Kings Dragoon Guard MIC

[kinnethmont]

Can anyone explain the meaning, if any, of the various crosses on the attached MIC?

This man is recorded in his regiment's WW1 Medal roll as No 5919 L/Cpl H J Smith. Their historian advises this was his rank and number in 1918 when he died a POW.

For some reason CWGC and SDGW have him as

HARRY SMITH

Private

D/19546

1st (King's) Dragoon Guards

Did a re-numbering take place in the Guards Regiments in 1917 to give him the D/19546 number ?

Any ideas appreciated.

[Guest Ian Bowbrick]

C of Dns = Corps of Dragoons.

Sorry can't add anymore.

Ian

[Jock Bruce]

I really am guessing here, but maybe at some point cavalry manpower ceased to managed on a regimental basis and was managed on the basis of Corps of Dragoons, Lancers, Hussars.

I often see enlistment papers where the man is enlisting for 'Corps of xxxxxx' rather than a specific regiment.

And certainly when the Yeomanry regiments were renumbered in 1917, the numbers were allocated on a 'Corps' basis with blocks for each regiment. It isn't clear from the Army Council Instruction dealing with Yeomanry exactly what the numbering arrangement for regular cavalry was.

Jock

[Guest Ian Bowbrick]

JB,

Interestingly there is a guy on the PRO staff, not WS, who claims to have researched the 'mounted' units - will point him out to you next time.

Ian

[SPotter]

The X with the dots were used to indicate to the person impressing the medal what details he should extract from the MIC to put on each medal. Hence this man's British War and Victory medals should be named as 1DG/5919 not just 5919, Pte not L/Cpl, and 1 D. GDS not C of DNS.

The single x next to his name I can't say with certainty, but it could be that his pair was named just to H. SMITH, rather than H.J SMITH? This is sort of confirmed by the SDGW and CWGC records. An inspection of any of his actual medals should confirm any or all of the above (I hope!)

Perhaps he was transferred to the Corps of Dragoons after becoming a POW as he was non-effective? Therefore he was allocated a new number. As he subsequently died as a POW, SDGW and CWGC would pick up on his service details at the time of his death, but they have his Regt wrong?

Regards

Steve