Joseph Garside- could CWGC and 'Soldiers Died' be wrong?

[IRC Kevin]

I'm having difficulty finding circumstances for the death of Newchurch, Waterfoot (Rossendale) soldier, 201886 Pte Joseph Garside of 1/5th King's Own.

Both CWGC and 'Soldiers Died' record him as 'killed in action' for 31/1/17. However, the entire Division is out of the line on rest, reorganisation and training and nothing in battalion, brigade or division diaries leads me to think that anyone is within harm's way during this period and there's no battalion working parties. The last fatality recorded in Divisional casualty lists is for 13 January and there's not another one until 6 February. If this date is correct, he's obviously a 'missing in action' later deemed dead, as he's got a six-figure number (allocated 1 March 17).

201880 and 201882 were in a batch from east Lancashire who trained with 4/King's Own at Oswestry, arrived 23 IBD on 4 March 1917 and 1/5th King's Own on 8 May 1917. As the battalion allocated 6-figure numbers based on the 4-figure sequence he would be unique if he'd arrived to the battalion before these two. I suspect that his 4-figure number doesn't appear on the medal rolls as he arrived in France after the 6-figure number was issued and was in fact killed on 31 July 1917 when the battalion attacked in 3rd Ypres.

Although I haven't seen the newspaper itself, his death is reported in the Rossendale press on 11 August 1917, which further supports a date of death of 31 July.

Is it possible that his military records (no longer extant) could have had the wrong date recorded in them at the time, leading to CWGC and Soldiers Died also being wrong?

[Phil Evans]

Kevin,

His service record has survived. I have just found it on Find My Past (free this weekend) and he is recorded as killed in action on 31/7/17.

Phil

[IRC Kevin]

Kevin,

His service record has survived. I have just found it on Find My Past (free this weekend) and he is recorded as killed in action on 31/7/17.

Phil

Many thanks, Phil, that's brilliant. Searched Ancestry, but couldn't find it- probably transcribed his name wrong. Will have another look now- presume I'm correct about him arriving at 23 IBD 4 March?

Edited to add- found it myself now- only came up on the fourth page of my search, after others with different names!!! The date 31/7/17 is quite clear on his records, so I'm surprised that both CWGC and 'Soldiers Died', who I thought collected the details independently of each other, have made the same mistake.

Edited 8 November , 2014 by IRC Kevin

[Phil Evans]

That is unusual. I thought the same as you, that the two were independent.

Presumably you have spotted his previous service number as well - 4/5640.

Phil

[Bardess]

Send a link to his Service Records and CWGC entry to Terry Denham. It may just be a scanning error

[IRC Kevin]

That is unusual. I thought the same as you, that the two were independent.

Presumably you have spotted his previous service number as well - 4/5640.

Phil

I did thanks, Phil. It was his 6-figure 4th Battalion service number, obviously allocated prior to going to France, that made me fairly certain that the date was wrong.

Diane- I've sent an e-mail to CWGC about it,

regards,

Kevin

[Bardess]

I couldn't find him on FMP but here he is on Ancestry