3rd Provisional Company

[Guest kevinphilp]

I am looking for any information on the type of work done by the 3rd Provisional Company of the Royal Engineers as identified fro the attached medal card. The card comes from my grandfather who talked about Ypres and tunneling and I am looking for some solid evidence of what he did.

Thanks

Kevin Philp

[RedCoat]

Hi mate,

I asked a similar question a while back and got this reply.

"The 3rd Provisional Field Company seems to have been assigned to the 3rd Provisional Brigade, which was a short-lived combined arms brigade that served with the Home Forces in 1915 and 1916. While the Catalogue of the National Archives at Kew makes no explicit mention of a war diary for this unit, it does list the provisional field companies of the other provisional brigades. This suggests that a copy of the war diary may be stapled to the back of a neighbouring war diary or that, at the very least, some information about the unit may be found in the war diary of the 3rd Provisional Brigade.

As the provisional brigades (and their component units) remained in the British Isles until they were disbanded."

I hope this helps. I would find out from TNA if a war diary does exist. If it does then you will find out day to day what they did.

Best regards, Donnie

[Simon Jones]

3rd Provisional Company was basically an RE depot or holding unit in the UK. All the tunnellers that I have been researching are posted to 3rd Prov Coy when they are in the UK, although I am not clear if it was exclusively for tunnellers. If he was tunnelling at Ypres then he would have been with one of the RE Tunnelling Companies, i.e. 177th, 250th etc.

S

[Guest kevinphilp]

3rd Provisional Company was basically an RE depot or holding unit in the UK. All the tunnellers that I have been researching are posted to 3rd Prov Coy when they are in the UK, although I am not clear if it was exclusively for tunnellers. If he was tunnelling at Ypres then he would have been with one of the RE Tunnelling Companies, i.e. 177th, 250th etc.

S

So the reference on the medal card to 3rd Prov Co just refers to a holding unit in the UK and he would have been with another company when he was in France. We are not exactly sure what he did as he died quite some time ago but he did talk about tunneling and Ypres so we are trying to find some details.

Thanks

[sotonmate]

Kevin

If you want to find out about tunnelling in the Ypres sector (or any other for that matter) the book "Beneath Flanders Fields-the Tunnellers War 1914-1918" written by three authors Peter Barton,Peter Doyle and Johanne Vandewalle. ISBN 1-86227-237-9 is a very informative read.

It may become more difficult for you to find which TC(s) your GF served in if there is no service record surviving. I have an incomplete note showing some of them who worked the general Ypres area :

171 Spanbroekmoelen

172 St Eloi/Messines

175 Hooge/Messines/Hill 60

177 St Eloi/Yser Canal dugouts

250 Messines/Bois Qarante/Grande Bois

255 Dugout schemes Ypres Salient

It is possible that personnel lists are present in the War Diaries,the ones I have seen have impressive maps showing the schemes undertaken.

Sotonmate

[thommydee]

hi to add to your blog my grandfather joined the 3rd ksli a month later he was in the 2nd ksli by 1903 he was in the reservists until 1914 when he was called up again and went on to join RE as i have been told he went to 171st tunneling company he was awarded the 1915 star andbritish war medal plus vivtory medal as well as swb no 257-341i have the roll of induviduals entited to swb

from chatham kent the RE main depot should anyone want a copy send e/m to gthomas1@talktalk.net

[AndyL]

My great grandfather was also in the 3rd Provisional Company. He was George Dixon Startin, spr 96966. His medal card index says he enlisted 29/05/15 and was discharged on 2/8/15. He was awarded the SWB which listed his age as 41 and served in France. I believe he was a tunneler as he was a miner. Would I be able to trace his tunneling company?

[Guest]

I was just given a silver war badge from my great grandfather he didnt serve in WW1 because he would of been too young but he says he found this badge in the grass in his garden in hayes and I researched who the recipient was and it was a W. Goldthorpe from the RE 3rd Prov Co!