"Kitchener Men" reaching front. Unit Histories & Diaries.

[Muerrisch]

The subject of infantry manpower, reservists and the 1914/15 shortages is rumbling on behind the scenes with Martin G. and I attacking from different directions.

What would now be useful to me would be the earliest dates when those recruited from declaration of war onwards were sent as DRAFTS [not as formed K battalions] to replace casualties. Either leaving the Depot or the Reserve battalion, or arriving at a regular battalion.

As an example, the first RWF men to be sent as a draft went in May 1915, according to the Regimental records and the 3rd battalion log-book, which is fairly late compared with others. I believe.

It is not that these dates are impossible to obtain from official records, but I would like a feel for how important the regiment or the units perceived the matter to be, and indeed whether they bothered to record it.

The official training period was not shortened from 6 months until later, but it is certain that this was disobeyed for hard pressed regiments.

So please, if you have a Regimental History or two, or any anecdotal material, or a war diary with such information, it would be good to harvest it here.

Thank you.

[ss002d6252]

What would now be useful to me would be the earliest dates when those recruited from declaration of war onwards were sent as DRAFTS [not as formed K battalions] to replace casualties. Either leaving the Depot or the Reserve battalion, or arriving at a regular battalion.

From what I can see the war time enlistments seem to pop up in the 1st N.Fus. Casualty lists at the end of Feb 1915,

14439 Johnson was posted to France on 17 Feb 1915 and wounded on 28 Feb 1915.

The only draft that I can see for that time period seems to have come in to the battalion on 26 Feb 1915.

11127 Mulkerin is on the same return - he was wounded on 28 Feb 1915 but it appears he would have enlisted early sep 1914. His MIC doesn't have the correct date of entry though as it shows 9 Sep 1915.

Craig

[Muerrisch]

Thank you in advance. Do you have the war diary?

[ss002d6252]

Do you have the war diary?

Yes

I edited my earlier post to add another man (presumably of the same draft).

Craig

[Guest]

Grumpy - To kick this off:

2nd Bn Royal Sussex Regt War Diary has an entry on 13th Jan 1915: "A draft of 210 arrived....these went straight into the trenches....All Kitchener's August recruits. They seemed to be a good lot". (my underlining).

The reason this is interesting is because the 3rd (Special Reserve) Bn Royal Sussex was running out of men pretty quickly. It is one of three regiments that hit the bottom of the barrel: on 1st March it ran out of "Fully Trained and Effective: Medically Fit for Foreign Service and Over 19 Years' of Age". The other two Regiments whose Reserve battalions ran out of fully trained and fit men were the Welsh Regt on 22nd Feb 15 (I never can remember if it is Welsh or Welch in 1914) and the Lincolnshire Regiment on 15th March 15. There following Regiments' Reserve battalion(s) dipped below 100 "Fully Trained and Effective etc" per paired battalion

East Yorks

Yorkshire Light Infantry

Royal Fusiliers

West Riding

Norths Lancs

South Wales Borderers

DCLI

Northamptonshire Regt

Wiltshire Regt

Royal Irish Regt

Royal Scots Fusiliers

Black Watch

Northumberland Fusiliers

Berkshire Regt

Cameron Highlanders

Gloucestershire Regt

South Lancs Regt

Royal West Kent

Cheshire Regt

Suffolk Regiment

These are I think the battalions that would have been accelerating Kitchener men through the reinforcement pipeline as early as possible. I was very surprised to see the Northumberland Fus and Royal Fusiliers in this list. To understand this dynamic I think one needs to be aware of these Regiments' commitment to raising additional battalions which added further demands on the Reservists for cadres of NCOs for Kitchener Battalions. MG

[ss002d6252]

I looked at the 1st Hampshires as well but they make no record of what the drafts where and have no casualty returns to give an idea of which men were arriving.

They had:

'frequent drafts joined and the battalion was brought up to strength' through Jan 1915

80 men arrive through Feb 1915

118 men arrive through March 1915

Craig

[purley]

Grumpy

Just a quick check of the Royal Berks - the Kitchener men started at 10230 on the 5th August and I had a 1

[purley]

Grumpy

Just a quick check of the Royal Berks - the Kitchener men started at 10230 on the 5th August and I had a 1 had a quick look at the first 400 who all joined before the end of August

the following served with the 1st Bn 10239, 240, 254,260, 407 409, 448, 466, 480,

and these served with the 2nd Bn 10230, 232, 251, 283, 303, 341, 250, 379, 424, 532, 573, 603, 608, 629

I have not repeated the initial 10 - the rest either joined the 5th Bn or the 6th Bn or I don't know, but I know a lot of former soldiers went to the 5th and 6th to act as NCOs

I have not checked their date of entry to France but could do if it is of abiding interest

regards

John

[Muerrisch]

Thank you gentlemen, date of entry into F&F is the Holy Grail here, especially if recorded by the unit or the Regimental History. Part of the enquiry is driven by "did they notice, or did they care?"

[Guest]

Grumpy - l may be off-mark here, but if a G prefix denotes a Kitchener man the first sight of a Kitchener casualty with a regular Home Counties Bn are as follows (according to CWGC):

Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regt.....9th Feb 15..... a G/1144 Pte S W Spearing who landed on 27th Dec 14 according to his MIC

East Surrey Regiment...........................26th Mar 15......a G/566 Pte L H Davis who landed on 3rd Dec 14. Note MIC does not show G prefix.

The Buffs..............................................14th Feb 15......a G/234 Pte E Little who landed on 17th Jan 15

Middlesex Regiment..............................11th Nov 14 a G/437 Pte R Thompson who landed on 22nd Oct 14

I note that Nixon's website mentions the G prefix thus: "G - Found on various Home Counties’ Regiments’ Service battalions, WW1" So if this holds true, the above dates might help. It may be a red herring. MG

[Muerrisch]

Martin you are quite correct: the so-called Home Counties regiments did, in the main use prefix G for war-time engagements [and L for regular engagements]

BUT

a fair number of early entries would be ex-service men re-enlisting, not that this make much difference to the thrust but it does mean such were hardly "untrained"

Herewith a case study, a hero of mine:

Sergeant-Major Henry Gerald Weston. Weston was educated above the contemporary norm. He was born in 1878 in Guildford, the son of Dr Weston (later of Thornlea, Morland Road, Croydon). He served in the ranks of Second Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers for 11 years and 275 days before purchasing his discharge. The fee to purchase discharge was £18. The circumstances of his discharge are not known, but most Terms of Engagement or Extension culminated after 12 or 13 years if they had not already done so, and we may surmise his expensive departure (about £800 in current terms) was a fairly urgent or pressing matter. Gerald (he appears to have preferred this name) was a drinking companion of the famous private soldier and author Frank Richards. His friendships with continued after Weston left the army, and it is through these that the roguish ‘Gerald’ of Richards’s Old Soldier Sahib can be identified. Nothing is known of his early career, and he arrived in China with a draft for 2nd RWF too late to receive the campaign medal for defeating the Boxers. However, he figures in a posed photograph which might have caused uproar about the ‘licentious soldiery’ had it been published. Weston is seen assisting a corporal in a looting expedition. He was soon appointed lance-corporal and was a member of the Regimental Corporals’ Club in China. However, he deserted (according to Richards) after the Pekin expedition and masqueraded as a Lieutenant St Clair of the United States Army. He eventually (and after a period of adventure told inimitably by Richards) gave himself up to a Royal Welch Fusiliers officer in Shanghai, and was tried and sentenced by District Court Martial to six months imprisonment. He continued to soldier afterwards but appears not to have learned his lesson, again posing as an officer (British this time) and seemingly aided by a subaltern of 2nd RWF who, according to Richards, had a South African Campaign DSO and who was made to leave the Regiment in disgrace. Richards did not name the officer but the prime suspect, indeed the only one to fit the outline, is 2 Lt. H. de Bere Edwards. When the battalion moved to India he went with it and he was appointed in Regimental Orders to be Assistant Caretaker of Historical Buildings, Fort Agra with effect from 22nd August 1906. Richards has this to say of him:

‘(the soldier-caretaker) was Lance-Corporal Gerald of our D company, and if the whole of India had been combed, no better man could have been found for the job. He knew the whole history of the place from A to Z and had a charming cultured voice for lecturing purposes. I believe that some of the female visitors were more interested in him than what they were in the buildings, and he made quite a lot of money in tips, which he spent right royally in booze ………. He came of a good family and was an old Public School boy. He had studied for the Bar at first, but soon got fed up with that and joined the army in the hope of being granted a commission after two or three years service. In the early days of his soldiering he had been getting a liberal allowance from his people, but this had been cut off after he had been in a few scrapes; it was these scrapes, too, which had prevented him from being recommended for a commission’.

During his time in India Weston qualified in Higher Urdu, Military Topography, Supply Duties and Machine Gun. Richards also credits him with two certificates in Hindoostani and one in Persian. As to dates, it is difficult to be specific: his regimental number was 4979 which was issued late in 1896 or early 1897 and we know that he qualified neither for the China or South Africa medals. Taking an educated guess, 1896 to 1907 is a reasonable span for his first career in the army. After his expensive farewell to the army, he is next glimpsed a few years later treating about 50 time-expired 2nd RWF men to beer, bread and cheese and pickles at Fort Brockhurst, Gosport. Richards quotes Gerald as saying that he was about to sail from Southampton to take up an important appointment in South Africa.

Like many others, when the Great War broke out Gerald settled his affairs and headed back Home to enlist, leaving a pregnant wife, Ellen Alice, in Christchurch, New Zealand. After leaving his regiment he had served five years in the Australian Army and two years in the New Zealand Army, attaining the rank of Regimental Sergeant-Major in the latter. He then worked briefly in Christchurch NZ as an accountant. As to South Africa, Richards is either wrong, or Gerald’s sojourn there was very brief.

Gerald must have been pleased with his reception when he enlisted for ‘General Service, Short Service Engagement, Duration of the War’ on 26th August 1915 at Maidstone. He was in the prime of life, a well-spoken and big man, six feet tall, 41-inch chest, weighing 159 pounds. with scarred right breast and right axilla. He was made Acting Sergeant that day, Acting Colour Sergeant three days later, and was posted to the Reserve (3rd) Battalion of the Royal West Kents, number G 9721, on 1st October. A month later he went to the 8th (Service) Battalion, was appointed a Company Sergeant-Major and was killed in action on 17th November 1915 in very unpleasant conditions. The battalion history says:

‘Our trenches were towards the bottom of the slope east of St Eloi village, and all water drained into the bottom of the valley. Rain was continuous; there were practically no shelters whatever in the front line, and the trenches were nearly waist deep in water. The enemy whizz-banged our tottering parapets at all hours, and the sniping from the trenches on the high ground was wonderfully accurate. The removal of wounded was a matter of extraordinary difficulty and danger. The rests at Reninghelst between trench tours were rests only in name’. He left a son, Gerald Norman, born on the 6th November. The tragedy was far from unique but he had had absolutely no need to follow his patriotic instincts - such sacrifice is sad beyond words.

His campaign medals eventually went to his widow: the 1914-1915 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal. She travelled to England in 1916 to stay with the Rev. Maxsted, of Tiltry Vicarage, Dunmow, from where she campaigned for the return of Gerald’s field glasses, ‘a presentation to him before he went away’. She had to fight for her pension ‘or I will be utterly destitute’ and was awarded the princely sum of 19/- a week, to be paid in New Zealand. Company Sergeant-Major HG Weston lies in Voormezeele Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, near Ypres.

Richards, although knowing nothing of Weston’s further service and sacrifice, wrote him a marvellous epitaph ‘He was a remarkable man in many ways and a perfect gentleman: he never let a comrade down and gamely took whatever medicine was coming to him’.

[ss002d6252]

a fair number of early entries would be ex-service men re-enlising, not that this make much difference to the thrust but it does mean such were hardly "untrained"

It was be understandable for the men with the most experience to be pulled out of the depot and sent off as quick as reasonably possible - perhaps an explanation for the relatively small draft sizes that were being sent out to many battalions.

The discussion over running out of men makes me think about the 6th and 8th DLI - they were well and truly hammered at Ypres and were merged to form a composite of the two battalions in order to keep them going as a fighting unit. The first draft to the 6th DLI didn't arrive in France until 27 June 1915 and the next draft didn't arrive until in France until 20 August 1915 .

The least experienced man in the battalion terms of wartime training had 6 months of training before being posted in June 1915 - to me this suggests that they also had a crisis of experienced men and were forced to hang on (and merge) until enough men could be trained and sent to France to bring them to an effective strength.

Craig

[6th Shropshires]

Hi Grumpy

I had always tended to think that the K.S.L.I. men enlisting in the early days of war and who had gone overseas earlier then the first Service Battalion were men who had served in the Army before and had re-enlisted on the war starting-anyway on looking at your post I decided to go have a closer look. I looked month by month but will only go into details of the earliest. I found 15 men who enlisted after the war was declared, and who went to France in November 1914, and of these I have the papers for three of them, I was excepting to find all three had served before the war but I was very surprised to see two of them had put No to question 11 (Have you ever served......) on the Attestation form and the other while he had served it had only been from 20-12-12 to 12-03-13.

Sorry I can't help with-how important the regiment or the units perceived the matter to be, and indeed whether they bothered to record it.

Annette

[Tyneside Chinaman]

Hi,

2/DLI arrived in theatre on 7/9/1914. One year later the war diary records the following;

The battalion came out at full strength since arrival in this country the following reinforcements have arrived,

Officers 68 Other Ranks 2300

Casualties have been as follows

Officers Other Ranks

Killed 22 308

Wounded 30 1021

Missing 1 226

Totals 53 1555

No mention of those evacuated sick

The Field Return for 25 Sept 1915 shows a strength of 23 Officers and 990 Other Ranks.

So I roughly estimate Embarked 1000 + reinforcements 2300 = 3300 less casualties 1555 =1745 less those with Bn 990 = 755 Evacuated Sick etc. This doesn't allow for any that went sick and were returned to duty.

Drafts arrived as follows - I have ignored the officers as they are nearly always named.

Draft No Date Number Draft Date Number Draft Date Number Draft Date Number

1 19/9/14 87 11 11/1/15 65 21 25/4/15 50 31 30/7/15 50

2 24/9/14 77 12 22 27/4/15 41 32 11/8/15 38

3 25/10/14 93 13 7/2/15 40 23 12/5/15 50 33 11/8/15 16

4 27/10/14 91 14 20/2/15 30 24 34 17/8/15 52

5 31/10/14 78 15 26/2/15 30 25 18/6/15 52 35 25/8/15 203

6 8/11/14 37 16 13/3/15 30 26 25/6/15 50

7 17 16/3/15 30 27 3/7/15 15

8 13/12/14 45 18 28/3/15 25 28 10/7/15 12

9 17/12/14 39 19 29 15/7/15 20

10 29/12/14 83 20 11/4/15 25 30 24/7/15 25

Given that the numbers arriving shown above add up to only 1588 then the four missing drafts have to account for 745 men which seems a bit over the top as the average draft is 51 men.

I will try and ID Kitchener men arriving tomorrow.

regards

John

[purley]

Grumpy

These are mine who got the 1914 Star from the 400 I looked at with dates of qualification. As per the 1914 Star medal roll - not sure of the 10402 anomaly

serial rank surname xnames qdated qdatem qdatey note 10232 Pte Penny Herbert George 6 11 1914 10235 Pte Dance John Henry 6 11 1914 Killed 5/3/1917 10239 Pte Palmer George 13 8 1914 Killed 23/5/1916 10240 Pte Sibun Edward Charles 13 8 1914 Died 25/9/1915 10335 Pte Sawyer Albert Charles 6 11 1914 Discharged 17/11/1917 10402 Pte Ravenor Alexander Mitchelson 6 11 1914 Died 11/3/1915 10402 Pte Ravenor Thomas 13 8 1914 10408 Sgt Street George 6 11 1914 10424 Pte Davis John Thomas 13 10 1914 Missing 16/8/1917
PS sorry the spread sheet got mangled

[Tyneside Chinaman]

Hi,

with regard to Kitchener men arriving as reinforcements to 2/DLI, so far I have found the following;

19541 William Frain enlisted 29/8/1914 arrived F&F 5/12/14

13462 James Gooding 28/8/1914 26/1/15

12165 Charles Clasper 19/8/1914 5/1/15

It is difficult to follow as the Regulars, Special Reserve and Kitchener men are all using a similar number sequence. The Special Reserve often drop the 3/ or 4/ part of the number.

regards

John

[Muerrisch]

Hi,

with regard to Kitchener men arriving as reinforcements to 2/DLI, so far I have found the following;

19541 William Frain enlisted 29/8/1914 arrived F&F 5/12/14

13462 James Gooding 28/8/1914 26/1/15

12165 Charles Clasper 19/8/1914 5/1/15

It is difficult to follow as the Regulars, Special Reserve and Kitchener men are all using a similar number sequence. The Special Reserve often drop the 3/ or 4/ part of the number.

regards

John

John thank you: the Kitchener men were indeed "regulars" on different T of E and were thus officially to be in the regular number series.

Many thanks to all above: you have uncovered very substantial early drafting of new men to the front.

[Tyneside Chinaman]

Hi David,

The problem is the special reservists in most documents the 3/ or 4/ is not recorded and leads often to placing them as Kitchener volunteers as they have enlisted in early August.

For example I trawled through the DLI 14/15 Star roll looking for entry into France in December 15 or January 15 this gave me 21 names not one prefixed, couldn't find any documents for them but when looking at SDGW the two dead are prefixed 3/.

The DLI/Labour Corps 14/15 Star roll is better in that another 13 names are found for those entry dates. Some of these are prefixed but again care needs to be taken as one is shown as 8/ with a five figure number - obviously a clerical error.

Anyway I can now put 23 names to the draft arriving at 2/DLI on 13/12/14 of which three look like K men, the rest I am sure will be Special Reserve.

Indeed a quick check on SWB shows 10144 Edward Hobday enlisted 18/8/14 dis 10/4/16 as 3/10144

Likewise the W&V roll shows 10222 Michael Connolly as 3/10222. Again the 3/ is not on the 14/15 Star roll.

regards

John

[Muerrisch]

Hi David,

The problem is the special reservists in most documents the 3/ or 4/ is not recorded and leads often to placing them as Kitchener volunteers as they have enlisted in early August.

For example I trawled through the DLI 14/15 Star roll looking for entry into France in December 15 or January 15 this gave me 21 names not one prefixed, couldn't find any documents for them but when looking at SDGW the two dead are prefixed 3/.

The DLI/Labour Corps 14/15 Star roll is better in that another 13 names are found for those entry dates. Some of these are prefixed but again care needs to be taken as one is shown as 8/ with a five figure number - obviously a clerical error.

Anyway I can now put 23 names to the draft arriving at 2/DLI on 13/12/14 of which three look like K men, the rest I am sure will be Special Reserve.

Indeed a quick check on SWB shows 10144 Edward Hobday enlisted 18/8/14 dis 10/4/16 as 3/10144

Likewise the W&V roll shows 10222 Michael Connolly as 3/10222. Again the 3/ is not on the 14/15 Star roll.

regards

John

John, you will I think know that the War Office issued a very wet order early in the war that 3/ and 4/ would be prefixed but it was sloppily worded and only applied "if there was a problem" so units could and did say "not a problem".

They had better things to worry about than amateur historians 100 years in the future.

Its a bugg*r, though!

[Guest]

Ref the DLI Special Reserve and Extra Reserve Battalions - they appear to have been flush with Fully Trained and Effective (hereafter FTE) men. The chart below shows the FTE for both battalions on the same chart.The lowest number of FTE men was 953 on 15th Feb 1915.

Given the DLI Reserve battalions had sufficient men it seems there would be less pressure to send Kitchener men after short periods of training. This might add weight to the theory that some of the Kitchener Men might have been time expired Reservists re-enlisting at the outbreak and given their experience may well have quickly been reclassified as Fully Trained and Effective. I have no doubt that 'Kitchener' men were arriving in 1914 with the DLI but the numbers of available FTE men rarely dipped below 1,000. Here's the chart . Source is the weekly returns in WO 114/25 and 26:

Any mistakes are mine. MG

[Muerrisch]

Martin in view of the official line that ER battalions were designed to fight as formed units [the design did not work because of pre-war recruiting shortfalls] but that SR battalions were expressly designed for draft finding with Home Defence a secondary role, is it wise or logical to conflate the two?

[Tyneside Chinaman]

I have now been able to cross ref against the W & V Roll all the low five figure numbers with the arrival dates above are prefixed the higher numbers 12034 12212, 12292 are not.

Searching further I looked for documents those for 12212 William Thompson survive but cloud the issue further as they show him KiA with 11/DLI in 1918 but the W&V roll shows only served with 2/DLI.

However on a brighter note the records for 3/11006 confirm more or less what Martin was saying in that 3/11006 James Morrow had served in the Militia between 1903 and 1907. He re-enlisted on 7/10/14 and on 5/12/14 was in France.

regards

John

John

[Guest]

Martin in view of the official line that ER battalions were designed to fight as formed units [the design did not work because of pre-war recruiting shortfalls] but that SR battalions were expressly designed for draft finding with Home Defence a secondary role, is it wise or logical to conflate the two?

To be honest I don't really know. It is touching on the very tricky subject of what differentiates a Special Reserve Battalion from an Extra Reserve Battalion or a Reserve Battalion.

In the returns of 19th Sep 1914 the SR battalions are lumped together (in Regimental order of seniority sarting with the 3rd Bn Royal Scots) under the heading "Infantry Reserve Battalions" . Interestiingly the word "Special" is not used. This list is followed by a separate list of the ER battalions which are lumped together in a similar manner. They are called Extra Reserve, Each group (SR and ER) has a separate sub-total and there is an additional line that adds the two together as "Total Reserve Infantry". This continues to the end of October 1914 when they are all lumped together and any reference to "Extra Reserve" disappears.

This might suggest that from 31st October 1914 the War Office was not distinguishing between the two types of Reserve Battalions. They were then all referred to collectively as Reserve or Line Infantry Reserve and the titles are 3rd Bn Randomshire Regt, 4th Bn Randonshire Regt etc. which reinforces the idea they were categorised in a similar manner.

We know from some previous posts that the Extra Reserve battalions of some Regiments did provided recruits. The best example is from the History of the First Seven Battalions of the Royal Irish Rifles in the Great War by Cyril Falls. It includes an Appendix (IV) on page 186 which shows the number of reinforcements that the 'Special Reserve Battalion' sent to the front. It lists the 3rd, 4th and 5th Battalions and the number of men they sent each year. All three sent men out in 1914 and every subsequent year, which suggest to me that they all had a role in training and processing reinforcements. This might be particular to the R Irish Rifles or the Irish regiments,

In the May 1915 Army List AND Brig James' "British Regiments 1914-18" these three battalions are listed as

3rd (Special Reserve) Battalion

4th (Extra Reserve) Battalion

5th (Extra Reserve) Battalion

Which causes a problem. We know they all supplied Reservists throughout the War so I think they should be included. In reality what we might do is to consider how many of the FTE at say an Extra Reserve battalion were needed to carry out the other role of the battalion in 1914-15. The numbers in the chart are only the FTE. In addition there were hundreds (sometimes more than a thousand) men under different categories. I will post the table of the full picture for the DLI later as an edit to this post.

Due to the confusion over whether to include or exclude the Extra Reserve I had deliberately shown them in separate colours. It is worth remembering that not all Regiments had Extra Reserve battalions, but some had more than one Special Reserve battalion. Clear as mud?

MG

[Muerrisch]

Yes, it might indeed suggest that the War Office gave up on the ER "formed unit" function as early as October.

What I have never seen are figures for SR and ER recruiting AS SPECIAL RESERVISTS ON SR TERMS after war broke out, although I strongly suspect that it rapidly dwindled to 2/3 of 4/5 of llareggub ....................

..................... when men compared the Kitchener 3 year terms with the SR 6 years!

The only evidence of any relevance is AO 341 of 30th August 1914 which I do not think has been posted on the forum and which had the effect of putting all men enlisting with previous service of at least one year either as a regular, Militia, SR or TF and with character FAIR or better TO BE ATTESTED FOR THE SR and will be appointed to a corps or regiment of the arm in which previously served. Does not say what terms, however.

Men without this qualification were to go to the New Armies.

So as late as 30th August the fiction of the SR was to be maintained.

Scan available to anyone if you PM me with email address.

[ss002d6252]

Yes, it might indeed suggest that the War Office gave up on the ER "formed unit" function as early as October.

On 17 Sep 1914 Kitchener made a statement in Parliament which included "The whole of the Special Reserve and Extra Special Reserve units will be maintained at their full establishments as feeders to the Expeditionary Force."

Craig