Uniform ID Please

[Jonathan D'Hooghe]

Is this man wearing the uniform of the 8th Hussars? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

jonathan

[4thGordons]

Is this man wearing the uniform of the 8th Hussars? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

jonathan

Hi Jonathan

Impossible to tell from this picture I am afraid. I see nothing that will allow you to identify the unit.

He is wearing a simplified pattern jacket (no rifle patches on shoulder, no pocket pleats)but beyond that - unless I am missing something - I see nothing that would allow for further identification (no cap badge, collar brasses, shoulder titles etc)

The lanyard over his left shoulder is a slightly different variant and I suppose it may be possible to link this with a particular unit if you you have other identified pictures but that would be circumstantial and very much a long shot as there is considerable variation.

Sorry, best I can do.

Chris

[squirrel]

Is there anything written on the back of the photograph?

[john gregory]

Is this man wearing the uniform of the 8th Hussars? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

jonathan

Is this the same man, if it is he is in the Kings Own

[john gregory]

There is a Jack D'Hooghe in the Suffolk Regiment, number 19053

[Jonathan D'Hooghe]

Thank you one and all for your replies. I will try and put some more flesh on the bones. Jack was my great uncle and was originally listed as 12485 Hussars of The Line he then at some point transferred to 7th Bn The Suffolk regiment as 19053 as John has pointed out above. Jack was killed at Ovillers with 7th Suffolks on 3/7/16. The family mystery that I have been trying to solve is (a) When did he transfer to the Suffolks and (b)What Hussars Rgt was he originally in?

Following the death of my parents, I have inherited some family papers, one of which is a postcard from Jack to his father (my great grandfather) The front of the card shows a Trooper of 8th Hussars in Review Order and Jack has written on the back that the card shows "... The full dress" I assume he means uniform. Therefore, putting 2 and 2 together! - I now assume that Jack was in the 8th Hussars more fully known as 8th (Kings Royal Irish) Hussars.

Turning now to John's photo - my feeling is that it is not the same man but under the magnyfying glass the buttons look remarkably similar. Jack was a Lance Corporal when he was killed and John's photo depicts a corporal so somehow the two do not appear to add up??

Any more ideas would be appreciated.

Jonathan

[headgardener]

I don't think there's anything sufficiently 'diagnostic' about your man's uniform. Can't see the buttons very clearly on my screen, best to get a magnifying glass on it and see what it looks like (compare them to the man in the 2nd photo, he's wearing 'General Service' buttons). I doubt that you'll be able to get a good enough resolution on a scan to enable us to help you. Maybe you could describe them once you've got a glass on them?

Does he have a 'date of entry' on his MIC? What units does the MIC show? The reference to 'Hussars of the line' looks like it came from SDGW. I'd assume that his time in the Hussars was spent in the UK and he transferred to the Suffolks when he was posted overseas.

I don't have any reference books with me, but I don't think there was a 'home service' regiment of the 8th Hussars, which would mean that he was with a Reserve Cavalry Regiment. I'll have a look when I get home to see which one the 8/Huss were affiliated to. There may have been more than 1 Hussars unit affiliated, but it would give you an idea of where he may have been stationed.

Bit of a long-shot, but I wonder whether it's worth checking the museum of the modern-day successors of the 8/Hussars; they might have some material which would be of help (enlistment registers, perhaps).

[4thGordons]

Is this the same man, if it is he is in the Kings Own

For what it is worth I do not think it is the same individual in the pictures either.

Compare the lips (chap on left significantly fuller), hair (chap on left straighter chap on right with a significant wave and parted lower), nose (chap on left more bulbous) and in particular (and I think this may be diagnostic) the structure of the ear and shape of inside of his ear and earlobe.

I am not sure of the source of John's picture but I don't think that it is the same chap.

Chris

[headgardener]

Just had a look at my references; the 8th Hussars were affiliated to the 10th Reserve Cavalry Regt which had been formed at the Curragh on the outbreak of war. There was also another affiliated Hussars regt (4/Huss), so if I'm right about this, he could have served either with the 8th or the 4th. A number of 3rd line yeomanry regiments became affiliated in summer 1915, so it is also possible that your man may have been with one of these (remember that some yeomanry regiments were styled 'Hussars' (Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, etc). The fact that there's a photo of an 8/Huss man amongst your man's letters is significant in that it implies that they may have been serving in the same regiment (i.e. 10/RRC), but it doesn't necessarily mean that he was also with the 8th, it could have been one of the other regiments represented in the 10/RRC.

The term 'Hussars of the Line' is misleading, I don't think that there was ever a single unit that was identified as such during WW1. There was, however, a 'CAVALRY of the Line'; it was the various RRC's (14 of them, in total). If that snippet of info came from SDGW then I'd say that there's a strong chance of it being wrong.

Where was your man from, by the way?

[Jonathan D'Hooghe]

Jack was a Nottingham lad by birth. The post card that I have is addressed to his father at 69 The Chase, Nottingham. As well as referring to the uniform on the picture side as being "...the full dress" he also mentions that "...all the horses in A squad are bad with (difficult to read)starrples" ??? Has any horse specialists got an idea what was wrong with them? - Also he says to his father "... have been on the wooden horse with the sword sticking a bag of straw" - So he was obviously in full training at the time and presumably had no idea that he was to be transferred to the infantry in time for the Somme offensive of July 1916.

I have also emailed the photo to the 8th Hussars museum and they have now replied to sat that they cannot verify the uniform.

Thanks for the help to date

Jonathan

[headgardener]

Regarding the uniform, like I said, there's nothing really diagnostic about it except, perhaps, the buttons; can you look at them through a glass and describe them to us?

What is the date on his p/c? The uniform jacket dates from about 1915. He went to France in early-mid 1916. We might be able to glean something from the date and postmarks of any of his correspondence.

My suspicion is that the number dates from about mid-'15. Did you ask the Hussars museum about any other holding that they might have, or about the likely date of enlistment based on his number?