M.M.G.S. ?

[Skipman]

I'm researching Staff-Sergeant David Robertson, 2247 R.F.A., and 200773 Tank Corps. In his British War Medal and Victory War Medal roll it has "M.M.G.S./R.F.A." S/Sergeant. His entry in the 1914-15 Star roll has R.F.A. 2247 Gnr Robertson D .... The entry above for a J Brown mentions this "M.M.G.S."

 

1) Do you think David Robertson's "M.M.G.S. is an error copied from the 1914-15 Star roll, or is it correct?

 

2) What does M.M.G.S. stand for Motor Machine Gun ?

 

3) As this "M.M.G.S." entry also appears on a Roll of Honour of the Aberfeldy Branch Ancient Order of Foresters written up in the early 1920's, where might they have got this information.?

 

Cheers Mike 

[ss002d6252]

The MMGS (Motor Machine Gun Service) was part of the RFA, Mike, so the entry is probably fine.

 

Craig

Edited 12 May , 2018 by ss002d6252

[Guest]

Ah, thanks Craig. I knew it had to be simple. It is in the LLT but I searched for M.M.G.S. will remember in future to search "MMGS" It didn't come up under a Forum search either.

 

Anyroads, thanks again. He won the D.C.M. in April 1918.

 

Cheers Mike

[rolt968]

3 hours ago, Skipman said:

Ah, thanks Craig. I knew it had to be simple. It is in the LLT but I searched for M.M.G.S. will remember in future to search "MMGS" It didn't come up under a Forum search either.

 

Anyroads, thanks again. He won the D.C.M. in April 1918.

 

Cheers Mike

"Motor Machine Gun Service" comes up in a number of forum threads. I think I started two in which forum members gave me a great deal of information.

RM

[Guest]

5 hours ago, rolt968 said:

"Motor Machine Gun Service" comes up in a number of forum threads. I think I started two in which forum members gave me a great deal of information.

RM

 

Indeed, and now I know what the S stands for, I can search for it.

 

Mike

Edited 12 May , 2018 by Skipman

[david murdoch]

By his service number he enlisted in the Motor Machine Gun Service on or just after 10th August 1915. He embarked to France just six weeks later hinting he possibly had previous military experience, or sent out as a casualty replacement, as many who enlisted at this point only embarked into 1916. On the Tank Corps 14-15 Star roll many are listed as R.F.A. though they were actually M.M.G.S (R.A.) On that page the pencilled in numbers eg "9th R.F.A" are actually Motor Machine Gun Battery numbers. In his case he has 1st HAC Battery which possibly stands for Heavy Armoured Car Battery. By his Tank Corps number it's likely he was part of a mass transfer first to Heavy Branch in November 1916 when a number of MMG batteries were disbanded, then later renumbered Tank Corps. 

There are two David Robertsons residing in Aberfeldy on the 1911 Census - one aged 15 and one aged 17. He may be one of them.

[Skipman]

Sorry David, have just seen this. Thanks very much indeed for this excellent post.

 

Mike

[INW]

My Grandfather Corporal G H Wells 200728 had a similar path through WW1 to your soldier Staff Sargent D Robertson 200773.

I have been able to pull together a lot of information about my grandfather and hope you would like to read my file about him.

It is a 3MB pdf file which I do not think the forum will cope with. Send me a conventional email address and I will send it as an attachment.

 

Regards

 

INW

[Skipman]

Thank yo for your very kind offer.

 

 

Mike

[johntaylor]

Hi, you may be aware that a full service record has survived, including a couple of letters written by him requesting the payment for his DCM.  This shows various dates when he first enlisted, the earliest being 20/7/1915, but he seems to have been posted to the MMGS on 10/8/1915.  There are references to him serving in Nos 1 and 6 Armoured Car Batteries, and No. 5 Battery MMGS, before he transferred to what was then the MGC (Heavy Branch), later Tank Corps, in November 1916.

 

John

[clk]

Hi Mike,

 

Forces War Records have an MH 106 transcription which reads:

 

First Name: D

Surname: Robertson

Age: 23

Rank: Private

Service Number: 2247

Years Service: 1 year 1 month

Months With Field Force: 1 year

Ailment: Dental caries

Date Discharged Back to Duty: 08/11/1916

Date of Transfer From Sick Convoy: 30/10/1916

Religion: Church of England

Regiment: Motorised Machine Gun

Other unit info: 5th Battery

Archive Reference: MH106/1460 -   Representative Medical Records of No. 4 Stationary Hospital: 30/10/1916 to 16/11/1916. British Other Ranks, Royal Naval Division, R.M., R.F.C. No. 4 Stationary Hospital at Arques.

 

They don't appear to have fully transcribed it as the actual register image on FMP shows his unit as 

 

Regards

Chris 

 

[INW]

Attn: John Taylor

John

Well done well done finding a service record for David Robertson it sounds particularly interesting. Try as I might I cannot get it out of the Ancestry Search engine. Do you have any tips as to how to fill in the search to get it ? Perhaps you used 'find my past' ?

Regards

INW

 

[INW]

D.C.M. Citation

Sjt. D. ROBERTSON TANK CORPS (Aberfeldy) 

Please see the image attached which I have downloaded from Ancestry.

 

INW

 

[johntaylor]

Hi Ian, I found it using the FMP search engine which is excellent - I'm afraid I've given up on the Ancestry version!

 

Well done to you for finding his DCM citation, as this isn't given in the Tank Corps Book of Honour.  They don't give citations where it's not an immediate award, but the London Gazette contains some useful background.  Will have to search for these in future.

 

John

[Skipman]

I had actually found the citation but thanks for all your help Ian.

 

John, if you input his 6 digit number in the Regimental Number box a link to his citations comes up. Click

 

Mike

[johntaylor]

Thanks, this makes me think there must also be citations for officers who won the MC and are listed in the Tank Corps Book of Honour as "not immediate awards". Will have to look in the London Gazette.

 

Anyway I hope the service record comes in useful.

 

John

[INW]

Service Record for D Robertson Reg no 200773

 

I have now tracked down his service record on Ancestry. It possibly did not come up the first time because the database records his regimental number as MMS230773 and possibly because I probably spelt Sergeant incorrectly! The service record is fascinating, very detailed and will take quite a bit of digesting. I will ask Ancestry to correct the Reg number in the database.

 

INW

[johntaylor]

Well done for finding it - I'm afraid I've given up a bit on the Ancestry service records, as there's no facility to correct the (multiple) errors.  However you are taking a step in the right direction!

[david murdoch]

On ‎11‎/‎06‎/‎2018 at 18:28, INW said:

 

Checking up further on Scotland's People. He married Annie Campbell  at 52 Queen St Edinburgh on 23rd October 1917. On his marriage certificate he gives his profession as Mechanical Engineer and Sergeant 11th Coy. B Battalion Tank Corps. Residence  - on active service. His parents names Robert and Janet (nee Kirk) confirms him on the 1911 Census. Age 15 and living at 23 Bank St, Aberfeldy with his parents. At 15 he was an apprentice (Motor Engineering).

The Aberfeldy address showing in his service record as his permanent address is his parents home. At the time he enlisted he had presumably moved to Greenock for work. The date of his marriage corresponds to an entry in the service record where he was granted ten days leave to the UK from 21/10/17 to 31/10/1917.

He appears to have died in Glasgow in 1978 aged 83.

Edited 18 June , 2018 by david murdoch

[INW]

David

Thank you for this research. Mostly it tallies up really well.

• His rank of on the Service records is shown as Mech. Staff Sergeant. Mech. for (Mechanist). Greenock on the Clyde must have been a good place for a motor engineer to get a civilian engineering job. His training at Bisley was short; this could well have been because they really needed engineers at the front. His DCM specifically mentions his engineering skills. I guess in today's Army he would have been a member of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
• The only misfit is the reference to B battalion on the marriage certificate. This does not tally with his service record which only refers to D / 4th Battalion.
• I am really interested in the references to the M.M.G.S. Heavy Armoured Car Batteries in his army career before November 1916. I have not heard of these before and cannot find any references to them in a Google search. Can anyone help on this one? 

INW

[david murdoch]

20 minutes ago, INW said:

David

Thank you for this research. Mostly it tallies up really well.

• His rank of on the Service records is shown as Mech. Staff Sergeant. Mech. for (Mechanist). Greenock on the Clyde must have been a good place for a motor engineer to get a civilian engineering job. His training at Bisley was short; this could well have been because they really needed engineers at the front. His DCM specifically mentions his engineering skills. I guess in today's Army he would have been a member of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
• The only misfit is the reference to B battalion on the marriage certificate. This does not tally with his service record which only refers to D / 4th Battalion.
• I am really interested in the references to the M.M.G.S. Heavy Armoured Car Batteries in his army career before November 1916. I have not heard of these before and cannot find any references to them in a Google search. Can anyone help on this one? 

INW

Looking at his marriage certificate again - what I first took to be a B is probably meant to be a D  - just the handwriting.

[david murdoch]

On ‎18‎/‎06‎/‎2018 at 19:34, INW said:

David

Thank you for this research. Mostly it tallies up really well.

• His rank of on the Service records is shown as Mech. Staff Sergeant. Mech. for (Mechanist). Greenock on the Clyde must have been a good place for a motor engineer to get a civilian engineering job. His training at Bisley was short; this could well have been because they really needed engineers at the front. His DCM specifically mentions his engineering skills. I guess in today's Army he would have been a member of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
• The only misfit is the reference to B battalion on the marriage certificate. This does not tally with his service record which only refers to D / 4th Battalion.
• I am really interested in the references to the M.M.G.S. Heavy Armoured Car Batteries in his army career before November 1916. I have not heard of these before and cannot find any references to them in a Google search. Can anyone help on this one? 

INW

Regarding the Heavy Armoured Car Battery. Looking at the dates on his service record - he was "attached" to this unit and in France relatively soon after going over. So it was an existing unit already in France. During this period notes his paper "transfer" date from MMGS to MGC, then later posting to 5th MMG Battery. The start date he was with HAC Battery is too early for it to be to do with tanks  - as originally they were also sometimes referred to as armoured cars. It also pre dates most of the armoured car units that the MGC formed  - bearing in mind from the outset those Rolls Royce units were termed as Light Armoured Batteries arriving in France around March 1916. I'll need to trawl in my records and see if I can find anyone else who was with these units. Noting he was attached to both 1st HACB and 6th HACB and also there is an entry by OC of 4th HACB. Most likely these units were the Seabrook Heavy Armoured Cars (really armoured lorries) also taken over from the RNAS armoured car division that would have already been in France.http://www.landships.info/landships/car_articles.html?load=car_articles/Seabrook.html

 

[Skipman]

Many thanks indeed to all. Good work. This is well above the detail I need for this man but extremely interesting all the same. Feel free to dig deeper but please don't go to any trouble on my account.  I have gone from knowing nothing about the service of this soldier to knowing a great deal in a few weeks. Thank you all again and here's to the amazing GWF.

 

Mike

 

Edited 20 June , 2018 by Skipman

[Debs]

Hi this is my great grandpa he won his medal in ypres. Can you send me any info you have and why you were interested in him. His medals were stolen. Apparently my grandpa always played with his medals and was devasted when they were stolen. Long story. 

Edited 12 May , 2020 by Debs

[Debs]

After the war he worked as a chaufeer engineer in greenock for a wealthy ship building company. Ferried the rich people around. We still have the silver dog from the front of his rolls royce.