Pete wrote:Hi Raymond
I have had a look at the page from your Father's service record that details postings. As far as I can read it shows period of service from the 18th August 1942 to the 6th July 1946. During this period there is a breakdown of his postings as follows:
18th Aug'42 - 5th Oct'42
ITC Lympstone (for his initial RM training);
6th Oct'42 - 31st Dec'43 shown HBL (Home Base Ledger) RM Division.
HBL is often used as miscellaneous when the exact posting was not known, ie. he was in the RM Division but not known which part of it or where or what he was doing. Unlike today in WW2 not all Royal Marines were Commandos.
1st Jan'44 - 10th Jan'44 shown with 30 Commando
11th Jan'44 - 13th Jan'44 shown with 45 Commando
So for whatever reason it would appear he only stayed 13 days in total with these two Commando units and what he was doing there, or why he left I doubt you will now discover for certain.
14th Jan'44 - 23rd Jan'44 shown with Royal Marines Holding Company (o) which i assume to be operational. This would mean waiting to be deployed to an operational Unit.
24th Jan'44 - 3rd Oct'44 shown RMAS Regt (Royal Marines Armoured Support Regiment). The RMAS were Royal Marines who provided the Armoured Support for Commandos. An insight into one marine's experience of D Day with the RMAS is found here :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/58/a2174258.shtml
4th Oct - 26th - 26th Feb'45 - I am not sure. It looks Like HBL (see above) then VG (w).
27th Feb'45 - 22nd Mar'45 - RMTTD ( Royal Marines Technical Training Depot)
23rd Mar'45 - 7th May'46 shown as 34 Amphibious Support Regiment. Once again the BBC peoples War has a good personal account of one Royal Marine's experience and you will see India is mentioned in relation to this unit. Here is his story
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/37/a7992237.shtml
I hope others might provide more information but RM Service Records are sometimes quite vague in specifics.