Francis Blackwell

[CynthiaK]

I have been trying to find details of my grandfather Francis (Frank) Blackwell's WW1 service. his date of birth was 24.04.1884 and he was resident in Yeadon, Yorkshire at the outbreak of war. I have a photo of him with a group of soldiers clustered around a gun. Their cap badges appear to be crossed rifles, there is a sign under the gun which reads 'This is the stuff to give 'em' - and 203 Coy (or Cdy) A section. I believe he was made a prisoner of war at some stage and know he was affected by a gas attack - other than that I have no other details of his war record. Any help would be much appreciated. Cynthia

[sotonmate]

C

The cap badge is crossed machine guns !

There is a bit in the LLT at top left of this page. 203 MG Company was formed in Grantham and attached to 59 Division. I sought the unit in the NA Catalogue under 59 Division and didn't find a ref to it or a War Diary. The LLT says this Div was in Ireland for a while before going to France.I did find one for 66 Division,which the LLT says 203 moved to in Mar 1917. The ref is WO95/3141 and the Diary runs from Mar 1917 to Feb 1918,when it joins an MG Battalion.

The man himself seems to have enlisted after Dec 1915 as he has no entitlement to 1915 Star.

His service number was 65608.

He has no service record available.In view of his gassing I also checked the Pension records,but nothing there either.

You should try to get a read of the Diary ,it might help you along the way a bit.

Also,if he was a POW he might have a de-brief in the POW papers at Kew in WO161.

Sotonmate

[CynthiaK]

Excellent, thanks. I'm going up to Kew at the end of the week, so your info is very timely. Milford Lass has also been very helpful via a pm, so I now have an excellent base to start this research.