wrong service on headstone?

[adam1981]

hello

the CWGC entry for 161843 James Whiston shows his service as Royal Navy. but his war medals are named to Royal Artillery. He served with the Royal Naval Division as Divisional Artillery with the Royal Field Artillery.

is this a mistake on CWGC and his headstone is to RFA?

or did he move to the RN?

or is it correct as it is?

or is it a mistake?

any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

[centurion]

A division's artillery was provided by the Royal Artillery, presumably the RN Division's would be the same? During the war a number of units were transferred to the RA (so for example some Yeomanry became RA trench mortar units so that my Great Uncle's MIC shows both Yeomanry and RFA and yet he never changed unit from 1913 to 1919 - he survived the war but had he not I think that CWGC would have showed his service as Yeomanry). On this basis I'd suspect that odd as it looks it is correct.

[Ghazala]

Your post saved me going for an eye test Adam, where the letters get smaller as you go down the board! Centurion is a wealth of knowledge.

[horatio2]

CWGC error. RN official number 161843 belongs to Benjamin BLUNSON and there is no RN rating of Driver. He was clearly an RA man serving in the units attached to the RND.

[NigelS]

There is a sheet in his service record ( Ancestry somewhat singed at the edges and faded in places) which appears to relate to a medical examination, dated 19/1/19 and signed 'J Whiston' giving, amongst other information, the following:

Unit 63(RN) DAC
Regiment or Corp RFA
Regtl No 161843

Rank Driver
Surname Whiston
Christian Name James
Address 47 Gresty Terrace, Crewe
Age last Birthday 21
First joined for Duty 13-10-16 at Preston

Other pages show that he was transferred to Class Z Army Reserve on Demobilization 22/2/19 and give a receipt for his BWM & Victory Medals (addressed to the RFA) dated 6th October 1921 & signed 'J. Watson' (as this would be post his death in December 1920, the signature must be that of his father who is also given as 'James' in an NoK record on another page)

There's nothing else in his record that I can see - at least that's readable - relating to service with '63(RN) DAC'; also no obvious mention of his death appears to have survived - if it was ever added.

So, to me it looks as if his CWGC record should be RFA not RN, with the 63rd (RN) Div. Ammunition Col. being correct (?), although, as he'd been transferred to the reserve by the time of his death, he wouldn't have actually been serving with that unit by then (I wouldn't like to hazard a guess at what the correct protocol for that part of the record would be though!)

NigelS

[adam1981]

ha ha, didnt realise the font was getting smaller, bizarre.

thank you for all the information and taking the time.

i assume he died of flu as also no mention of wounds, i suppose the only way to find out would be to go through the Crewe local newspapers.

i have checked both the Crewe and Haslington war memorials and he isnt on them, which is odd considering he is buried at Haslington.

if named in error i suppose the stone mason may have got confused by the 'naval division' part, but you would have thought by 1920 unfortunately they would have been used to the different units, unless the cwgc work was done by local stone smiths.

an interesting one