My Great Grandad.

[clk]

Hi,

 

As previous mentioned the image quality is far better on Findmypast.

 

 

Depending on which line you're trying to read, it either says...transferred to Guards Division Base Depot, or transferred to 5th (Reserve) Battalion, London.

 

Regards

Chris

[Guest]

14 hours ago, clk said:

Hi,

 

As previous mentioned the image quality is far better on Findmypast.

 

 

Depending on which line you're trying to read, it either says...transferred to Guards Division Base Depot, or transferred to 5th (Reserve) Battalion, London.

 

Regards

Chris

Ah, thats much clearer thanks!

[Guest]

Hi again people. Thanks for the help last time. Can anyone confirm which battle he was at? I thought Ypres, but all of what i've read about him says gassed france 1918.

Edited 12 August , 2019 by Guest

[clk]

Hi Steve,

 

1 hour ago, Steve_1975 said:

Can anyone confirm which battle he was at? I thought Ypres, but all of what i've read about him says gassed france 1918

 

on 1st May 1918, the 4/GGs were part of 31 Division. The battles that the Division was involved in can be seen on the LLT here. After the war a committee was set up which officially named battles, and the dates that they started  and finished. Clearly fighting continued throughout the war, but on 1st May 1918, there wasn't an official battle in progress, The nearest you get is the 29th April -  "Battle of Scherpenberg. Battles of the Lys end. German offensive in  Flanders ends.".

 

The Battalion war diary (here at the National Archives, or here on Ancestry) says that the Battalion was based in/near Hondeghem (France) on 1st May. Most of the men were in training, but 200 men and 3 officers formed a fatigue party that was sent to work on the defences at Hazebrouck. Archive.org has the volumes of "The Grenadier Guards in the Great War of 1914-1918" (published in the early 1920's) as free downloads.

 

Regards

Chris

 

 

 

 

[kenf48]

1 hour ago, Steve_1975 said:

Hi again people. Thanks for the help last time. Can anyone confirm which battle he was at? I thought Ypres, but all of what i've read about him says gassed france 1918.

 

He was not in a battle when gassed.

 

He arrived at the Battalion just before the Battle of the Lys, the diary for April has extensive narrative accounts for the fierce actions in which he was involved in April.

 

See also https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/battles/battles-of-the-western-front-in-france-and-flanders/the-battles-of-the-lys-1918/

 

As Chris has posted (!) The war diary shows they were out of the line on the 1st May in billets at Hondeghem where they had been since the 27th April. They were the Corps Reserve.  The diary states that on the 1st May a fatigue party of 200 men were sent to work on the ’Hazebrouck Defences’.  No casualties are shown but we can only assume he was gassed while working on those Defences.

 

Ken

[Guest]

11 hours ago, kenf48 said:

 

He was not in a battle when gassed.

 

He arrived at the Battalion just before the Battle of the Lys, the diary for April has extensive narrative accounts for the fierce actions in which he was involved in April.

 

See also https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/battles/battles-of-the-western-front-in-france-and-flanders/the-battles-of-the-lys-1918/

 

As Chris has posted (!) The war diary shows they were out of the line on the 1st May in billets at Hondeghem where they had been since the 27th April. They were the Corps Reserve.  The diary states that on the 1st May a fatigue party of 200 men were sent to work on the ’Hazebrouck Defences’.  No casualties are shown but we can only assume he was gassed while working on those Defences.

 

Ken

So maybe a shell came over? Or it was an accident, and a shell exploded that was being stored by him?

Edited 13 August , 2019 by Guest

[kenf48]

1 hour ago, Steve_1975 said:

So maybe a shell came over? Or it was an accident, and a shell exploded that was being stored by him?

 

I doubt we will ever know for certain. I believe one of the problems with mustard gas was that it was persistent in water and other surfaces it touched, the implications for men working on sites where it had been used just a few days before are obvious.  Equally it could have been the working parties, or the billets, were subject to artillery fire.  The former seems more likely as there is no mention of the latter in the diary.  The 95 FA diary does not record any casualties admitted on the 1st May, but they too were stationed at Hondeghem on that day.  Generally speaking a bit of desultory shelling by the enemy rarely gets a mention in the war diary being so commonplace on the Western Front as to be routine, causing a steady flow of casualties and each one of those an individual tragedy.

 

Ken

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, kenf48 said:

 

I doubt we will ever know for certain. I believe one of the problems with mustard gas was that it was persistent in water and other surfaces it touched, the implications for men working on sites where it had been used just a few days before are obvious.  Equally it could have been the working parties, or the billets, were subject to artillery fire.  The former seems more likely as there is no mention of the latter in the diary.  The 95 FA diary does not record any casualties admitted on the 1st May, but they too were stationed at Hondeghem on that day.  Generally speaking a bit of desultory shelling by the enemy rarely gets a mention in the war diary being so commonplace on the Western Front as to be routine, causing a steady flow of casualties and each one of those an individual tragedy.

 

Ken

Thanks very much Ken. As you say we may never know!

[Guest]

Can anyone make any of this out??

[IPT]

I'll have a stab in the dark;

 

Gas poisoning shell - Dullness to percussion over lungs

                                 Conjunctivitis - ?????? (Could be something like discharged to to Field something 2)

Influenza - Recovered, discharged to duty