CWGC confirms that John Kipling is buried in the correct grave

[Guest]

Jon Cooksey at Stand To! would at least read it and probably publish it. He is a decent level-headed man who would provide a vehicle for alternative views

Even if they are at odds with his Vice President?

Jon is a respected professional author and editor. I have no doubt at all that he would give an article with an alternative theory due consideration. MG

[Muerrisch]

As one who has had a lot of dealings with the Editor of ST! I can assure the GWF that any article submitted summarising the thrust of this thread would get a fair wind.

[Old Bid]

If we the public asked to have a grave renamed or re-dated without concrete evidence it would be turned down flat. One rule for one and another rule to high profile cases. The john condon grave has still not been renamed despite evidence it is not him buried there.

Regards

[Muerrisch]

Regarding an article for Stand To!, I have discussed this with several GWF contributors with a view to my writing a summary of the "alternative view".

I intend to take the line that the GWF has used its wide reach and its wealth of members to further investigate the Kipling’s Grave matter, and has found sufficient new material to throw new doubts on Parker-Legg's “problem solved” conclusion. Thus it need not be confrontational, although it will certainly attempt to expose fallacies in the arguments put forward.

The editor has indicated that he would consider such a contribution for publication.

Whereas "all mistakes will be mine" I would welcome constructive thoughts via PM. In particular, I am looking for solid data of errors made by the relevant GRU in the relevant place and period.

[charlesmessenger]

Thia is a refutation I made two months ago:

http://www.centenarynews.com/article/news-of-my-boy-jack---solving-the-mystery-of-john-kipling

Charles M

[Muerrisch]

Thank you Charles.

I am going to have to do a great deal of reading.

[laughton]

I did not know that Tonie and Valmai Holt published this to the WFA Facebook page back on November 2, 2015. That may be how Parker-Legg found out about the CEF research on Private McPherson. I had previously assumed they found it randomly via Google. This makes more sense!

http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-people/research-family-story/book-reviews-1/86-biographies-and-autobiographies/5262-my-boy-jack-or-our-son-arthur-or-someone-else-entirely.html#sthash.MIUGDnUy.dpbs

They say this about the other 2nd Lieutenant:

New research has discovered that another officer of the Irish Guards (though of the 1st Battalion), Lt L.R. Hargreaves, had been allowed to put up an extra pip before being ‘gazetted’. -

[Muerrisch]

Hargreaves was granted temporary promotion to captain as he was needed as a company commander .......... I think Martin G has sorted this one out.

[David Filsell]

Grumpy,

Well done that man there. Splendid way to approach it without causing any offence.

David

[bill24chev]

This may have already been asked before I apologise if it as.

Are there any photographs of John Kipling taken after the Gazette date and before his death that may confirm he wore one star or two on his shoulder ?

bill

[Guest]

This may have already been asked before I apologise if it as.

Are there any photographs of John Kipling taken after the Gazette date and before his death that may confirm he wore one star or two on his shoulder ?

bill

He was dead by the time the LG announced he was promoted to Lt. This is the crux of the 'promotion' part of the debate. The LG ante dated the promotion to June 1915. If you mean are there photos between the antedate and his death, the answer is 'possibly'.

There are three known photos of John Kipling in uniform. A portrait as a 2nd Lt (probably a formal Commissioning portrait), a group photo of six Irish Guards Subalterns, including a number in his promotion cohort, and a group photo of Irish Guards Officers. The subaltern group photo was taken at Warley by Christina Bloom, a reasonably well-known female photographer of the day. There is insufficient clarity to be 100% certain of his rank in the group photos, however some in his cohort can be identified in the pictures as 2nd Lts.

One interesting angle would be to establish exactly when Christina Bloom went to Warley and to try and find photos of any Guards subalterns photographed after their ante dated promotion.

The window of opportunity is very small. The antedate was mid June 1915 when the 2nd Bn was in Warley. The battalion embarked in July and the newly formed Guards Div assembled in August. Kipling was killed in Sep. The paper trail becomes very strong from Aug 1915 as the Guards Div assembles as the war diaries start and nominal rolls are made.

This is one critical part of the counterargument; there are a few dozen subalterns across the Guards Div who were on the thirteen Battalion nominal rolls dated end Aug 1915 who had passed the ante date of their promotion to Lt. If the theory held true that they put up rank after the ante date, we would expect them to be recorded as Lts. None of them are recorded as anything but 2nd Lts on the rolls of the battalions. QED.

MG

[Guest]

Army List & Promotion Timeline. There is another large body of evidence to counter the theory of putting up rank ahead of the London Gazette announcement. In the window between London Gazette promotion announcement and the antedates of the effective substantive promotions, the Army List continued to be published. I have an Army List dated May 1915. If we assume the last date this could be was 30th May 1915, we can use this Official document to cross check officers whose (antedated) substantive promotion preceded May 30th 1915 where the announcement happened after May 1915. This would establish if the Official record reflected the 'effective date' prior to it being published in the London Gazette. If the theory held true, an Officer whose promotion was antedated to a date prior to may 1915 would appear in the May 1915 Army List in his 'promoted' rank.

A spot check of over 20 Guards subalterns (including Irish Guards) whose promotion from 2nd Lt to Lt timeline straddles May 1915, shows in every case they are still recorded as 2nd Lts. I will complete the research from this angle and post here in due course. If I can locate Army Lists for June, July, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov 1915 (If indeed they exist) I can stress-test this further. Given every Officer is listed this should eventually generate another 100 or so pieces of hard evidence that would be very difficult to dispute.

Examples:

There are four Irish Guards Officers whose substantive promotion to Lt happened on 19th May 1915 whose LG announcements were made in June 1915

D C Parsons

C Pease

R Rankin

F H Witts

All remain as 2 Lts in the May 1915 Army List. One might argue that the publication deadline may just have missed these examples. Looking elsewhere there are six Grenadier Guards subalterns whose antedate for promotion to Lt was 13th March 1915 whose LG announcement was 19th July 1915. One might reasonably expect the May 1915 Army List would have captured their 'promotions':

D Abel Smith

J N Buchanan

J C Craigie

E H J Duberly

P Malcolm

Hon E W Tennant

All remain as 2 Lts in the May 1915 Army List some two months after the effective date and two months before the LG announcement date.

etc. MG

[Muerrisch]

Martin,

the Monthly ALs were published every war month except [from memory] Sep or Oct 1914, when the system was overwhelmed by augmentation. Quite a few libraries have complete runs and I believe the NA is where I got my complete RWF run. Cardiff is/was another, and Cambridge Uni Library .......... all these I have hit for one reason and another.

On-Line is another matter, very difficult to find.

An appeal on the GWF may well find people with similar needs to have at least one edition on your hit list.

[Guest]

I pm'd this to Martin. Not certain it is what is required. Click

Mike

[Guest]

Skipman has provided the quarterly Army Lists, so it should be possible to compare the timelines across April, June, Sep 1915 Army lists as well.

Action front.

Edit. These seem to be graduation lists rather than listed by Regiment. They appear rather different to my May 1915 List.

MG

[charlie2]

Quarterly lists for 1915 are here at the NLS

http://digital.nls.uk/british-military-lists/pageturner.cfm?id=91519308

[Guest]

Quarterly lists for 1915 are here at the NLS

http://digital.nls.uk/british-military-lists/pageturner.cfm?id=91519308

Same as Skipman's links. Thanks. MG

[Guest]

Scots Guards subalterns whose promotions to Lt were effective on 28th Jan 1915 but not announced in the LG until 10th June 1915. All remained recorded as 2nd Lts in the May 1915 Army List. This is four months after their effective date but still one month before the LG announcement.

J BALFOUR

W A BOYD

N M FERGUSSON

H C HAMMERSLEY

C H SEYMOUR

[Muerrisch]

Martin,

I am of course teaching you to suck eggs but ......................

the monthlies might add even more collateral, but they are open to challenge ........... quite simply, they were often behind the drag curve of deaths, appointments and promotions and indeed postings, and also prone to clerical error.

The LG, on the other hand, is the organ of record [provided one searches ahead for corrections].

As to the Quarterlies, I wonder if the hard yards of searching alphabetical lists of an infinity of subalterns is worth the graft?

[Guest]

If you right click Here (for example) on the "Colour composite text file(pdf,181731kb) link, or any other and 'save link as' you can download the whole file, which is searchable. I had trouble downloading them for some reason, probably local connection.

Mike

[Guest]

If you right click Here (for example) on the "Colour composite text file(pdf,181731kb) link, or any other and 'save link as' you can download the whole file, which is searchable. I had trouble downloading them for some reason, probably local connection.

Mike

I looked at two and they appear to simply be a list of Officers commissioned - not bundled in their respective battalions. My May 1915 Army List looks completely different. I think these are simply Quarterly summaries of commissions within that Quarter.

[Guest]

OK Martin, sorry they're not the 'real deal' If I happen upon them will certainly post.

Mike

[Guest]

I had not seen this thread before before that seems to show his signature on a will signed 2/Lt 3/8/1915 Click

Mike

[Guest]

Martin,

I am of course teaching you to suck eggs but ......................

the monthlies might add even more collateral, but they are open to challenge ........... quite simply, they were often behind the drag curve of deaths, appointments and promotions and indeed postings, and also prone to clerical error.

The LG, on the other hand, is the organ of record [provided one searches ahead for corrections].

As to the Quarterlies, I wonder if the hard yards of searching alphabetical lists of an infinity of subalterns is worth the graft?

Grumpy - I understand your drift; the implication is that the Monthly lists lagged....in fact it is the LG announcement that lagged. The Monthly Army lists would simply reflect what had been announced by the cut-off date each month. i.e what was known at the time. There would be no point in having Monthly lists if the system couldn't keep up. They would simply stop publishing them as they did in Sep, Oct 1914. Even if there was a slight lag, I would not expect a lag of 6 months. The Army Lists effectively tells us what was recorded/know/implemented at the time and the additional dates tell us when the effective dates were for seniority and backpay. They are effectively snapshots of each month.

If we have the full sequence of Monthly Army Lists we can take two approaches:

1. Follow the recorded rank of any individual through the sequential months and note when the Army List finally recorded the promotion, then compare this to the LG announcement date. Take Kipling as the critical example: the Parker Legg theory tells us that the promotion was effective and implemented in June. We would therefore expect this to be reflected in the Monthly Army Lists for July, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov. etc reflecting the Military Secretary Depts missives. If for example his promotion does not appear until Nov (coincidental with the LG date) it would probably suggest the Army List used the LG as its indicator. If, as Parker Legg suggest, the the Military Secretary Dept was the driving force and the Regiments were informed months prior to the LG announcements, we would expect the Army List to reflect this. In the sampling I have done so far (21% of Guards Subalterns promoted to Lt in 1915) we don't see this (see below). We shall see what happens if we can cast the net wider.

Edit: Snippets: There are four Grenadier Guards subalterns promoted to Lt between 16th Dec 1914 and 13th Mar 1915 whose LG announcements were made in early May 1915. All still appear in the May 1915 Army list as 2nd Lts. R P Le P Trench (the officer promoted in Dec 1914) was still recorded as 2 Lt while five Welsh Guards Officers promoted on 1st April 1915 (LG date and effective date) some 14 weeks later than Trench were all recorded as Lts. The difference is simply the LG announcement date. The Army List took the LG announcement date (not effective date) as the authority I believe. If the Mil Sec Dept was issuing promotions, they don't appear to have been reflected by the Army List. Put another way, are we expected to believe that the Army List was not a reflection of the Mil Sec Dept announcements?

2. If we have only one month's Army List (e.g. my May list), we can use this to search for subalterns promotion to Lt effective prior to May but announced after May. This casts the net wider around one particular date; some of the promotions were antedated by anything up to a year. 126 of the 146 Second Lts on the Guards Div nominal roll in Aug 1915 made it to Lieutenant. On average the promotions were antedated by 189 days (just over six months). This means we should have around 750 data points (126 subalterns x 6 editions =756) to check to see if they were recorded at the higher rank in any month before the LG announcement date.

So far I have 27 named Officers whose timeline spans May 1915 and none were recorded as Lts despite the effective date being prior to May 1915. Some have effective dates three months prior to the List publication date. Another 6 months' worth of Army Lists will allow me to do the same exercise and analyse the cohorts whose promotion timeline (effective-to-announcement) spanned Jun, Jul....Nov and provide precise data on all 126 Officers.

It is simply using a methodical approach to stress-test the theory against Official documents. MG

[Guest]

I had not seen this thread before before that seems to show his signature on a will signed 2/Lt 3/8/1915 Click

Mike

Indeed. So, two months after his effective promotion, he was still signing documents as 2nd Lt.

So far I have failed to find a document that records Kipling as a Lt that pre-dates his death or even pre-dates his LG promotion announcement on 11th Nov 1915.