King's Royal Rifle Corps, 10th Battalion

[Dannemois]

I am currently researching Rifleman William Davies Jones (R/3531) of the 10th Bn Kings Royal Rifle Corps. He was killed in action on the 30th November 1917 during the Battle of Cambrai.

Having found his details on CWGC, I noted there were 61 casualties for the 10th Bn that day. Does anyone have access to the Battalion War Diary; I have not been able to identify exactly what his unit were doing that day and I would appreciate any details.

Thanks

[sotonmate]

You need WO95/2115/1 but it is not yet digital. Dates covered July 1915 to Feb 1918.

[Keith Iles]

Sorry don't have the war diary but the following extract is from The Annals of the King's Royal Rifle Corps Volume V The Great War by Major -General Sir Stuart Hare,

In the 59th Brigade sector, the 10th KRRC was on the right of the front line, the 11th KRRC on the left.

The German attack was made in echelon from the left, falling first on the 55th Division, then on the 12th Division and, half an hour later, on the 20th Division.

The following is the account of the fate of our 10th Battalion taken from the 'Chronicle' of 1917:

The night of November 29 was fairly quiet, but at 7.45am on November 30, the Germans made a strong attack on the 12th Division, which was on our right, and succeeded in piercing their line. They broke through Lateau Wood in great numbers, and thus got right behind our four companies, as we were in position north-east of the wood.

At this time all was well with us in front, and Battalion Headquarters were in communications with our outpost company. ten minutes later this line was cut. The events that followed were dramatic.

Twice the Germans made desperate frontal attacks, but were splendidly repulsed by rifle and Lewis gun fire, and many Germans bit the dust. Then we found ourselves attacked on three sides - in front, rear and right flank. Fierce fighting followed, and the casualties on both sides were very heavy.

Very few of the men, and none of the Officers, succeeded in getting away.

The Battalion Headquarters fell back, fighting all the way, till they joined the reserve battalion of the Brigade, the survivors totalled 4 Officers and 16 other ranks.

Hope this may be of some use to you,

Best regards, Keith.

[Dannemois]

Thanks Keith, that's just the kind of detail I was hoping for; I am probably asking too much but just in case, do you have any idea of the size of 10th Bn; how many other ranks would have been involved on that day.

Roy

[Gareth Davies]

Jack Horsfall and Nigel Cave say in their book Cambrai The Right Hook that the Bns in 20 Div were all down to 400 and some were well under 300 strong. They go on to say that by the end of the day only 4 officers and 16 men of the 10th KRRC were on their feet, having managed to work their way back to La Vacquerie.

[Dannemois]

I have not located the service record for Rifleman Jones hence I don't know when he attested; can his service number (R/3531) tell us anything? his medal card has theatre date of entry of 30.7.1915.

[anthony osborne]

Not sure if this helps but I have a 10th KRRC whose details are as follows:

Rifleman R/128 Harry Randall

Attested 02/09/14

Posted 7th KRRC 06/09/14

Posted 10th KRRC 21/09/14

Embarked Folkestone (qualification date) 21/07/15

KIA 07/12/15

Presumably your Rfmn Jones was part of a later draft to bring the battalion up to strength before going into the line. Not sure he would have been sent to replace casualties - to soon for the 10th KRRC to have sustained any but it's possible?

Good luck,

Ant

[MBrockway]

I am currently researching Rifleman William Davies Jones (R/3531) of the 10th Bn Kings Royal Rifle Corps. He was killed in action on the 30th November 1917 during the Battle of Cambrai ...... I have not been able to identify exactly what his unit were doing that day and I would appreciate any details.

Thanks

Is Rfn Jones a relation of yours?

Cheers,

Mark

[Dannemois]

Hi Mark

Thanks for the details. No relation; he is one of many I'm researching named on a local war memorial.

Regards, Roy

[MBrockway]

My hard copy of Soldiers Died has ....

Rfn William David (sic - not Davies as above) JONES, R/3531, 10th Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps
Residence: Cardiff.

Enlistment Location: Amersham
Died of Wounds on 30 Nov 1917,

I'm working on the enlistment date for you.

[Dannemois]

Hi Mark

His name was actually William Davies Jones and his place of residence was Brithdir (local milk vendor) the family home being at 2 Ivy Row.

Roy

[MBrockway]

Provisional enlistment date range Sat 05 Sep 1914 to Wed 09 Sep 1914.

I'm still exploring this and will post details and an explanation for the reason for the range in a few days.

[MBrockway]

Hi Mark

His name was actually William Davies Jones and his place of residence was Brithdir (local milk vendor) the family home being at 2 Ivy Row.

Roy

Apologies - I was only highlighting the discrepancy. Transcription errors in SDGW, even in the original printed version, are not unknown.

I assume you've already hit this middle name issue and the other evidence is in favour of Davies over David.

[MBrockway]

Provisional enlistment date range Sat 05 Sep 1914 to Wed 09 Sep 1914.

I'm still exploring this and will post details and an explanation for the reason for the range in a few days.

The following is a selective list of the most relevant KRRC R prefix enlistments sorted by date.

I have selected to show the general sequence, but also to highlight outliers and anomalies. You'll see there are many.

Clearly early September was an extremely busy for enlistments with recruits visiting multiple recruitment offices and the service numbers were clearly not issued in strict chronological sequence. Like the Guards, the KRRs and RB recruited nationally.

Except for Sun 06 Sep 1914, there were hundreds of men enlisting on each of these days - I have simply selected a small subset of representative numbers.

Based on these data, I think the best we can do is bracket the enlistment of R/3531 Rfn William Davies JONES to a window of Sat 05 Sep 1914 to Wed 09 Sep 1914, with 07 or 08 Sept as the most probable.

Mon 31 Aug 1914 - R/137 Rfn LOVERIDGE, Reuben

Mon 31 Aug 1914 - R/557 Rfn ELLIS, Leonard

Mon 31 Aug 1914 - R/1544 Rfn HALL, Sydney

-----------------------------------------------------

Tue 01 Sep 1914 - R/149 Rfn HOLLANDS, Alfred

Tue 01 Sep 1914 - R/1356 Rfn SMITH, John Rudolph

-----------------------------------------------------

Wed 02 Sep 1914 - R/870 Rfn CARTWRIGHT, Thomas W

Wed 02 Sep 1914 - R/1672 Rfn STEPHENS, Horace

-----------------------------------------------------

Thu 03 Sep 1914 - R/2077 Rfn MORRIS, James William

Thu 03 Sep 1914 - R/2359 Rfn DUERDEN, Arthur

-----------------------------------------------------

Fri 04 Sep 1914 - R/1989 Rfn FARDELL, William

Fri 04 Sep 1914 - R/2635 Rfn APPLEBY, Joseph William

-----------------------------------------------------

Sat 05 Sep 1914 - R/619 Rfn PRICE, Alfred ?J

Sat 05 Sep 1914 - R/2272 Rfn BAKER, Thomas

Sat 05 Sep 1914 - R/2559 Rfn GREEN, Jesse

Sat 05 Sep 1914 - R/2817 Sjt WITHINGTON, William

Sat 05 Sep 1914 - R/3158 Rfn EVANS, Alfred

Sat 05 Sep 1914 - R/2858 Rfn EASTWOOD, John Charles

-----------------------------------------------------

Sun 06 Sep 1914 - R/2819 Rfn McHUGH, John

Sun 06 Sep 1914 - R/3471 Rfn LAMBERT, George

-----------------------------------------------------

Mon 07 Sep 1914 - R/2825 Sjt BISSETT, William

Mon 07 Sep 1914 - R/3324 Rfn ALDERMAN, James Alfred

Mon 07 Sep 1914 - R/3369 Rfn ALSOP, Albert James

Mon 07 Sep 1914 - R/3422 LCpl LUCKHURST, John William

Mon 07 Sep 1914 - R/3778 LCpl BAINBRIDGE, George

Mon 07 Sep 1914 - R/3839 Rfn JACKSON, Tom

-----------------------------------------------------

Tue 08 Sep 1914 - R/3477 Rfn BROWN, Harry

Tue 08 Sep 1914 - R/3534 Rfn PREECE, James

Tue 08 Sep 1914 - R/3811 Rfn BAYNES, Harry Dacres

Tue 08 Sep 1914 - R/3932 Rfn BETTS, Horace

Tue 08 Sep 1914 - R/4373 Rfn SHINT, Eric

-----------------------------------------------------

Wed 09 Sep 1914 - R/3374 C/Sjt BUSHER, Thomas Joseph

-----------------------------------------------------

Thu 10 Sep 1914 - R/4743 LCpl McLACKLAN, John Edward

Thu 10 Sep 1914 - R/5610 Rfn KELLY, Joseph

-----------------------------------------------------

Fri 11 Sep 1914 - R/4055 Rfn LARKHAM, Harry

Fri 11 Sep 1914 - R/4165 Rfn WHITMARSH, Joseph

Fri 11 Sep 1914 - R/5240 Rfn CARTER, Arthur George

-----------------------------------------------------

Your next step might be to see if any of those nearby service numbers have extant service records, though at this time, with the flood of recruits incoming, men were frequently bounced around between the K1 (e.g. 7/KRRC) and K2 (e.g. 10/KRRC) battalions before settling into their final unit.

HTH - it took ages!

Cheers,

Mark

[Dannemois]

Mark you must be crunching all those numbers, I'd be on the job

Cheers

[MBrockway]

Mark you must be crunching all those numbers, I'd be on the job

Cheers

Yep - 200 pages of medal rolls!

[sarahtrinity]

Hi,

I too am researching a man who died on the 30th Nov 1917 who was in the 10th Battalion the KRRC. Lance Corporal Bertie Bowman Barton number A/200972. According to his medal card he had formerly been in the Rifle Brigade S/25896. He was 33 when he died. As his number is so high does that mean that he joined the KRRC along time after William Davies Jones?

Also we can't find any photos of him, are there any photos which date from this time?

Thanks

Sarah

[MBrockway]

Hi,

I too am researching a man who died on the 30th Nov 1917 who was in the 10th Battalion the KRRC. Lance Corporal Bertie Bowman Barton number A/200972. According to his medal card he had formerly been in the Rifle Brigade S/25896. He was 33 when he died. As his number is so high does that mean that he joined the KRRC along time after William Davies Jones?

Also we can't find any photos of him, are there any photos which date from this time?

Thanks

Sarah

The KRRC A/2xxxxx service number indicates men transferred from the Training Reserve in the later part of the war.

[sarahtrinity]

Thank you so much. So as he was in the training reserve, does that mean he was training others? Or was it because he was "old"? Would he have been in this reserve in England or Europe?

Thanks

Sarah

[MBrockway]

Thank you so much. So as he was in the training reserve, does that mean he was training others? Or was it because he was "old"? Would he have been in this reserve in England or Europe?

Thanks

Sarah

See here on the Mother Site: http://www.1914-1918.net/training_reserve.htm

He would have been a trainee not a trainer. He had only just been conscripted, so difficult to see how he could have trained others in soldiering.

He would have been in a TR battalion in the UK.

Once posted overseas, he's likely to have received some further training while at the Infantry Base Depot in France before joining his front line battalion.

He was 'old' because he had been called up under conscription under the Military Service Acts of 1916.

The Training Reserve was made up of the training battalions originally attached to specific regiments. Those regimental battalions originally fed trained men into their parent regiments, but this link was broken when the TR was set up and TR men could be posted to ANY regiment.

However, we have a hypothesis that some of the TR training battalions that had formerly been rifles Reserve battalions (e.g. 14/KRRC, 15/KRRC, 14/RB, 15/RB, 19/KRRC, 22/KRRC, 23/KRRC, 17/RB and possibly 24/KRRC) continued to have their trained men sent to the KRRC and the RB. Perhaps because Rifles drill is different from standard infantry drill.

These A/2xxxxx and B/2xxxxx service number ranges are still under research, but we think they may represent man joining the KRRC and the RB who had been trained in TR battalions that were NOT originally rifles reserve battalions (i.e. NOT in that list above). I must stress though that this is just theory at present and we are still researching this. Do not rely on this as yet!

What else do you know about him so far?

If you're doing this as part of a school research project, you'll get lots of help from the Pals here, but we're likely to give that help more by way of telling how/where to find your answers yourself rather than merely giving you the information. Don't take this the wrong way!

[MBrockway]

Sarah - are you aware that Bertie Bowman Barton enlisted into the Inns of Court Officer Training Corps on 01 Oct 1914 but was discharged on 04 Nov 1914 due to "Unsatisfactory conduct".

Looks like Bertie will be an interesting research subject. Let us know how far you have already got and what research tools you have access to.

Perhaps you should start a new topic for him in the Soldiers sub-forum.

Cheers,

Mark

[sarahtrinity]

Hi,

No offense taken. The problem I have is that the 90 soldiers on the Carlisle Grammar School War Memorial served in all 3 services and were in 48 different units! I joined the research team originally as a genealogist so am learning loads! I visited the Ypres area and the Somme in July, and I'm reading loads its just the shear volume.

As to Bertie I have his family tree back 5 generations! He was born in Carlisle, his family were well to do business folk. The family business was building coaches, originally stage coaches and later for trains (there's one carriage in York Railway Museum) His mother was from Newcastle-upon-Tyne she was Martha Bowman before she married hence Bertie's name! Her family had a printing business. Bertie's father was "old" when he married nearly 50 and he died when Bertie was still at school, followed by mother so Bertie was brought up by his paternal uncle.

Bertie left us (Carlisle G School) and went to Fettes, then Cambridge, studying Law. Hence the Inns of Court. He married a Baronet's daughter in 1909. I can't find any children yet. He had a brother Henry who was a career soldier who I think died before 1914. Bertie left an estate of £20,000!

From his medal card he was in the Rifle Brigade Pte S/25896 prior to joining the KRRC

I'm off to Kew at half term, otherwise I'm using the internet and local archives.

How did you know about the Inns of Court Training Corps?

Thanks again,

Sarah

[MBrockway]

Bertie Barton has a short service record under Pension Records on Ancestry covering these 40 days at the Inns of Court OTC.

It includes a London address - Wyndham Court, No 1 Hallam Street - which might be worth cross referencing with the 1911 Census and next of kin as Mrs G.F.C.Barton, same address. If he married in 1909, you may find detail of any children there.

See here:

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&db=BritishArmy&rank=1&new=1&MSAV=0&msT=1&gss=angs-d&gsfn=bertie+bowman&gsln=barton&dbOnly=_F0003C18|_F0003C18_x%2c_F00061C3|_F00061C3_x&uidh=qzc&pcat=39&fh=0&h=79541&recoff=&ml_rpos=1

Ancestry account required. PM me if you cannot access this.

[Guest]

On 20/10/2013 at 17:22, MBrockway said:

Sarah - are you aware that Bertie Bowman Barton enlisted into the Inns of Court Officer Training Corps on 01 Oct 1914 but was discharged on 04 Nov 1914 due to "Unsatisfactory conduct".

Looks like Bertie will be an interesting research subject. Let us know how far you have already got and what research tools you have access to.

Perhaps you should start a new topic for him in the Soldiers sub-forum.

Cheers,

Mark

One of my Grandfather's, Private Ernest R Davis (1898-1980) served with "B.B" and was with him when he was killed (shot by a Jerry pilot as they were both running back to their lines from a forward trench): Ernie took one in the shoulder and got captured by the Germans. After he was repatuated after the War, Bertie's Widow traced him and invited him to Sunday Tea to tell his story to her and other members of the family at a large house either in or close to Berkeley Square, Mayfair. I have two written memoirs from my granddad: plus his recorded voice telling his story. I contacted the CWWG people 30 odd years ago to be told when they finally find Bertie: I promised Ernie that our family would be there to represent him in body. Their both together now in Heaven in spirit.

[weshallremember]