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[TPalmer]

Hi All,

My father's name is Alfred Samuel Palmer, service number KX140074. I have a copy of his Certificate of Service but I am unable to decipher the name of the ship in the third last entry in the first attachment.

The record shows that he spend most of his service life (1 Sep 43 to 30 Apr 46) on this ship. The second attachment shows provisional award of the Burma Star and Rosette, so I am assuming this is a ship deployed to the Burma Campaign. I understand that he worked on landing craft for some of the time during the Burma Campaign as well as one of the aircraft carriers in the BPF such as HMS Illustrious. I know he came to Australia in 1945-6.

I would appreciate if anyone can advise what ship this is.  To me, it reads as 'Lespru' but I have not been able to find any reference to such a ship.

Thanks
Tim Palmer
Melbourne Australia

[spooks1959]

Hi Tim

The ship name is COPRA. The physical location of COPRA was at Largs in Scotland but only a small staff actually operated there, they held and managed the pay and victualling accounts for small vessels, including all landing craft, worldwide.  Sadly there is no notation to indicate which landing craft your father served on so, unless you have some other way to pinpoint which landing craft we may never know,

Looking at the Service Certificate we have:
ROYAL ARTHUR – new entry and basic training establishment at Skegness.
CABOT - Training Establishment in Bristol (possibly Stocker/mechanic training).
DRAKE – RN Barracks, Plymouth - awaiting draft.
QUEBEC – Training Establishment at Inveraray.
COPRA – Accounting Base for small vessels including Landing Craft.
DRAKE – RN Barracks, Plymouth. Awaiting Discharge.

Tony

[TPalmer]

Hi Tony,

Thank you very much for that and going to the trouble of indicating the roles and locations of the other 'ships'. So the 'ships' as much indicate which administrative unit they were assigned to.  I suppose a large vessel would be its own accounting unit. I did some research on COPRA and there may be some avenues to pursue as they would have recorded which landing craft(s) he was assigned to. See: https://www.combinedops.com/COPRA.htm. Do have any suggestions who might have these records? MOD? Public Records? Any contacts you know of?

Again, thanks.

Tim Palmer

[spooks1959]

Hi Tim,

As far as I Know crew lists for the majority of RN vessels do not exist . The only lists I have encountered have been printed in commissioning books and independent publications commissioned by a ship's crew.

The assumption that crew lists do not exist is supported by the fact that if a person requests a summary of a service record from the Ministry of Defence the data they compile is drawn solely from pay and victualling records - held by the accounting bases such as COPRA, this is the only name recorded.

If you do come across a source for landing craft crews please share it with the Forum. Good luck.

Tony

[TPalmer]

Ok thanks Tony.

If I can find anything, I'll let you and the forum know.

Thanks for your assistance.

Tim Palmer

[James_harvey]

His medals are 39-45 star Burma star with Pacific clasp and war medal a very nice group