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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Machine Gun Corps


stigg

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Hi all, have just found this forum and was wondering if anyone could throw any light on my granddad who was in the machine gun corps, his name was James Winyard, his service number was 155397 and his Victory medal was mgc/101B101 page 8297. Any help would be fantastic as he would never talk about the war when he was alive. I have his cap badge and medal still.

Thank you in advance.

Brian

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Welcome.

He was awarded the British War and Victory Medals. So you appear to be missing the former. The rolls that the card is the index to adds little except that he was demobbed 27/4/1920.

The Pair means he cannot have served in a theatre of war prior to 1/1/1916. 

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Thanks for that Mark, i will have to have a look for the other medal as I'm sure my nan gave me everything when he died. I found his two brothers that died in the war one is at Arras Memorial and the other is at the Ypres Memorial. Thanks again.

Brian

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His regimental number suggests he was compulsorily transferred to the MGC at the beginning of May 1918 (on or after the 10th) to the 84th TR Battalion at Clipstone Camp.  He was probably  in a cohort posted to France on or around the 2nd July.  Unfortunately once in France they went to the MG Base Depot at Camiers and from there posted to where they were needed, so unlike the infantry battalions  there is no reliable pattern of posting.  

 

I imagine he was just eighteen (b.1900?) when he was conscripted the previous year and would have been sent to a Training Reserve Battalion and from there to a home service unit.  Following the losses in France on March 21st (the German Spring Offensive) Parliament authorised the sending abroad of men who were eighteen and a half with six months training in the UK. 

Arguably it was these young conscripts led by experienced officers and veterans who carried the Allies to victory in the last 100 days of the conflict.

 

Ken

 

 

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