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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Lithuania 1919 - 1920


corisande

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It is possible that one Ford FTb armoured car may have been captured from the Poles.

I'm very interesting in above mentioned informartion. Centurion would you be so kind to write more about it. What is the source of this information? I would be very grateful for this information.

I'm interesting in it as I have built a replica of this car (

) and I'm collecting all information related to it.
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I'm very interesting in above mentioned informartion. Centurion would you be so kind to write more about it. What is the source of this information? I would be very grateful for this information.

I'm interesting in it as I have built a replica of this car (

) and I'm collecting all information related to it.

I wrote the original article about 5 years ago. Fortunately I've archived the drive I was using then and I'll try and find my notes etc on it when I'm home.

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My notes suggest that it was from the Land ships forum indicating that the vehicle may have been captured at Waliły - unfortunately that forum is no longer responding properly. However it does chime with the following on a site devoted to Polish Armour relating to the Fords

"Reportedly two cars belonged to the 3rd Armoured Car Platoon in a cavalry group of Col. Nieniewski, fighting in Białystokand Suwałki area. After being subordinated to mountain division they were fighting at Waliły_village (near Białystok) against Lithuanian forces, losing one car." http://derela.republika.pl/ftb.htm

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Thank tou centurion.

I have checked the polish version of the www you suggested. The polish version of the text (the author is polish) use the world "zniszczony" - distryed, not "stracony" which might mean lost, taken by enemy or distroyed. I will try to ask the author about the source of information - maybe it will be helpchul.

Anyway, thank you again Centurion.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I think I am getting somewhere now with the 4 RAF men in Lithuania

There is a good list here of all the Lithuanian Air Force people. The British men are:-

1. R C Carr

2. P R Bowen

3. A W Saunders

4. Thomas James Randolph

I have researched MacFie now from the cradle to the grave (interesting man) and I can see that he never was in Air Force, either RAF or Lithuanian

Carr, Bowen and Saunders - I can find out a lot about, but Thomas James Randolph stumps me so far. It stumped the compiler of that Lithuanian list of Air Force men, so I suspect his name may not be quite correct.

Anyone help with Thomas James Randolph ?

I have read this all with interest, but hope I can add something of value to the discussion. There were 2 Macfies with Crozier in Ireland, (Robert, I think) Macfie who resigned at the same time as Crozier, and this chap, Thomas Girdwood Macfie, who had, to say the least, a colourful life. This one, TG Macfie, was in France in 1915 with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, but cashiered in 1916, apparently for difficulties with mess funds. He then re-joined the South African Brigade initially as a private soldier, serving in France in 1917-19 (mentioned in despatches, MC), in N. Russia (Archangel) in 1919 where he got the DSO and the Russian orders of St Anne and St Stanislas). He was then a Staff Officer in the Lithuanian Army in 1920, and then Adjutant, Royal Irish Constabulary 1920-21. The rest of his career was equally exotic, featuring embezzlement in Nice, liberating young women of their funds in Egypt before settling for some time in Morocco, before returning to UK in late 1930s. The source of most of these facts is his entry in Old Boys Record for St Peter's College, Radley School.

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Thanks for the bit about

The rest of his career was equally exotic, featuring embezzlement in Nice, liberating young women of their funds in Egypt before settling for some time in Morocco,

I had not found those snippets :)

They were a lot of "colourful" characters at that time, and the situation in Ireland tended to attract them

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It was T G MacFie who was Crozier's adjutant in Ireland and resigned with him. Crozier states that TGM made off with RIC Auxiliary Division funds when he did so.

Charles M

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Thank you, Charles, for the clarification on TG - I seem to have been suckered by some transciption errors, but certainly the making off with the RIC funds is consistent with his general pattern of behaviour, both before and after this episode.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Just an update on the British men attached to Lithuanian Air Force

1. Carr - pilot

2. Saunders - pilot

3. Bowen - observer

4. Pereira - observer

5. MacFie

6. Hiksa - Lithuanian with RAF training

7. James Randolph Thomas was indeed American and not RAF. b. 22 Oct 1893 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. He studied at Columbia and Pratt in New York. Lieutenant U.S. Army Aviation. Served in Lithuanian Air Force 26 Aug 1919 until 4 Mar 1920.

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  • 3 years later...

From Foreign Office files at Kew, the official policy towards Crozier and his team was that they were to be considered as officers of the Lithuanian Army and that they were private citizens. Hence Tallents could suggest, but certainly could not instruct Crozier. The two did, however, co-operate, at least initially and had some success in improving relations between the Lithuanians and Letts. Curzon certainly kept the FO informed during the setting up of his mission, but appears not to have communicated with them once he arrived in the country. On his return to UK he arranged for his diary of his time in Lithuania to be sent to the FO, but they lost it! This was in the hope of gaining FO employment. Croizer himaself saw his prime task in Lithuania, at least initially, as getting the Lithuanian Army in shape to counter the threat from von der Goltz. As for the Tallents mission, which became officially known as the Batlic Mission, it became discredited by the FO, mainly because of the behaviour of some of its members. Ward himself was accused by the Lithuanians of drunkenness and other debauchery, although no concrete evdence was found of this.

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oh and heres sumfin interesting, in Lithuanian Official History Archives the hole time period is erased, so i'd say there was more that went on in the background

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  • 4 months later...

If you want I can load some photos or articles (only I don't know will it be in english) about this conflict, because our historians wrote many books about Lithuanian-Polish wars.

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