Non Combatants Corps

[Marco]

I took a photo of the grave of Pte. D. McDonnald of the Non Combatants Corps (NCC). What was the NCC?

Regards

Marco

[Terry_Reeves]

Marco,

The NCC was formed in 1916, to accommodate conscientious objectors who were prepared to carry out uniformed military service, provided it was in a non-combatant role. They did not carry arms, nor were given any weapon training. For example they were used to build hutted camps, unload stores and other like tasks.

The officers and NCO's were drawn from medically down-graded men, many of whom had had seen active service with infantry battalions.

Terry Reeves

[Essexboy68]

Marco,

I cannot give you chapter & verse on this subject, but I shall tell you what I do know.................

Many years ago, I read a book written by a World War 2 conscientious objectior who had served in the NCC during that conflict. It seems that this Corps was made up of men registered as CO's who undertook a variety of non combatant military duties. Supposedly for some time they were employed as labourers with the RE bomb disposal teams, until it was decided that such work was too "glamourous" for men not willing to bear arms. I would imagine that the First World War NCC would be much the same. Strangely enough, the RAMC ( which did not bear arms until after WW2) was not open to conscientious objectors, hence the need for this Corps.

Hope this helps........................

Mark

[Brian Buck]

While doing my National Service in the 1950s I met some soldiers wearing cap badges with NCC on them. I was intrigued and asked what they were in and was told the Non-Combatant Corps. Presumably it was disbanded when National Service finished?

[Terry_Reeves]

Brian

The NCC was disbanded in 1920, it personel being some of the last to be discharged. I'm not aware of it being reformed again.

Terry Reeves

[Marco]

Thanks for the replies chaps.

Regards,

Marco

[BeppoSapone]

Brian

The NCC was disbanded in 1920, it personel being some of the last to be discharged. I'm not aware of it being reformed again.

Terry Reeves

The NCC were reformed for WW2. They had a cap badge that looked like a shoulder title - "NCC" in brass.

Here is a thread from another forum which discusses the NCC, and the thread seems to have been started by someone who read the book about members of the NCC in bomb disposal, as mentioned by Essexboy.

http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn/index.php?name...ht=noncombatant

[tamos123]

Hi All

Came across this discription for a Private...is it related to conciencious objectors at all

thanks

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Tamos

See this previous thread.

http://1914-1918.org/forum/index.php?showt...combatant+corps

Dave

[tamos123]

thanks Guys for info

T

[Brian Buck]

The NCC were reformed for WW2. They had a cap badge that looked like a shoulder title - "NCC" in brass.

Yes, that's the badge I remember seeing in my NS days - so was the NCC disbanded when NS finished?

[BeppoSapone]

The NCC were reformed for WW2. They had a cap badge that looked like a shoulder title - "NCC" in brass.

Yes, that's the badge I remember seeing in my NS days - so was the NCC disbanded when NS finished?

Brian

I think they must have been, because without conscription/national service none of these people would have gone anywhere near the army.

Someone else may have a disbandment date?

[Magnumbellum]

I took a photo of the grave of Pte. D. McDonnald of the Non Combatants Corps (NCC). What was the NCC?

Regards

Marco

I presume that this was the grave of Duncan McDonald, of Lochgilphead, Argyll; 1 Scottish Company, Non-combatant Corps, buried in Calais Southern Cemetery. He was found dead on a railway line in France on 4 June 1916, not being on duty at the time. At the military equivalent of an inquest, the cause of death was held to have been an accident for which he was himself responsible - ? walking on the line.

[Magnumbellum]

The NCC was disbanded in 1920, it personel being some of the last to be discharged. I'm not aware of it being reformed again.

Terry Reeves

A new Non-Combatant Corps was established in 1940 to comply with the National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939, which, as with the Military Service Act 1916, provided for non-combatant service in the military as one category of recognition of conscientious objectors. Again as with the WW1 NCC, it comprised only private soldiers, NCOs and officers being seconded from other corps or regiments. Its duties were similar to those of the WW1 Corps, but differently from WW1, some 400 NCC men were accepted for bomb-disposal work (Mark [Essexboy] is wrong in saying that bomb-disposal was removed from WW2 NCC COs). The WW2 NCC must have been disbanded not later than 1963, when the last British conscripts were demobilised.

Another difference from WW1 was that a very few COs allocated to non-combatant duties by their tribunals were enlisted in "ordinary" corps, auch as the RAMC and the Royal Army Pay Corps, but their guarantee of non-combatant status had to be scrupulously observed by their superiors - leading to some tension on occasions.

[dave ricketts]

He was found dead on a railway line in France on 4 June 1916, not being on duty at the time. At the military equivalent of an inquest, the cause of death was held to have been an accident for which he was himself responsible - ? walking on the line.

I have an interest in this chap - can you point me at your source for these comments? I had always assumed it was a suicide.

Thanks a lot.

Dave

[Moonraker]

In the House of Commons on 28 November 1917, the Under-Secretary of State for War, James Macpherson, was asked if an inquiry would be made into:

complaints about the conduct of the second lieutenant, L. Smith, commanding the 3rd Southern Non-Combatant Corps at Durrington Camp, Lark Hill, who, since he took charge of this company, has persistently carried out a policy of irritation, his latest act being to order the searching of kit bags of the men and their personal belongings and their private correspondence; and among other orders he issues, which are not imposed in any other company, are the maintenance of the summer practice of washing and wet-scrubbing huts, the consequence of which is that their huts often remain in a damp state for two or three days; and also his practice of making all available men parade at 6.10 a.m. for route march on empty stomachs, this being the only company on Salisbury Plain where this practice is followed?

Mr Macpherson replied that a full report had been called for, but its findings appear not to have survived.

I might just have posted this info some time ago in the forlorn hope that someone could advise on how to discover the outcome and, even more forlornly, was wondering if Second-Lieutenant L Smith's service record was traceable, but with a name like that...

Moonraker

[Magnumbellum]

I have an interest in this chap - can you point me at your source for these comments? I had always assumed it was a suicide.

Thanks a lot.

Dave

Duncan McDonald was the subject of a Commons Question by Thomas Richardson MP, which received a written answer on 20 July 1916:

HC Deb 20 July 1916 vol 84 c1214W 1214W

§

Mr. T. RICHARDSON

asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the announcement of the first reported casualty in the Non-Combatant Corps; can he state the man's name and the cause of death; and whether the man was a resisting concientious objector or a willing member of the Non-Combatant Corps?

§

Mr. FORSTER

Private D. McDonald, No. 1471, 1st Scottish Company, Non-Combatant Corps, was, I am informed, found dead on the railway in France. There is no record of this man being a resisting conscientious objector. A report on the circumstances is being furnished.

The promised follow-up was by a letter to the MP from the Earl of Derby, Secretary of State fro War, dated, 16 July 1916. The letter was almost certainly not published generally, but was passed on to the No-Conscription Fellowship, who published it as an addendum to their report of the PQ in their own publication, CO's Hansard:

"With reference to Private D McDonald, who was the first casualty in the Non-Combatant Corps. This soldier was not tried by court-martial or brought before his Commanding Officer for disobedience of orders. The Officer Commanding No 1 Scottish Company Non-Combatant Corps, to which unit Private McDonald belonged, was in the opinion that McDonald was not on duty at the time of the accident and was himself to blame. The Base Commandant comcurred.

Yours sincerely

(Signed) DERBY"

To me, the word "accident", discounts suicide, so I have formed the view that McDonald probably walked on the railway line, or behaved foolishly in some similar way. It must be acknowledged that such enquiry as the Army held was pretty perfunctory. As a soldier of the British Army, albeit off duty and on public property, he would not have been regarded by the French authorities as coming within their purview for investigation of unnatural and violent deaths; and as the body was never brought back to the UK (until the Falklands War in 1982 virtually the only armed forces body ever brought from abroad was that of Horatio Nelson in 1805), the question of a UK inquest never arose. It is possible that had modern UK inquest standards been applied, an "open" verdict might have been returned, but if there was no note left, and no previous explicit mention of suicide, it is doubtful whether a suicide verdict could have been returned.

I would be most interested to hear of your views, and anything else you know of Duncan McDonald. My knowledge is solely derived from the two pieces set out above, plus the CWGC information.

[dave ricketts]

Thanks a lot for that. I had only assumed that he was a suicide based on the fact that he had only been in France for a few days having arrive on the 30th May and it possibly seems unlikely that you'd be run down by a train by accident. I also suppose that my view is coloured by another chap who died in the UK whilst serving as a soldier in similar circumstances and whose death was found to be suicide.

Pte McDonald's records exist in WO363 but have no information about the circumstances of his death. He was a 28 y.o. tailor.

[Moonraker]

...Private D. McDonald, No. 1471, 1st Scottish Company, Non-Combatant Corps, was, I am informed, found dead on the railway in France. above, plus the CWGC information.

As an aside, fatalities on railway lines caused by trains hitting people who shouldn't be there were not unusual and still happen today. (I've been standing well behind the yellow safety line at my local station facing the "wrong" way and have been startled by a train coming from behind when it's been only a few yards away.)

On Britain's declaration of war, vulnerable sites such as railway tunnels were put under guard, at first by Territorials, then by National Reservists (certainly in Wiltshire). By October 9 fourteen soldiers had been fatally injured by trains on Great Western Railway lines (despite being instructed on where they might safely stand) and two others were mistakenly shot by their colleagues. And I don't have the exact reference to hand but I believe that a Reservist who was also a platelayer was killed at Newton Tony on the London & South Western railway.

Moonraker

[Liam]

A few years ago I came across this grave in Crick Churchyard, Northamptonshire.

I've never come across a grave to the NCC since and

ARTHUR

Initials: T

Nationality: United Kingdom

Rank: Private

Regiment/Service: Non Combatant Corps

Unit Text: 6th Eastern Coy.

Age: 28

Date of Death: 23/03/1919

Service No: 2075

Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead

Grave/Memorial Reference: In East part.

Cemetery: CRICK (ST. MARGARET) CHURCHYARD

Liam

[Raymond]

Marco - do you have a copy of the photo of the grave of Pte. Duncan. McDonald of the Non Combatants Corps (NCC).

I am compiling memorial reports on the Lochgilphead 65, that's the 65 names on the memorial in our village in Argyll Scotland.

Regards

Raymond

[Magnumbellum]

Marco - do you have a copy of the photo of the grave of Pte. Duncan. McDonald of the Non Combatants Corps (NCC).

I am compiling memorial reports on the Lochgilphead 65, that's the 65 names on the memorial in our village in Argyll Scotland.

If Duncan McDonald is being included in any formal listing, it should be noted that the name of his Corps was the Non-Combatant Corps, NOT Non-Combatants Corps.

[Raymond]

Magnumbellum - Advice noted, I have altered text, thanks

Cheers

Raymond

[Magnumbellum]

Magnumbellum - Advice noted, I have altered text, thanks

Cheers

Raymond

Thanks for the acknowledgement.

A further thought has occurred to me concerning the circumstances of McDonald's death. I understand that Lochgilphead is on the narrow and relatively remote Kintyre peninsula, off mainland Argyll, and, apart from a one-time 4-mile narrow gauge stretch, has never had a railway. I am speculating on the possibility that McDonald had no experience of a railway environment - a century ago many country people never travelled far - and therefore possibly did not take much care when walking near, or even trying to cross, a busy urban railway line.

Any comments as a Lochgilphead resident?

[Raymond]

Hi - thanks for that, food for thought, good question to ask the kids in class tomorrow, I am originally from Glasgow so well used to trains, nearest station to us is Oban 34 mile drive, or 64 mile drive to Balloch for trains to Glasgow. Thanks for this, good topic for tomorrows class. We are hopefully going to have a wee article in the local newspaper ton Friday seeking help for our project, so far after 2 attempts we have had nothing from local community. The 2 photos I have of the Lochgilphead 65 have come from GWF members who have been brilliant in trying to source information and verifying what the kids have sourced especially from Forces war Records and CWGC. To put you in the picture I have a class of 6 young people all with different levels of educational support needs and 5 youth forum members who are trying to organise a presentation of the information found on the Lochgilphead 65 to show at the 50th anniversary of the A&SH freedom of Lochgilphead next June.

Kindest regards

Raymond