LIMBURG POW CAMP

[MBrockway]

... my other post about the Yeoman Rifles and John Hardcastle in [the Unit and formations sub-forum] to which I would offer you a link if I knew how to do it with other forum threads.

Pals,

See here:

21st Battalion KRRC - the original Yeomen. Looking for friends of Rifleman JT Hardcastle

Cheers,

Mark

[Doug Johnson]

His service record is clear. He was a prisoner held working behind the lines and died as a result i.e. not of wounds, though there is a very remote possibility that he was wounded as a PoW. If he had been wounded and was in hospital that is what his service record would say first and Limburg would not have appeared. His illness would have been due to either starvation, insanitary conditions, over work or a combination of them. The list referred to would have been the German list which would record his transfer from the Limburg "camp" to the hospital (the Limburg reference would have probably been from a postcard which would have been received before the receipt of a list) I do not know what the PM stands for but may be something like Prisoner - Medical.

Prisoners admitted directly to hospital at the front do not appear to have been registered, the German lists tend to say something like "Limburg, coming from the Lazaret at Deinze"when they were shipped to Germany.

Doug

Mark - A typo in a handwritten document?

[Liz in Eastbourne]

Doug-

I am completely in the hands of you experts on this. And I know POWs are your area. So for the sake of someone who doesn't know anything about it please could you explain how you know he was held working behind the lines and why he would have got this treatment and not what Corporal Smith's large group of 700 seem to have had? Jack Sheldon said in his book on the German Army at Passchendaele that the German division took 1,253 prisoners (excl. 19 officers) at Nieuport, so I realise that's not everyone.

I was pleased to rediscover the account by Corporal Smith because it sounds marginally better and I thought it fitted: but you're saying his record would look different if he had been with that lot of prisoners? What makes it so clear to you? Would the record have mentioned Dendermonde or a proper POW camp if he'd been there - not just said 'Limburg'? 'Limburg' is sinister, then, on a record with no other place details except a hospital in another country, as here.

Did they give postcards even to prisoners behind the lines to send home saying they were OK? Have you seen other records referring to Deinze? Why would they even take him to hospital if the conditions were so bad? Sorry - I do accept your verdict, I'm just trying to understand it! He died only four weeks after the battle.

Thanks for coming back to this. I hope Mark will also surface (when last on the forum he said his computer's been troublesome).

Mark -

SDGW says only 'Died' or that's what I found - not 'of wounds' -?

Liz

[Liz in Eastbourne]

I found this interesting account of an Australian prisoner held behind the lines for about eight months in 1918. I had to spend ages cleaning up the garbled computer transcription on the left of the newspaper article so perhaps people haven't seen it before - anyway it seems worth putting a link here. It isn't cheering stuff.

Brisbane Courier 1 Feb 1919

[Doug Johnson]

Liz,

Dendermonde itself would be classed as a behind the lines camp as would be all of those held in the occupied territories (though 30km from the front would be the official boundary, the treatment was much the same for all these camps except for shell fire etc, and was a lot worse than most camps in Germany). A few, such as EK1, had proper links back to a head camp in Germany but their conditions were a lot better. The interesting thing to me is why were prisoners kept at Dendermonde for so long if they were not working and at a time when the head camps back in Germany were largely empty because of the demand for PoW workers? The camp may have been used as a resource pool for workers behind the lines but equally the fact that they were captured by marines may also have had something to do with it. The marines did not have camps back in Germany, as did all the army corps, and there are inferences that prisoners were sent back to the army corps area of the troops that captured them, at least in the early part of the war when the corps were fighting more as a collection of armies fighting together rather than one army. It is therefore possible that the delay was down to admin. problems, however all this is conjecture, why they were there is a complete mystery to me.

The other thing is that Smith's report almost certainly does not tell it all. The conditions in the camp would have been rough. Lice would have been prevalent in the camp due to the conditions and sending the men to Ghent for fumigation and a bath would be pointless unless all of them went at the same time and they fumigated the barracks. The fact that they were sent there three times for a bath and fumigation says it all. The food was clearly inadequate as it was in all these camps and as Smith says, they became too weak even for exercise. Smith makes no mention of prisoners being moved out of the camp for work but equally makes no mention of any being removed to hospital. Even without work, starvation and insanitary conditions would have caused disease in the camp even if it could not be classed as an epidemic. In contrast, the conditions in most head camps in Germany were infinitely better due to the neutral inspections and the receipt of parcels. Some of the smaller work camps however left a lot to be desired. Unfortunately Smith also neglects to mention roughly how many prisoners were moved to Duelmen so it is difficult to understand how many were still there at the end and whether some were moved out beforehand. Smith also mentions a room for dressings etc for the sick but does not mention any hospital or ward for the sick so presumably all those that got too sick for out-patient treatment were sent to hospital outside the camp. The reference to dressings would tend to indicate light wounds etc but again this is not clear. It would however be normal for lightly wounded to be treated as unwounded. He also mentions that there were wounded with them at Middelkerke but does not refer to them again. What happened to these wounded that were unable to walk when they were all marched 12kM, without stopping, the next day?

Dendermonde is not mentioned in the WO161 index to places (see "behind the wire" site). It is probable that this is down to poor indexing of the original documents but that, and the way that the report is structured, suggests that this may be the only WO161 report from this place (The report is structured such that there is a lot of detail about Dendermonde but very little on Duelmen or Lechfeld. The latter two camps were well known and clearly he had nothing to add that was not already known about these camps but Dendermonde was a new one for the Committee). Without corroborating reports it is difficult to say whether Smith's report is entirely accurate and whether he has included everything or what information is missing like, was the camp in use before they arrived and was it cleared when they left i.e was the camp temporary and just for them? When reading reports of other camps it is possible to read two or three reports that, by themselves, are clear but together do not seem to be about the same camp as they contradict each other!

Although Berry did not provide a WO161 report he did provide one for the Australian authorities for historical purposes as did some 30 others of the 2nd tunneling company all taken prisoner around Nieuport on the 10-11th July 1917. These probably hold details of the battle, as that was the purpose of taking the reports, so these may be an little known source relating to the battle of the dunes.

Doug

Treatment of those held behind the lines is contained in (Cd 8988)Miscellaneous No 7 (1918) Report on the Treatment by the Enemy of British Prisoners of War Behind the Firing Lines in France and Belgium.

Treatment of those held behind the lines in 1918 is contained in (Cd 9106)Miscellaneous No 19 (1918) Report on the Treatment by the Germans of Prisoners of War taken during the spring offensives of 1918 and was even worse than for those held previously.

[MBrockway]

Mark -

SDGW says only 'Died' or that's what I found - not 'of wounds' -?

Liz

Quite correct - I'm now mystified where I got 'Died of Wounds' from and my temporary computer is still too painfully slow & unstable to trace back through all my Hardcastle notes :-(

Clearly there is in fact no discrepancy between SDGW and his service record so that ws a red herring.

Cheers,

Mark

[MBrockway]

His service record is clear. He was a prisoner held working behind the lines and died as a result i.e. not of wounds, though there is a very remote possibility that he was wounded as a PoW. If he had been wounded and was in hospital that is what his service record would say first and Limburg would not have appeared. His illness would have been due to either starvation, insanitary conditions, over work or a combination of them. The list referred to would have been the German list which would record his transfer from the Limburg "camp" to the hospital (the Limburg reference would have probably been from a postcard which would have been received before the receipt of a list) I do not know what the PM stands for but may be something like Prisoner - Medical.

Prisoners admitted directly to hospital at the front do not appear to have been registered, the German lists tend to say something like "Limburg, coming from the Lazaret at Deinze"when they were shipped to Germany.

Doug

Mark - A typo in a handwritten document?

Doug,

My reconstruction was based on the timings and the geography.

Hardcastle was captured at (or possibly very shortly after) the Battle of the Dunes at Nieuport on 10 Jul 1917.

He died in the Kriegslazarett at Deinze on 06 Aug 1917.

That's only 27 days.

Some distances ...

• Nieuport to Deinze - 45 miles
• Nieuport to Dendermonde - 70 miles
• Nieuport to Limburg an der Lahn - 280 miles
• Deinze to Limburg - 250 miles
• Deinze to Dendermonde - 30 miles

Why would the Germans send Hardcastle all the way back to the Kriegslazarett 250 miles away in Deinze if he had already reached Limburg an der Lahn? Particularly when the German LoC's would be very strained due to 3rd Ypres.

A major POW camp like Limburg must have had more local facilities.

My thinking was he was either en route to Limburg (probably in stages via work camps) or he was in one of the work camps (Dendermonde perhaps?) being exploited illegally as labour before he was officially recorded as a POW. During this period he became sick, was admitted to the military hospital in Deinze and died.

I don't think he ever got out of Belgium.

Can you see where I'm coming from?

Notice also that the information on the AF B103 is not chronological, but in sequence of Date of Report Received, which is Column #1. My extract above has these column headings cropped off to reduce the file size.

Hardcastle died on 06 Aug 1917, which is before the report of him being "Officially accepted as POW at Limburg" received on 01 Sep 1917.

Unfortunately the row about his death at Kriegslaz Notre Dame Deinz has no Date of Report Received, but there is a very faint entry under the text "List No PM 244", which is not properly legible, but could at a pinch read "d/ ?23 10 17" - that might be the date of the death report list??

Two final Qs: is everyone happy that ...

• the text does in fact read Kriegslaz Notre Dame Deinz? and
• we're correct in identifying this as Deinze, near Gent, in Belgium?

Cheers,

Mark

[Liz in Eastbourne]

Why would the Germans send Hardcastle all the way back to the Kriegslazarett 250 miles away in Deinze if he had already reached Limburg an der Lahn? Particularly when the German LoC's would be very strained due to 3rd Ypres.

A major POW camp like Limburg must have had more local facilities.

My thinking was he was either en route to Limburg (probably in stages via work camps) or he was in one of the work camps (Dendermonde perhaps?) being exploited illegally as labour before he was officially recorded as a POW. During this period he became sick, was admitted to the military hospital in Deinze and died.

I don't think he ever got out of Belgium.

Mark

i think you are reacting to Doug's phrase "the Limburg 'camp' "in the way I did initially, assuming he meant the camp at Limburg - whereas I think he meant something like "this temporary camp not far behind the lines, wherever it was, that they are labelling 'Limburg' on postcards and records". Doug said it was just a registration camp, in response to my first query, and you said the same - I don't think you are at issue here, as he has elaborated this business about being held behind the lines in his later post.

I was unfamiliar with all this until you both assisted me on Hardcastle's record as POW and the only reason I am sticking my oar in here at all is that I thought the same as you in the first place on reading this phrase. I hope Doug will come back and you can both say whether I have correctly located the source of this misunderstanding!

Liz

[Liz in Eastbourne]

Clearly there is in fact no discrepancy between SDGW and his service record so that ws a red herring.

Well, never mind, that simplifies the situation. I think I might have been going on about wounds in our earlier discussions off the forum, because I couldn't understand why he'd die in a month if he wasn't wounded.

But now I've looked at the threads and other sources on these illegally held prisoners, I can see...a month of starvation and maltreatment might finish you off especially if you had an underlying weakness. I don't suppose the records ever state the prisoner was clubbed by a guard for insubordination, either.

But I feel more and more exactly what you said earlier - he wouldn't have been dead if he hadn't been at Nieuport, and that's all we can be sure of. 'Killed in action' sounds more heroic, doesn't it? But might not have been. And 'died' covers a huge range of circumstances. I'd rather have been killed straight off, as I suppose most of us would.

Some of the points about Nieuport and POWs that have come up have been very interesting - I'd like to raise them in another thread, later.

Liz

[Liz in Eastbourne]

...Doug's phrase "the Limburg 'camp' "in the way I did initially, assuming he meant the camp at Limburg - whereas I think he meant something like "this temporary camp not far behind the lines, wherever it was, that they are labelling 'Limburg' on postcards and records".

PS And therefore, being a pedant and one-time copy editor, I think it should really be the 'Limburg' camp rather than the Limburg 'camp'! Or even both separately in quotes as in addition to not being Limburg, Hardcastle's location may not have been a camp in the usual understanding of the word.

I hope other people interpreting Limburg records may find this discussion...without it I would have taken 'Limburg' at face value.

[corisande]

It seemed to apply to all POW camps - depending who was writing, and to whom the were writing. There is a long correspondence on WO files about whether or not there were British POWs at Danzig-Troyl. The Germans stated bluntly that there were none.

The British knew the Irish Brigade men were there, and the Netherlands Legation continued to probe. Eventually they got this reply

The Germans were happy to look upon the outlying work camps as separate from the head camp, whereas the British found it easier to keep up with the head camp and work camps as one unit.

[MBrockway]

Sounds like we're all on the same page in fact then.

Does anyone have info on the hierarchy of "head camps" and their attached satellite "work camps"? Does a reliable list exist?

Do we know if Dendermonde came under Limburg's wing administratively?

Cheers,

Mark

[MBrockway]

... I think I might have been going on about wounds in our earlier discussions off the forum, because I couldn't understand why he'd die in a month if he wasn't wounded.

Liz

Liz - I've managed to check our back e-mail, and you're quite right about mentioning DoW in the early stages. I assumed this as meaning 'DoW' in SDGW, which would be the usual source for that in the absence of a service record.

Very slack of me not to do my usual cross-check back to SDGW getting lazy - LOL!

Cheers,

Mark

[Liz in Eastbourne]

Dendermonde itself would be classed as a behind the lines camp as would be all of those held in the occupied territories (though 30km from the front would be the official boundary, the treatment was much the same for all these camps except for shell fire etc, and was a lot worse than most camps in Germany).................................................

Dendermonde is not mentioned in the WO161 index to places (see "behind the wire" site). It is probable that this is down to poor indexing of the original documents but that, and the way that the report is structured, suggests that this may be the only WO161 report from this place (The report is structured such that there is a lot of detail about Dendermonde but very little on Duelmen or Lechfeld. The latter two camps were well known and clearly he had nothing to add that was not already known about these camps but Dendermonde was a new one for the Committee). Without corroborating reports it is difficult to say whether Smith's report is entirely accurate and whether he has included everything or what information is missing like, was the camp in use before they arrived and was it cleared when they left i.e was the camp temporary and just for them?

I thanked Doug by PM for his comprehensive reply from which I've extracted the Dendermonde bits above, but thank you again, Doug, and could you put the bit in your PM reply to me about the Limburg postcards on here? Because I think this will then make it clear -if I have understood you correctly - that no one knows enough about Dendermonde to say whether it came under Limburg except temporarily along with other behind-the-lines makeshift camps. My conclusion is that Hardcastle may or may not have been at Dendermonde; if not he was at another place behind the lines, not far from Nieuport or Deinze; he died as officially stated of a sickness, which may have been connected to previous weakness from wounds at Flers, slight wounding at Nieuport, malnutrition, maltreatment or infection or any combination of these. The postcard received by his mother was of the type described by Smith, or the Australian in that article, sent under duress and not truthful.

Corisande's letter is a very interesting comparison but I gather those prisoners were within range of a head camp, not just registered there.

In a way I am more surprised that we have reliable records at all than that they are often so difficult. Unless another Nieuport POW's testimony turns up, I think I've gone as far as I can with Hardcastle's fate - do you agree?

Mark - no need to berate yourself for getting slack, when you can legitimately blame me!

Liz

[Doug Johnson]

Limburg acted as both a head camp where prisoners were administered and as a registration camp as did Friedrichsfeld, Güstrow and some others. I have no explanation as to why other than a possible reaction to complaints from the British government about the non-registration of prisoners, which seem unlikely as they were still not registering prisoners well into 1918 and possibly up to the end of the war. Also there does not seem to be any benefit in registering them as the address meant nothing as they were still not in the "system". The command paper is well worth a read as it produces many examples of those registered at Limburg but letters etc being returned as they were not at that address or at least Limburg was not aware of their existance and therefore they were not on their books(that means that they were not there nor in any work camp attached to the head camp). The term registration camp is essentially a British definition and whether those who registered there and gave their address as Liburg were supposed to have been on the books or not is not entirely clear. The fact that some cards, with the address of Limburg, have on them "do not reply to this address" would seem to suggest not but it could be that there were significant delays in the documentation arriving in Limburg and them being placed on their books and there is some evidence that this was the case with a prisoner "transferred" from Wahn who was in the system but got lost. Certainly the camp is known to have had an unusually large number of prisoners on it's books (in excess of 100 000) but if there were delays then these would be have to be in excess of six months in some cases. In any event, the result was the same, prisoners in the occupied territories registered at Limburg or any other registration camp were deprived of parcels etc. Also the command paper states that there were cases where the first time the head camp was aware of a prisoner was after he had died. (my attempt at describing it as Limburg "Camp" was to indicate that the camp was possibly a myth. Whilst there was a camp with the same name, this had nothing to do with them)

Head camps belonged to the Army corps of the area in which they were situated. Generally, unless the camp was in Germany then it did not belong to any German head camp, but to the command of the occupied territories, whatever it was called. There are always some exceptions as EK1 and [possibly others of similar title) were in the occupied territories (EK1 may have belong to Friedrichsfeld or at least that is where the prisoners came from) but these prisoners were in the system, being on the books and receiving parcels. However, from what I remember EK1 was a specific work location at an airfield near Brussels rather than a between works camp) (A PoW report from a prisoner at EK1 is illuminating as he saw "behind the lines" prisoners at the same location, in appaling condition and he believed that many of them died. He also mentions that prisoners for EK1 were split into several locations all of which may still have been EK1, or they could have been EK2,3 etc though I only have references to an EK1 and 5).

All the head camps are well known and there is a list of them in Doegen's book, listed by Corps Area. Wahn and Erfurt however are not listed as it is as of 1918 and both of these had previously been replaced by Limburg and Langensalza respectively. These head camps sent workers out for the day, sent them to reside at specific work locations or sent them to a sub camp which did much the same as the head camp. Only a comparatively small number of these other camps are known and for many of these the head camp is not known. The largest number I have seen suggested for these other locations is 400 000! Zwischenswerks (between work) was a name given to some of the camps at Ingolstadt.

There are also indications of Durchgangslagers or transit camps.

Very little is known of the camps in the occupied territories apart from PoW reports and I think one visit to Lille, early in the war, by the Americans. No neutral inspection was allowed of the camps in occupied areas on grounds of security as it was a war zone. None of the work camps was ever used as an address regardless of whether they were occupied areas or not. The only valid address ever used for PoWs was the head camp and any prisoner may have been at a dozen or more other camps but always retaining the same address. Again there may be at least one exception of a camp attached to Güstrow. In this case, all parcels etc had been sent first to Berlin, then to Güstrow where they were sorted and those for this particular camp were sent back to Berlin and then to the sub-camp. This was obviously time consuming but the explanation for them being sent back to Berlin was that it was the only viable rail link between them and Güstrow. After intervention from the Amercians it was agreed that this camp could have it's own address (though it may not have been acted upon).

I have a feeling that the situation at Danzig was slightly special with it being a first inspection and the Irish Brigade's status being slightly different. If you want the right answer you have to ask the right question! Being fair to the Dutch inspectors the organization of the camps was not fully understood and they were inexperienced (I suspect either they were unaware of it being a head camp or the Kommandant was just being awkward). The American reports usually only give the numbers at the specific camp they inspected but sometimes they also report the numbers of British away from the camp at the time of inspection.

The German PoW system was identical to the British system of head camps controlling all the prisoners through a system of depots and work places. The principle difference was that the British Camps had their own addresses and the movement of PoWs through the various camps was reported on the lists whereas the German lists only ever indicated the head camps unless they went to hospital. The German system however was geared to the number of prisoners they had, which was vastly greater than in the UK.

As for Hardcastle I am relatively happy that we understand roughly what happened to him in that he was retained in Belgium but was given a registration address of Limburg. At some stage he became ill enough to be transferred to hospital where he died. (have the PoW death certificates at the NA been checked? This is a series I have not looked at but as the description says they are largely in French it may be that they originate at hospitals in France and Belgium. The description also says that they are often more informative)

Doug

[MBrockway]

Doug,

As always, an excellent and very informative post! The German camp structure is now a great deal clearer to me - many thanks.

I have not checked the POW death certificates at the NA - Liz: that could be a very productive lead if you're near Kew.

Looks like we have Hardcastle's last 27 days reasonably clear in outline at least.

Cheers,

Mark

[Liz in Eastbourne]

Doug,

As always, an excellent and very informative post! The German camp structure is now a great deal clearer to me - many thanks.

I have not checked the POW death certificates at the NA - Liz: that could be a very productive lead if you're near Kew.

I agree, Mark - Doug has been amazingly informative.

Doug, you've also raised so many thoughts about the POWs in the aftermath of Nieuport, in connection with the accounts Steve posted, that I think in due course I'll ask something about it on the Battle of the Dunes thread. At the moment a Pause seems necessary.

Yes, Mark, I am going to follow up this suggestion about the death certificates and am planning a visit to Kew later this week. Can't let it rest without doing that.

If I find anything I'll let you know, of course.

I don't feel we have those 27 days clear exactly (though to have understood the Limburg reference is a big advance) but I do feel much clearer about the reasons for the lack of clarity, and clearer about the possible scenarios. Which is a huge advance.

Thanks, both,

Liz

[Doug Johnson]

George Hartley Day, 2nd Tuneling Company was wounded and taken PoW on the 10th July 1917 at Nieuport. On the 4th Sept 1917 he was at Parchim (RCW&M files), the sister head camp of Güstrow in the IXth the Army Corps area. My records then place him at Rostock Railway Wagon Works early in 1918 (and possibly in a photograph). This was a working camp under Güstrow so he must have been transferred from Parchim. Clearly his wound/s were not especially serious though how bad they were is not yet known.

Doug

[Doug Johnson]

Charles Henry Angus, also 2nd Tunnelling Co, was again nominally at Limburg but was sent to Lechfeld.

John Henry Baxter, ditto, was at Dülmen by Sept 1917 and then went to Hammelburg in the same month.

James foster Bell, ditto, was again nominally at Limburg (by 15th July) and then followed Baxter. Presumably Baxter was also registered at Limburg but it does not appear in his file.

Doug

[Liz in Eastbourne]

Doug, thank you for putting up these Australian tunnellers' POW details, very interesting for comparison.

As regards John Thomas Hardcastle, I had no luck at Kew looking for a death record. They suggested the Red Cross but as I gather they charge (understandably) and the likelihood of finding anything seems slim, because of all you have explained about prisoners held behind the lines, I have decided to leave it there, as far as the exact cause of his death is concerned.

I'm still interested in the POWs from Nieuport though if you should happen to find any more.

Liz

[Chris Hamilton62]

Hi

Just registered today to find details of my family that where involved in WW1, my Grandfather, his elder brother and his elder sister.

I have my Grandfathers service record.

L.S. William Hamilton KX 460. He started in the Hood Battalion in 1914, later being transfered to the Anson Battn (7th res Battn).

4/2/1917 he went missing.

16/4/1917 he was reported as a prisioner of war at Limburg POW Camp.

4/2/1918 He was moved to Friedricksfeld from the Western Front.

6/3/1918 He was moved from Friedricksfeld to Gustrow.

28/12/1918 He was repatriated

Is there any info available from these camps?

[Liz in Eastbourne]

Chris,

Welcome - I am no expert on these things - I've been on this thread previously looking for information myself, and have set up a watch on it, which is why your post was notified to me. But while you're waiting for an expert to come along, the search facility should produce a good deal on these camps.

There's a lot on Limburg both as a camp and as a registration address on this one, obviously. And for sheer enjoyment and interest as well as research purposes (your grandfather appears to have been there at the right time) I think this thread is well worth a look: Gustrow Bing Boys.

I hope a heavyweight will come along soon but there's certainly a lot of reading matter on here already.

Liz

[Chris Hamilton62]

Thanks for that Liz, I'll have a look.

[daniel2]

would love to know mre about my Grandfather Patrick Rice Royal Inniskillings dog tag 7561.Larnarkshire ScotlandDaniel Culle n

[charlie962]

Daniel,  if you click on this link it takes you to the ICRC site and their PoW records. Patrick Rice's index card is shown. If you follow the instructions and enter in turn the various PA numbers you will get to the registers for the various camps he was in. Probably best to start a seperate thread for your grandfather although he is shown as first going to Limburg. There are a number of members skilled at interpretting the German but you will find a brief lexicon on the site.

  For example this page PA 10791  from a 1917 list shows he was A company 2nd bn R Innis Fus., captured 29/8/14 St Quentin, born 27.9.1884 Dundary etc etc

       

 

The ICRC cards are sometimes misfiled and you have to search in several places. The above card is under RICE,IRISH but if you look at the very first in the list of Rices without any regiment name you will find another index card which I suspect is him showing details are on PA 658. This list shows the names of a whole lot of Innis Fus who were taken about the same time. Have Fun researching!

 

I see that FindmyPast have a Service Record for him, (ignore that it says Suffolk, this is FMP transcription problem!) showing he enlisted 1903 on a 3/9 engagement and was mobilised from the reserve in 1914. He was repatriated end of 1918 and transferred to the Z Reserve 1919. Maybe you already have this record ? If not you will need a subscription ( see other threads for promotional offers) and Ancestry is FREE this weekend.

Edited 27 August , 2016 by charlie962