Carlingnose Barracks – World War 2

 
Until recently, we knew very little about life at Carlingnose in WWII.

The inner line of defences had moved downstream from North Queensferry to the gun batteries on Inchcolm, Inchmickery, and Cramond Island.

Forth Defences in 1942 showing gun batteries on the islands and shoreline

Bobbie Banks recollected that in WWII the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) were based at Port Laing.  Ammunition was stored there and transported via the narrow gauge railway to the Gov’y Pier from where RASC vessels carried it to the batteries on the islands.

Carlingnose Barracks 1939 – 1941

We now know much more about life in and around Carlingnose Barracks in the early years of WWII, thanks to Shelagh and Gordon Guthrie.

In August 1939, at the age of 17, John Guthrie volunteered to join the Territorial Army, and was posted to Carlingnose Barracks. He kept lots of his wartime records, and later acquired copies of his regiments’ war diaries. He left these and a collection of personal stories and photographs to his son Gordon, who kindly gave NQHT permission to publish extracts from his collection.

Here is John Guthrie’s Soldier’s story from 1939 to 1946