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Remembered Today:

Australian WW1 possible Non-com's


River97

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Evening all,

Just a little bit of info. I am a member of the In From The Cold Project and have spent the last few weeks, after work each day, cross referencing the CWGC with that of the AWM in the hope of finding any possible non-com's.

Well, I completed the task this evening and have passed on 101 possible cases to Terry.

There have been some other funky cases whilst doing the cross referencing thing which include a soldier, Private Hart, who was listed as missing presumed killed in 1918, had his family informed of his death but in fact survived the war and arrived home and nearly killed his mother with shock when he knocked on the door and was mistakenly included on the AWM Roll of Honour.

Of the possible's there are those who died after discharge, those who died of illness or accident and a couple who committed suicide. There is also one who drowned in New York when he jumped from a troop ship moored at the wharf and missed the jetty. One who died in a vehicle accident and a possibility of a soldier who is listed as missing presumed dead from Fromelles during the 19-20 July 1916 disaster. Now wouldn't that be something if he appeared in the dig! You see, he wasn't deemed to have been killed in the battle until a board of enquiry sat in 1920 where they changed his classification from 'deserter' to missing presumed dead.

So there we are. Thanks to Geoff for that marvellous search engine and Terry for their help.

Cheers Andy.

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Andy has done an outstanding job as the Australian wing of IFCP (He has also helped on the UK cases).

Besides the non-com cases, his investigations have also led to a number of other problems being sorted such as men being allocated to the wrong unit and even to a couple of men who had been omitted in error from the Debt of Honour.

He is now heading into the WW2 cases while we await the results of his labours from the Australian authorities (presenting these cases was aided by the fact that the Australian service records exist and are all on-line)

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Andy,

Could I help you in some small way? I am located on the Gold Coast.

Terry, In another thread a member pointed out the discrepancy of "Force? and "Forces" being used on AIF headstones, I thought that all members of the 1st and 3nd AIF were members of their respective "Australian Imperial Force" not "Forces".

Kindest,

Chris Henderson

Ooops, that would be the 2nd AIF, not the 3rd!

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Well done.

Did your list of Australians include George Dolling? I was just about to start work on his case as he died while a Corporal working at No.8 AGH in Fremantle.

Cheers

Andrew

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Great work Andy - on a very worthwhile job.

I'm slowly building a database of AIF soldiers who died by accident or suicide (including post war), and I was wondering whether you'd be willing to pass those you came across on to me, to check if I have them yet.

Cheers, Frev

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Well done.

Did your list of Australians include George Dolling? I was just about to start work on his case as he died while a Corporal working at No.8 AGH in Fremantle.

Cheers

Andrew

Andrew,

Corporal George Payne Dolling died 13/11/1918 at No.18 A.A.H. Cause of death - Chronic Nephritis, Arterial Sclerosis and heart failure.

The short answer to this is NO. You've found another, plain as day in the service records at the Australian National Archives here.

He is not listed on the AWM or the CWGC that I can find, so that's one they both possibly missed, and so did we.

Outstanding!

Cheers Andy.

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Great work Andy - on a very worthwhile job.

I'm slowly building a database of AIF soldiers who died by accident or suicide (including post war), and I was wondering whether you'd be willing to pass those you came across on to me, to check if I have them yet.

Cheers, Frev

Frev,

Sorry buddy, I've claimed copy right on the list so no. :P

You're kidding :lol: - to all who are interested, here is what happened. Geoff did his widget thing between the WW1 Australians listed against the AWM and the CWGC through his search engine. This was conducted by surname and service number. Of the 61,000 odd listed on each there were 2,224 discrepancies, so the other 59,000 worked out fine, so I didn't have to manually check them, but did on the discrepant ones. Of these there are 100 possible non-com's.

The list Geoff sent to me, I transferred to an exel spread sheet for ease of working and here's the explanation of it.

The first figure is numerical to the 2,224 that were compiled, then followed by the record number according to the AWM, then last name, service number and unit if mentioned.

I then included a column for the differences found on the CWGC Debt of Honour. These are listed in this column and marry up to the red text in the previous column. The vast majority of these are service number errors.

There is, then, a 'remarks, column, where I have notated those in green who I have submitted for approval as non-coms. There are some other comments in blue.

Now, here's the catch, this is a list of people that I class as the highest form of hero, so if you would like a copy of this list, send me a PM with your e-mail address and I will forward this to all who are interested, and if you're interested let me know in the PM if you would like the WW2 list as well, as when I'm finished with that I'll send it on too. It's not overly exciting reading and there's not a great deal of info, but if you're interested I'm more than willing to pass it on.

Cheers Andy.

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Andrew,

Corporal George Payne Dolling died 13/11/1918 at No.18 A.A.H. Cause of death - Chronic Nephritis, Arterial Sclerosis and heart failure.

The short answer to this is NO. You've found another, plain as day in the service records at the Australian National Archives here.

He is not listed on the AWM or the CWGC that I can find, so that's one they both possibly missed, and so did we.

Outstanding!

Cheers Andy.

Thanks Andy. He is supposed to be buried at Karrakatta Cemetery. I'll go and have a look on the weekend to see if he has any markings on his plot as a lot of the Anglican sections of this cemetery have been reclaimed for future burials (also some war graves headstones went but thats another long story)

That MT1487/1 series on NAA is a very interesting one as it has records (unfortunately most are very sparse) of those from Australia who served in Non-AIF units.

Cheers

Andrew

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