I think it reasonable to assume that the regiments managed to keep their own fitters.Tom from Cornwall wrote:Just a small point but I think the tanks went by train to Matruh, then by track after that. I'm not sure that 5 RTR were without their unit fitters - have we a source for that? I think a key problem was that without a recovery organisation the "crocks" were scattered to the four winds and the fitters could therefore only work on one at a time before setting off to find the next one?Then 5th RTR trekked from the Delta to Cyrenaica, without tank transporters, without spares, and without unit fitters (maintenance was concentrated in the Delta workshops, except for the LRS at Beda Fomm; from what Urmel found, it wasn't until 1942 that a fully functioning multi-echelon division/brigade/regiment LAD was organized, trained, and equipped in the British armoured formations).
When it comes to the brigade light repair sections (LRS), recovery sections (RS) and ordnance field parks (OFP), it seems each of the 3 brigades (1Armd, 3Armd and 2SptGp) kept them with them. According to a 2 Armd Div doc dated 3 May, almost all of 1 Armd Bde's RAOC got back to Egypt, 3 Armd Bde 'lost' their LRS, but the RS and OFP managed to make it to Egypt and the Spt Gp lost almost everyone.
At the Div level, half of the workshop went to Greece and most returned, the other half remained intact in Tobruk as part of the AOD. Their OFP only arrived from the UK in March and never left Egypt until broken up and distributed to other units.
In effect, the repair and recovery parts stayed reasonably intact and where they should be. Div workshops did not function as such, but the part working within AOD Tobruk did a great job keeping the tanks there fit and getting the crocks back into action. By 7 April they had got all 18 light tanks back into service and 4 of the 26 cruisers up and running (lacking parts). As those parts started to arrive, the cruisers started to fill the ranks through April too.