Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders

[Messina1915]

L/Cpl Percy Beard was in the Military Police, but from a book on the Saffron Walden war memorial (on which his name appears), I know that he was attatched to a battalion from the A&SH at the time of his death on 13th April 1918 (apparently a Captain from the regiment, unfortunately unnamed in the book, wrote to Percy's wife). I was wondering if it would be possible to work out which A&SH battalion he was attatched to.

Percy is buried in Boves West Communal Cemetery Extension and according to the CWGC website, "Boves is a village about 8 kilometres south-east of Amiens."

It's not much to go on, I know, but I'm hoping that there might be an A&SH expert on the forum who can solve the mystery.

Cheers,

Carole.

[Guest]

Hi Carole. Using Geoff's Search Engine it appears 5 Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were killed that day. All from the 1/8th Bn.

I can't find a MIC on the National Archive site. What exactly does the book say regarding the A&SH?

Cheers Mike

[Messina1915]

Thank you Mike

I've got Percy's MIC and it's just the Military Police on there - I think 'attached' in this situation just means the unit he was with, not being part of it.

Here's my scan of the info from the book:

Percy is quite interesting, because in addition to that info, having found him on the 1911 census it seems he was part of a ship's crew (civilian, not Navy) at that time, before he joined the Police

Cheers,

Carole.

[Ian Riley]

Carole,

This may be an unwanted complication but a possibility.

It seems to be a considerable distance from the scene of the Lys battles in the north (where the 1/8th A&SH casualties seem to have occurred) to Boves near Amiens (over 80 km). I wonder if it is possible that the Argyll officer who has written this letter was an officer of that regiment attached to a brigade or divisional staff, such as the Assistant Provost Marshal who might have responsibility for the Military Police detatchment in his formation. I can not envisage a situation in which Military Police would be attached to an infantry battalion directly (they had their own regimental police who were members of the battalion rather than badged Military Police) although April 1918 was a desperate time. Others with more knowledge of the Military Police may care to comment. Such an officer would sign himself as Captain J Smith, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, although not serving with a battalion of that regiment.

It may be that there was an Argyll battalion in the Boves area. This would need a check to either of A&SH diaries or identification of the divisions in the area (another Scottish division perhaps?) from the Official History and then looking at their orbat using Becke or possibly the OH. Perhaps the APM of a division maintained a diary that is in with the relevant divisional records at the National Archive; I have a feeling that they did.

The OH Map (1918 Vol 2, Map Volume, Map No 11) seems to show (without having read the text in detail) that on 5 April 1918, 18th Division was about 8000 yards forward of Boves and the 24th Division was in support, 4000 yards (measured by thumb) forward of Boves. They may well have been relieved by 13 April. They do not seem to contain Highland battalions although I have not checked A.F. Becke's Order of Battle

Ian

[27thBN]

1/9th A/S as well i have a DOW on that date

MC

[Messina1915]

Thanks Ian, I should have known it wouldn't be that simple! Percy seems to be one of those men who you never quite can 'pin down' - first his apparent time at sea before joining the police, then his time in Ireland with the Military Police (I'd love to know whether he was there at the time of the Easter Rising, but as his service record hasn't survived, I'll probably never know), and now this not being as simple as I first thought. I guess it's inevitable that the only one of my four newly discovered distant relatives, the only one who wasn't a fighting man (I can't use infantryman as a catch-all for the other three, because Pte Herridge was with the Yeomanry) is causing the most issues finding out the details. I'll probably come back to this at some point - at the moment, I'm working on reading up about Pte Ingram and Pte Hunter who aren't quite as complicated to find out about

Cheers,

Carole.