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Remembered Today:

No.20 Casualty Clearing Warlincourt position of?


Dawn Vaughan

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Can anyone tell me where in Warlingcourt the No 20 CC was in March 1917 ? Was it in the town or on the outskirts near the cemetery? 

 

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It seems that the CCS was based at SAULTY close by Warlincourt. I will see if I can find it's exact place tomorrow when I have a visit to Kew. There might be a map or diagram in the War Diary (WO95/499/2 covers Dec 1916 to May 1918).

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Thank you very much thats very kind of you. 

I have ascertained from the CC20 diary of that time that it was in a tent. And i believe it was near the Warlincourt cemetery... It talks about the road being bad.... 

 

But any light you can throw on it would be great! 

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The War Diary for 20 CCS shows the position of the Station as at SOLNERAU-HALTE and in tents which were constructed by the CCS team and the Royal Engineers on 13 May 1916 after it moved from FREVANT.

A comment in the Director Medical Services 3rd Army Instructions (18 May 1916) to 20 CCS required the RE to "make a road on the opposite bank across the sunken road from the CCS and connected by a bridge from the camp to the graveyard".

I would take this as meaning they were opposite each other so where the cemetery is now is half of the solution !

If you open the cemetery plan for Warlincourt CWGC cemetery you will see that there is a track to "Saternau-Halte" (maybe the CCS spelt it wrong !), so I think there is no doubt where you can find the site of the CCS20.

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Thank you so much for this information. 

I am now trying to piece together the last days of his Battalion. I have the war diaries but I am struggling to map them on the correct maps... Can you point me in the right direction please? There were a couple of gents in another blog on this site who were advising me but they must have got fed up with me.. ?

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The digitised trench maps on the National Library of Scotland website are handy http://digital.nls.uk/great-war/resources/trench-maps.html

 

Looks like you may have resolved this for No 20 CCS now, but you can follow the approach I took to locating No 36 CCS in this blog post of mine https://halfmuffled.wordpress.com/2016/02/09/where-was-36-casualty-clearing-station-in-july-1916/

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Thank you for that, and love your blog on CC! I have been on this site but cant seem to get the two consecutive maps.....

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Yeah, unfortunately you can only overlay one at a time, which can be a bit of a pain when (inevitably) the area you're looking at is right on map edges.  I've been try to look at the area between Mametz Wood and Bazentin-le-Petit Wood which is where my great-great-uncle was wounded prior to being taken to 36 CCS, but that is right on the edge of two maps.  Fortunately, there is a hand drawn map in the battalion war diary that has obviously been traced from the trench maps, but goes over the boundary between the two.

 

If the area shown on the modern map straddles the two you should be able to swap between them using the dropdown on the left though - there are two ways of viewing the maps, one just shows the original, where you can only get one at a time, or if you go the overlay route, it marks the boundary of each original trench map over the modern map, and you can select one in the drop down from those available (there'll often be a series of the same map sheets, but from different periods of the war).

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3 hours ago, David_Underdown said:

Yeah, unfortunately you can only overlay one at a time, which can be a bit of a pain when (inevitably) the area you're looking at is right on map edges.  I've been try to look at the area between Mametz Wood and Bazentin-le-Petit Wood which is where my great-great-uncle was wounded prior to being taken to 36 CCS, but that is right on the edge of two maps.  Fortunately, there is a hand drawn map in the battalion war diary that has obviously been traced from the trench maps, but goes over the boundary between the two.

 

If the area shown on the modern map straddles the two you should be able to swap between them using the dropdown on the left though - there are two ways of viewing the maps, one just shows the original, where you can only get one at a time, or if you go the overlay route, it marks the boundary of each original trench map over the modern map, and you can select one in the drop down from those available (there'll often be a series of the same map sheets, but from different periods of the war).

what i meant is there are not two consecutive maps which actually match. One is 1/10,000 the othe 1/20,000

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Hi Dawn,

 

Linking to your other thread, the 8th KRRC were part of (41 Brigade in ) 14 Division. The war diary for 14 Division HQ (General Staff) for March 1917 (here on Ancestry) contains some maps that  hopefully may be able to help you. If you were to need any advice on reading trench map co-ordinates, it's well worth looking at the LLT here

 

Regards

Chris

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Thanks Chris, yes I have those. Not knowing much about maps, I assume if the diary mentions 1/10,000 map reference it won't relate to the same co-ordinates on a 1/20,000?

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15 hours ago, Dawn Vaughan said:

Thanks Chris, yes I have those. Not knowing much about maps, I assume if the diary mentions 1/10,000 map reference it won't relate to the same co-ordinates on a 1/20,000?

The map reference will be the same irrespective of the scale of the map.

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On 13 July 2016 at 23:19, sotonmate said:

The War Diary for 20 CCS shows the position of the Station as at SOLNERAU-HALTE and in tents which were constructed by the CCS team and the Royal Engineers on 13 May 1916 after it moved from FREVANT.

A comment in the Director Medical Services 3rd Army Instructions (18 May 1916) to 20 CCS required the RE to "make a road on the opposite bank across the sunken road from the CCS and connected by a bridge from the camp to the graveyard".

I would take this as meaning they were opposite each other so where the cemetery is now is half of the solution !

If you open the cemetery plan for Warlincourt CWGC cemetery you will see that there is a track to "Saternau-Halte" (maybe the CCS spelt it wrong !), so I think there is no doubt where you can find the site of the CCS20.

Can you through any light on why the clearing station in Warlincourt was so far away from Arras where my uncle was supposed to be with the 8th KRRC ?

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Can anyone throw any light on why the Warlincourt CC20 was so far from Arras where 8th KRRC were supposedly? ( March 1917) 

was there not a nearer one?

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I have recently looked at quite a few CCS war dairies and here and there I note that a CCS "is not taking in casualties today" ! Often they were fully loaded and awaiting disposal of patients back to Base Hospitals etc by Amb. Train or Barge or Motor Amb.etc. Also some CCS had specialisations, and there were transfers between CCSs for various reasons.

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On 15 July 2016 at 17:01, Dawn Vaughan said:

Does anyone know where i can find the sequence of maps 51c 51b NE NM SE SW IN 1/10,000 please?

 

Unless you find one in the 14th Division diary the only one I think you'll find is on the McMaster site.

They have a 1:10,000 map of sheet 51B SW1 trenches corrected to 4/3/1917. This shows the grid refs for where the 8/KRRC were from 25th March 1917.

You are in luck as most of the maps for this sheet do not include the trenches you're after. Someone has drawn the trenches in with blue crayon and named the trenches. I don't know the date for the named trenches but they are (from M.11.b.8.2) BOARD, BOX, BRAMBLE to the junction with WOOD ST and then down to the junction with EXETER and ROACH (M.6.c.8.3). Map refs taken from 41st Infantry Brigade diary specific to 8/KRRC.

 

Follow this link for other 51bSW maps.

 

I've also looked at some of the Medical unit diaries. There's little of any help in the 14th Division's Assistant Director of Medical Services and not much of value in any of the 3 Field Ambulance diaries. However, I did find something in the 7 Corps Deputy Director Medical Services regarding the CCS at Warlincourt.

 

There is a VII Corps Medical Arrangements dated 31/3/1917 which replaces the same of 19/2/1917. I realise the date you're after is the 27th March but this is the closest thing I've found. The medical arrangement issued 19/2/1917 don't seem to survive.

 

I can't say if this extract also applies to Walking Wounded on 27th March.

AGNY was the location for the Walking Wounded Collecting Station and the Advanced Dressing Station was at BOIRY.

 

 

Untitled.jpg

 

TEW

 

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Thank you so much for that- 

I think I have worked out that he was injured in those trenches and then taken either to the dressing station in Arras first or straight to Warlincourt.... But that is a fair old journey?

That is a fascinating map. What I found fascinating is you can see the trenches that have been long filled, in the farmers field..

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