France 1918: how long to discharge a wounded soldier?

[Guest Platt]

First post, so apologies in advance if the answer is "click on this FAQ here".

I'm interested in finding out how much time it took between a soldier being severely wounded and his being discharged from the army.

I guess it must have varied with location and time, so here are some details:

My grandfather was a private, who joined up in 1915 and was invalided out of the Royal Scots Fusiliers (RSF) in late 1918. I have his medal card, his Victory & War medals roll entry, his War Badge roll entry and the war diary of the last battalion he served with (12th RSF: Kew happen to have scanned it in already). The 12th RSF were in the northern sector of the British line (near Hazebrouck) from May 1918 onwards.

On the 12th September 1918 he was discharged under King's Regulation 392/XVI; by 2 October 1918 he was entered in the rolls for the Silver War Badge.

Although no-one who remembers him well is alive, the family anecdote is that much of the back of his skull was taken off by shrapnel and that the wound affected him for the rest of his life. Given that, I guess that when the doctors had their first look at him they'd have known that they weren't going to be able to just patch him up and send him back to his company.

Given this, does anyone know how fast the discharge process in late 1918 in France was, which would help me estimate how long before the discharge date he was wounded?

Many thanks for any information on this.

[David B]

Platt,

I think it would be assessed on the severity of the wound and whether the person involved was likely to have made a full recovery to enable further service. My step father was wounded in the shoulder in May 1916 and because of this was unable to lift up his right arm (for the rest of his life). He was returned to UK and after several hospital stays was discharged and worked behind the counter in AIF stores. He was eventually boarded and returned to Australia in January 1918, eventually being discharged in June 1918 as unfit for further service.

In his case it wasn't done with the utmost speed.

David

[kenf48]

It is very unlikely he would have been discharged in France.

Accepting he was badly wounded (though the family story seems to overstate his injuries a little - a head injury was serious in an age before antibiotics but the back of his skull must have been replaced with

something - even the proverbial metal plate). He would have been involved in the casualty evacuation chain (here it comes - check this link http://www.ramc-ww1...._evacuation.php).

He would, at the very least, received some treatment at home before being recommended for discharge.

For example, a soldier on home service I looked at recently was treated in Hospital for two weeks, after the diagnosis and recommendation to discharge it took just over two weeks to complete the administrative process to discharge him. On the other hand there are plenty of examples of it taking much longer a couple of months being more typical.

What you're trying to do is very difficult. It's not possible to determine how long he was treated before he was discharged. Assume you've checked service/pension records to see if they exist? The other problem is that while Battalions may be involved in a specific action, soldiers in the front line could fall victim to the 'daily hate'. He could have spent longer at each step of the chain, or if fit enough moved quickly, there are many instances of wounded soldiers being in London within a week.

Sorry not much help, there may be other avenues to establish where he was but without a name and regimental number even the regimental experts can't help you, e.g. of the 45 deaths in the 12th Bn from May to September over 2/3 occurred towards the end of August, some are interred around Hazebrouck, others made it as far as the base hospital in Boulogne and are interred in the Cemeteries there.

There are some casualty lists and hospital records available but they are rare and there are none for Boulogne. See Sue Light's post on this thread

http://1914-1918.inv...1

also http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=89635&hl=hospital%20casualty%20lists&st=0

The Scotsman (subscription required) published casualty lists for Scotland's Regiments which might be more productive.

Ken

[Guest Platt]

Thanks for the responses: I think it's fair to conclude that he was wounded some time between arriving in May and the beginning of September.

As an aside, I did search through PIN 26 at Kew, but the only entry of interest turned out not to be relevant. I didn't think of looking at the Scotsman archives, so thanks for that tip!

Platt