A/Sgt Alexander Cranston, Royal Engineers

[big stu]

In the attached photograph, Acting Sergeant Alexander Cranston (Royal Engineers) is seen middle row, third from right. Surrounding him are Officers and other ranks from the Royal Engineers who (almost) all appear to be displaying a Red Cross badge of their sleeves. I understood this was to indicate that the wearer was a Stretcher Bearer. Did the Royal Engineers have stretcher bearers in their ranks? A/Sgt Cranston's unit was the 84th Field Company and he fought exclusively in France & Flanders. Alexander Cranston died on 26-03-1918 aged 39, during the Battle of Rosieres. There is nothing in his service record to indicate he was stretcher bearer. Can anyone help?

[Terry_Reeves]

Stu

Can I ask what evidence you have that indicates these men are Royal Engineers? I say this because RE Sergeants wore a grenade over their chevrons and I have never seen a sapper of any rank wearing a red cross, although there is a first time for everything I suppose. My view is that this is likely to be an RAMC unit or detachment.

TR

[headgardener]

I agree with Terry. Stretcher bearers would wear 'SB' or red cross armbands, and I understand that there was a red cross device that could also be wron on the sleeve of a battledress, but the only people who wore red crosses above their chevrons in this way were RAMC men (see the sergeants in the middle row). Ditto the WO's in the front row.

Maybe your man transferred to or from the RE's?

[Terry_Reeves]

Stu

Having looked at his service record, I think that this may be a pre-war photograph taken when he was serving with the 6th Royal Scots (or their predecessors). 6 RF would have come into being in 1908 or after as part of the Haldane reforms. His 1915 attestation paper states that he had served previously for 13 years in 6 RF which cannot be accurate. This was a TF battalion, formed in 1908 or after. Given this, and the information on his attestation, the photograph is likely to have been taken when he was serving with the TF battalion or one of the RFs predecessors, either a RF Volunteer, or Militia unit which would make a little more sense. His date of birth was either 1879 or 1880, which would also make him of age for service with a territorial or pre-territorial unit. At a guess, I suspect he had left the TF before the war, and was then allocated to a New Army RE unit when he volunteered again.

TR

[headgardener]

I'm not sure that this photo has anything to link it to the Royal Scots either. The image quality isn't that great, but it just looks like a group of RAMC men. And there's an unusual number of NCO's and WO's (5 WO's in the front row); less likely to be simply a detachment in my opinion.

It looks suspiciously close to WW1 to me. Judging by appearances (and, like I said, the image quality isn't great) I doubt that it's any earlier than 1908 or 1909. Age looks about right for birth year of 1880-ish. He appears to be a sergeant (his chevrons aren't visible, but he's with a group of largely NCO's and WO's, and he's got 2 sergeants on his left and another to his right). I see that your man enlisted in 1915 as a sapper, and was 'only' an acting sergeant by 1918. Might have expected a man with 13 years service to have got his stripes up a little quicker.

What evidence do you have for this being your man? Where did the pic come from? I just can't see much that tallies with the facts that we have for Alexander Cranston, R.Scots & RE. More info might help it to make more sense.

Edit; also, this picture is unlikely to be later than about 1916 - there is no evidence (taking into account the poor quality of the image) of anyone in this group having any war service (medal ribbons, wound stripes, overseas service chevrons, etc).

[big stu]

Thank you to everyone who replied and thank you all most sincerely for your valued input.

I have only three photographs of Alexander Cranston in total. The first was taken in 1908 when he was 29. The second image was taken 1912 and finally the one on uniform, which is the subject of this thread. It is definitely Alexander Cranston in all three images.

The photograph of him in uniform has been in the possession of a Scottish descendant of Alexander Cranston for decades and although there is little evidence regarding its provenance, it is believed it was taken some time during WWI. Certainly Alexander (2nd row, 3rd from right) looks the correct age for a photograph of him if it was taken between June 1915 (when he enlisted) and March 1918 (when he died).

Before Alexander’s Unit was sent to France in late October 1915 (84th Field Coy of the Royal Engineers), Alexander spent almost three months in training. Could he have attended a medical course with other chaps from different regiments and branches of the Army – such as RAMC – prior to being sent overseas?

The crazy thing is I have a photograph of him (though of poor quality), plus his complete service record, but even so I still can’t work out what he was doing in the War and how he actually died during the Battle of Rosieres. Many people have been able to learn far more about their forebares with less material than I have to work with. Puzzling isn’t it?

[dycer]

Stu,

In the "8th Royal Scots at War" section of John Duncan's web-site "Newbattle at War" you will find a poor copy of members of the local Haddington Royal Scots Battalion machine-gun section taken outside the Town Hospital,in November 1914.

I cannot work out if the building in your and the 1914 photo is the same.

George

[headgardener]

In the "8th Royal Scots at War" section of John Duncan's web-site "Newbattle at War" you will find a poor copy of members of the local Haddington Royal Scots Battalion machine-gun section taken outside the Town Hospital,in November 1914.

I cannot work out if the building in your and the 1914 photo is the same.

Certainly looks like a Scottish building, and I was thinking 'hospital' when I said that there were too many WO's for it to be simply an RAMC detachment - looks more likely to be hospital staff, I'd have thought.

Doesn't look like a course, he's got RAMC men on either side of him, you'd expect instructors to be in the front row, or at the ends of the rows, more likely that he was attached to the hospital in some way (assuming that it is the hospital, of course). Maybe he was a stretcher bearer and was attached to a hospital as an orderly for part of his service in the UK.

Try posting bits of his service docs here, see if we can make some sense of them.

[big stu]

Headgardener,

I'd love to, but I don't actually know how to post individual pages of his service record on the forum. Also, the way I saved the documents in the first place resulted in each page being several megabytes in size and therefore too large to attach in any event. Pathetic isn't it! Is there anyone else out there that can obtain Alexander Cranston's service record at no cost and post the relevent pages in the limit of 100 kb ? I'd be forever grateful.

Alexander Cranston, A/Sgt 84th Field Company, Royal Engineers (Service No. 103,604). Died 26 Mar 1918.