Trumpeter HJ Inwood MM - captured at Kut-al-Amara, later escaped

[Harper]

Members may be interested in the story of Trumpeter HJ Inwood, RFA attached to 1/5 Hants Howitzer battery in Mesopotamia.

He was captured at Kut-al-Amara and some 17 months later he escaped back to British lines at Ramadi.

His amazing story is told in the recently published Journal Number 32 of Families in British India Society.

The journal should be available to non-members of FIBIS through the online store -http://www.fibis.org/store/

The journal also has WW1 articles about the North-Western Railway Volunteer Rifles in East Africa and Gallantry Awards to members of the Indian Medical Department.

All in all the journal is a good read about lesser known aspects of the Great War.

Harper

[charlie962]

In the War Diary of 1/4th Dorsets for 11/11/17 11/10/17  there is an interesting description of an escaped BOR of the 1/5th Hants , ex Kut, arriving with a party of Armenians. My immediate thought was  that this would be Inwood. Does that date fit ? Dorsets were generaly around Ramadi at the time.

Charlie

 

@Maureene perhaps you would know ? (PS- I must get around to subscribing to fibis since it would help me with my own family research, no doubt)

Edited 29 October , 2018 by charlie962

[MaureenE]

I had a look at the above article in the FIBIS Journal 32 and the date given for Inwood reaching British Lines  is  October 1917.

the article is partially sourced from TNA WO 157/1059 Intelligence Summary 15th (Indian Division) Part 1 and appendices.

 

Cheers
Maureen

 

 

 

 

[charlie962]

Maureen-thanks-my mistype-shouldread 11/10/17. Thanks, Charlie

[charlie962]

11/10/17 RAMADI

A party of Armenian refugees and one British prisoner escaped from the Turks arrived from the direction of Hit. This man said that he belonged to the 1/5th Hants Regt and had been taken prisoner at Kut. After some time spent in the north he had been sent to Ras-al-Ain to work on the railway to Mosul. He and the other British prisoners had been very badly treated and ill-fed, and declared that sick men had been "finished off" by injection. He said that the progress of the railway was very slow and that the Turks were deserting in large numbers. He thought that Tekrit could easily be taken. This man was very worn? and exhausted. We gave him tea in the officers' mess and sent him on to the 12th Brigade.

Edited 29 October , 2018 by charlie962