but soon reverted back to the rank of Staff Sergeant. There is much debate about where he was posted when it came to any specific division during the run-up to D-Day, although family photographs indicate that he may have been posted to the 11th Armoured Division. This was only partially-confirmed by the appearance of a black bull in a rectangular shape on part of the M5 Recovery Half-Track that George was in command of. After a what could be described as "a very successful" period on M5 Half-Tracks, George was posted to command a Churchill ARV MkII, still remaining (rather oddly) with the 11th Armoured Division. The Churchill ARV would come in very handy when the 11th Armoured Division (specifically the 29th Armoured Brigade) had their Shermans and Sherman Fireflies replaced with A34 Comets - the Sherman coming in at 35.3 tonnes and the Comet coming in at 35.5 tonnes.
Although George recovered only two Comets, he recovered quite a number of Sherman and Sherman Fireflies, sometimes using the M5 Half-Track. But his rise to fame would be during his time on the Churchill ARV MkII. It would be with his crew that the role of the REME Tank Recovery Teams would be immortalised in film in the 1946 instructional film "Armoured Recovery".
George went on to state that the Sherman was fairly easy to recover and maintain, but his favourite recovery "job" was an A30 Challenger (turret holding a 17 pounder gun on a Cromwell chassis). There is a photograph of him sitting on the rear deck of the Challenger shortly after it had been recovered, dated 29th April 1945. George and his crew were spared the horrors of liberating the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, as he was involved in the recovery of a number of Armoured Vehicles in the area (which included a number of troop carriers). He would recover his first Comet after it fell victim to a StuG III (where a track had been destroyed and the vehicle subsequently abandoned). His second and final Comet recovered was a vehicle that had been knocked out by a Panzerfaust, resulting in the death of the entire crew. The crew were still in their positions inside the tank when George and his crew arrived to recover it. After the bodies of the crew had been removed from the vehicle and taken away for burial, George and his crew set about recovering the tank, starting with welding shut the hole in the armour where the Panzerfaust warhead had hit the turret. The rest of the "job" was as per the textbook, with the Comet being taken away on a drawbar, with the Comet's gun put in the barrel lock on the engine deck. The necessary repairs were made and the vehicle was put back into service within ten days, now brandishing the name "Phantom".
History of the REME
Prior to REME's formation, maintenance was the responsibility of several different corps:
- The Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) Engineering Branch were responsible for weapons and armoured vehicles
- The Royal Engineers (RE) were responsible for engineering plant and machinery, RE motor transport, railway locomotives
- The Royal Corps of Signals (RCS) were responsible for communications equipment and railway signalling
- The Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) were responsible for other motor transport
- The Royal Artillery (RA) would be responsible for providing heavy weapons artificers
During World War II, the increase in quantity and complexity of equipment exposed the flaws in this system. Pursuant to the recommendation of a Committee on Skilled Men in the Services chaired by William Beveridge, the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers was formed on 1 October 1942. As can be expected, such a major re-organisation was too complex a task to be carried out quickly and completely in the middle of a world war. Therefore, the changeover was undertaken in two phases. In Phase I, which was implemented immediately, REME was formed on the existing framework of the RAOC Engineering Branch, strengthened by the transfer of certain technical units and tradesmen from the RE and RASC. At the same time, a number of individual tradesmen were transferred into REME from other corps. The new corps was made responsible for repairing the technical equipment of all arms with certain major exceptions. At this point, the REME did not yet undertake:
- Those repairs that were carried out by unit tradesmen who were driver/mechanics or fitters in regiments and belonged to the unit rather than being attached to it (such as those who were qualified Driver Mechanics on armoured vehicles.
- Repairs of RASC-operated vehicles, which remained the responsibility of the RASC; each RASC Transport Company had its own workshop.
- Repairs of RE specialist equipment, which remained the responsibility of the RE. This initially included the locomotives operated by the RE Railway Group (Officers and Men who were responsible for building railways and providing Footplate Crews for steam locomotives), with these being transferred to the REME in May 1943.
Cap Badge of the REME
After some interim designs, the badge of the Corps was formalised in June 1943 for use as the cap-badge, collar-badge, and on the buttons. It consisted of an oval Royally Crowned laurel wreath; on the wreath were four small shields at the compass points, each shield bearing one of the letters of "REME". Within the wreath was a pair of calipers. Examples of these early badges can be found at the REME Museum. In 1947, the Horse and Lightning was adopted as the cap badge, designed by Stephen Gooden - a design that carries on to today's members of the REME.
The Role of the REME in Motoring
At the end of the war, the Allies occupied the major German industrial centres to decide their fate. The Volkswagen factory at Wolfsburg became part of the British Zone in June 1945 and No. 30 Workshop Control Unit, REME, assumed control in July. They operated under the overall direction of Colonel Michael McEvoy at Rhine Army Headquarters, Bad Oeynhausen. Uniquely, he had experience of the KdF Wagen in his pre-war career as a motor racing engineer; whilst attending the Berlin Motor Show in 1939, he was able to test drive one. After visiting the Volkswagen factory, McEvoy had the idea of trying to get Volkswagen back into production to provide light transport for the occupying forces. The British Army, Red Cross and essential German services were chronically short of light vehicles. If the factory could provide them, there would be no cost to the British taxpayer and the factory could be saved. To do this, a good manager with technical experience would be needed. Major Ivan Hirst was told simply to "take charge of" the Volkswagen plant before arriving in August 1945. He had drains fixed and bomb craters filled in; land in front of the factory was given over to food production. At first, the wartime Kubelwagen was viewed as a suitable vehicle. Once it became clear it could not be put back into production, the Volkswagen saloon or Kaefer (Beetle) was suggested. Hirst had an example delivered to Rhine Army headquarters, where it was demonstrated by Colonel McEvoy. The positive reaction led to the Military Government placing an order for 20,000 Volkswagens in September 1945.