2nd Bn Royal Scots Fusiliers

[Ilbury Welsh]

Hi, I need some help from any members who are researching this unit and have access to the war diary for March 1917. Interested to know what they were up to during that month please. Also if the diary includes details of weather conditions that would be useful too. Regards John

[JimSmithson]

John

Sorry I can't help a little more - I have a lot of detail for the battalion in April as 30th Division were involved in 1st Scarpe. Unfortunately their diaries are not online as yet so I had to photograph them all at Kew. Limited time means I only looked at April. The division was involved in following up the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line during March and will have been involved in a number of minor actions, mainly west of Henin sur Cojeul that they reached at the end of the month. None are mentioned in the Official History but that does not mean that the unit was not involved in some. What exactly are you looking for?

Jim

[Ilbury Welsh]

Thanks for that Jim.

I have just purchased a single BWM to my namesake John Welsh, a 20 year old who enlisted on the 5th October 1916 in Glasgow. His Pension Papers are on Ancestry which state that he was in France from 31st December 1916 until the 7th April 1917. I assume he was part of a draft to top up numbers. He was discharged on the 7th July 1917 being unfit for military service due, as it states in his papers, having contracted TB during military service in March that year. He was sent home to England and to a sanatorium. A short war for him.

Just interested to know what the battalion was doing in March, where they were and the weather to try and get a feeling of what he went through during those four weeks....John