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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Royal Engineers


Mangoman

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My grand uncle 74664 Corporal Sidney Herbert Blackmore, Mudros Signals Section, Royal Engineers died on the island of Lemnos on 19th. June 1916 of meningitis. Prior to serving in the RE he served as 192 Corporal Gloucestershire Regiment and was awarded the Territorial Efficiency Medal in 1913.

In a nutshell I presume that serving in a Signals Section this entailed sending and receiving messages but to who, where and by what method? Secondly, from his service number about what time would he have joined the Glos.Regiment?

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DBB

It looks likely that 192 was in an original numbering series for the 1908 Territorial Force,there are two others (428 and 547) from that year gleaned from the Silver War Badge Lists. Sidney's number in Soldiers Died in the Great War is shown as 192(T) with the 1/6 Gloucestershires,which first landed in France on 30 Mar 1915,and it looks as if he was in a draft to replace shortages in Nov 1915. At some point he transferred to the RE and served with the Signal Company in Salonika, from where he became sick and moved to Lemnos where he died. The Medal Card ordinarily shows the sequence in which a soldier serves his units,but in this case there are numbers 1 and 2 against the units which seem to reverse the order.

The ref to the T Eff is to the Territorial Force Efficiency Medal and the date for 1913 seems to refer to an Army Order 11 of 1913. Not aware of what that was about but what I do know is that the TFEM came into being from 1908 and was issued for 12 years Long Service in peacetime,and which accumulated time during war at double,so I believe that he wouldn't have got the medal in 1913 unless any time he may have served pre-1908 might have counted,plus some wartime at double,so,say 1905 service in some other voluntary Army service form through to death would add up to 12 years.

There is an article in the Long Long Trail about the set-up of an RE Signal Section:

http://www.1914-1918.net/whatfieldcoy.htm

Also an item about Lemnos hospital here:

http://www.1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=172673

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