Royal Indian Artillery in Palestine

[yair]

Dear forum members,

I am new at this forum and first of all want to say that I am very impressed by the knowledge displayed here. I am looking for any help that I can get on a Victory medal of driver Ernest Townsend. His CWGC document says that he was with 7 Bty 4 Bde Royal Field Artillery and died 4/11/1918.

I read at this forum that 4 Brigade RFA consisted of 7, 14 and 66 Batteries and was at Secunderabad in southern India in August 1914. In mid-October it was transferred to the Meerut (7th Indian) Division for service on the Western Front. Since his MIC does not indicate that he was entitled to a 1914/1915 Star I conclude that he was not there. In January 1916 both the Meerut Division and the Lahore (3rd Indian) Division were sent to Mesopotamia and 4 Bde RFA was transferred to the Lahore Division and in May 1918 the division went to Egypt and Palestine for the rest of the war. The MIC states as corps a text that I read as R.I.A. Could this be Royal Indian Artillery?

My question: Is the data I collected till now correct or did I mix up things?

I am interested in Townsend's service records but I understand that only A-N is published of what was not burned in WW2. He was also entitled to the BWM but this got lost somehow.

Yair Malachi

Israel

I also add his MIC

[Ron Clifton]

Hello Yair, and welcome to the Forum!

You are right in your deductions apart from two minor points. In Oct 1914 4 Brigade RFA joined the Lahore Division, transferring to the Meerut Division in March 1915 until Jan 1916 when it returned to the Lahore Division.

The initials on the medal index card are RFA, Royal Field Artillery. There was no Royal Indian Artillery in WW1: in fact there was very little artillery in the Indian Army at all, only twelve mountain batteries, and a company of Frontier Garrison Artillery in the Punjab.

Those records which survived the Blitz in 1940 are all available on microfilm at the National Archives in London, but of course that is of no help to you. They are also being put online through Ancestry so you mayu have to wait until they reach T, but it should not be more than say two or three years, I think.

I note that, sadly, Driver Townsend died on 4 Nov 1918, the same date as the poet Wilfred Owen, before the Armistice with Germany but after the end of hostilities with Turkey. One can only hope that he knew before he died that the war in "Mespot" was already over.

Good luck with your research.

Ron

[michaeldr]

Yair,

welcome to the Great War Forum.

If you follow this link, see http://www.archive.org/details/briefrecordofadv00grearich

you will be able to down-load a copy of 'The Advance of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force'

On pages 56/7 you will find details on the order of battle of the 3rd (Lahore) Division and a 'Brief Record of Service'

The 4th Brigade RFA also gets a mention in the Official History during the Battle of Sharon (one of the Battles of Megiddo)

"Brigadier-General Edwardes (commanding 8th Infantry Brigade) was for some time unable to find the IV Brigade RFA, which was to support his advance eastward, but discovered at 12.30 (19 Sept 1918) that it had moved forward to a position south of Kufar Saba, and ordered it to direct its fire on Hable to assist the Sikhs. After its capture the batteries moved eastward, and the advance was resumed at 1.45; the 59th Rifles directed on Kh. Ras et Tire and the Baluchis on Tel Manasif, the other two battalions following in close support. Both these objectives were reached about 6 p.m., as the sun was setting, and the brigade bivouacked for the night behind strong outposts."

best regards

Michael

[yair]

Hello Ron and Michael,

thanks for the valuable information.

On my daily way to work I pass several British war cemeteries. Few people here realize what hard battles took place here during the Great War.

Yair

[michaeldr]

Yair,

For those GWF Pals who are perhaps unfamiliar with the geography, I am adding these sections of map to show the places referred to in the above quote from the Official History

The first map section shows the 'Turkish dispositions at Zero hour on the 19th September 1918'

The second section of map shows where the 8th Infantry Brigade and its artillery started from that morning; a line 4 or 5 miles to the south-west of Kfar Saba

regards

Michael

[rflory]

215982 Dvr. Ernest Townsend, RFA enlisted at Bolton and died of disease on 4 November 1918. As he died of disease rather than being killed it is hard to determine when he might have left his unit. Regards, Dick Flory

[michaeldr]

Dick,

Thanks for that clarification

regards

Michael

[yair]

Thanks for the data you all supplied. I post here a picture of an artillery force moving in Palestine. The source is a 1918 magazine "The war pictorial", published in London.

I assume this is a picture of horse artillery? One cannot stop wondering how hard conditions must have been for the men, even without fighting.

Yair

[Ron Clifton]

Yair

All field artillery, and even some of the "lighter heavy guns," was horse-drawn at that period. Unless you can see the actual gun barrels, it is difficult to distinguish between horse and field artillery.

Conditions would indeed have been hard - provision of fresh water was always a problem - but both the Brtish and Turkish forces would have had a wealth of experience to draw on, even though the men themselves might only be wartime recruits. The British Army has been fighting in similar climates for well over two centuries. Notice for instance the sand shoes fitted to all the wheels, in order to spread the weight.

Ron

[yair]

I noticed the large amount of drivers - about a third of a battery were drivers.

Yair