ODGW Lists and War Diary Lists

[Jim Gordon]

I have used the Monthly Nominal Roll of Officers in the War Diary of the 1/7th. Gordons to compile a list of those who died and compared it against the list given in Officers Died in the Great War. Not surprisingly the totals do not agree. What is surprising is that 10 Officers are listed in ODGW whose names never appear in the War Diary. One or two may not be remarkable but 10 out of 42 is significant. All 10 appear in the Army List of that period as being posted to 1/7th. Gordons. I have traced three. One served all his time with 1st. Gordons while the other two were with the 1/4th. Gordons. Was it commonplace for Officers posted to a Battalion to be cross-posted to another without reporting to their accredited Battalion ?

Regards

Jim Gordon.

[Adam Harland]

Jim,

This would certainly appear to be the case for my grandfather, O. V Harland, who is shown in the Army List as commisioned into 12 HLI in January 1916. As far as it is possible to tell he made his first appearance with the Bttn in August 1918,(BWD) having served as a TM officer, most probably with the 32nd Div. He was shot in the chest in march 1918 at Arras ( a blighty), so he was definitely fighting somebody! I carried out a similar exercise for 12 HLI, and the sad fact is that the War Diary is written in a style that changes after each of the major engagements, usually signifying a new adjutant, and is not a strictly contemporaneous document. In the days after the engagement it was probably rather difficult to recall the names of young men who had appeared as junior officers for a few days and been killed before their faces, let alone their names had become known.

It is possible that your missing 10 officers are accounted for in either of these manners

Regards

Adam