U.S. Army unit abbreviated as F.A.N.A.

[Keith_history_buff]

I have come across an American officer, Henry Grafton Chapman, and his unit is F.A.N.A.

He has a background in artillery, having enlisted in the CEF as a Gunner. I have been guessing at Field Artillery Not Attached or Field Artillery National Army. He is recorded as a "casual officer" and is understood to have been attached to a railway engineering unit in France.

The abbreviation appears in the following edition of "The Field Artillery Journal"

http://sill-www.army.mil/firesbulletin/archives/1918/JUL_SEP_1918/JUL_SEP_1918_FULL_EDITION.pdf

 

Is it akin to a British Officer being on the General List, and therefore not on the establishment of a given unit at that point in time?

Thanks, Keith

[4thGordons]

Field Artillery National Army would have been my guess.

 

"National Army" was used as a designation for units made up primarily of drafted/conscripted men, as opposed to Regular Army or National Guard (NG).

Chris

[Keith_history_buff]

Many thanks for the pointer.

There are two sources of data for the above info, both via Ancestry:
 

U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939
Henry G Chapman

Departure Date: 13/01/1918 Departure Place: Hoboken, New Jersey Address: 16 Exchance Place Residence Place: New York, New York Next of Kin: W Kintzing

 

New York, Abstracts of World War I Military Service, 1917-1919 

Name: Henry Gafton[sic] Chapman 
Birth Place: New York City, New York Birth Date: 16 Jul 1888  Appointed: 1st Lt FA 22-Aug-1917 from CL

[4thGordons]

I have seen the term "casual" applied to replacements in the US context (particularly common very late in the war after some divisions had been skeletonized and turned into replacement units). That would seem to fit here.

I must admit I am more familiar with the situation for other ranks than I am officers.

 

You might check the NY State records NY has pretty good archives. (many state archives survive - the federal records, largely, do not)

Chris

Edited 12 December , 2018 by 4thGordons

[Keith_history_buff]

I came across the "casual" description on another man who stayed in the army, and was sent to the Hawaii garrison in 1923.

In the Napoleonic Wars, I have come across the French "Régiments de Marche" or "Battalion de Marche". They would be sent from a garrison to an outpost, and usually be dissolved, their men being used as reinforcements and broken up among several units.

 

From what I have seen of the French in WW1, there are  "Régiments de Marche" or "Battalion de Marche", but they seem to remain intact, and are formations raised solely for the duration of the war, in the same manner that the 29th - 34th Battalions of the London Regiment were not going to continue after the cessation of hostilities.

The "casual" term seems to be similar to the second paragraph above.

[Keith_history_buff]

An interesting list for future reference, which would appear to confirm F.A. and N.A. abbreviations
https://ncarchives.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/ncwwiservicecards_abbrvlist.pdf
 

Today's discovery has been that on Fold 3, "New York State Adjutant General Reports" are free, and contain short career summaries. Of interest to me has been Clarence Stewart Martin, who published the following title in 1935: "Three Quarters of a Century with the Tenth Infantry New York National Guard 1860-1935"

here's the link to that particular dataset
https://www.fold3.com/search/#query=Clarence+Martin&t=823

 

The search was able to show me his name in the index, and I manually navigated from there to the pertinent page
https://www.fold3.com/image/301281024

This is a different man to the one I had been researching with the F.A.M.A. initials.