Description:A farewell dinner menu card. The 240th Company of the Royal Army Service Corps was formed in February 1915. They served as 39 Reserve Park and remained at home (on Cannock Chase), although it had originally been formed for the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. By the time of this dinner the A.S.C. had become the Royal Army Service Corps.
The Army Service Corps was an important part of the Camps on Cannock Chase as soldiers cannot fight without food, equipment and ammunition. They cannot move without horses or vehicles and as local newspaper reports state that any available horses and vehicles would have been requisitioned . It was the A.S.C.’s job to provide them. In the Great War, the vast majority of the supply, training, and maintainenance of a vast army on many fronts was supplied from Britain. Using horses and motor vehicles, railways and waterways, the A.S.C. performed prodigious feats of logistics and were one of the great strengths of organisation by which the War was won.
By April 1919, the War had ended and Brocton Camp was winding down. A dinner was arranged to give the Corps a bit of a send off with as fancy a meal as they could put together.