William Fredrick Diffell

[Shellbe]

Hi all I am looking for any information on Pte William Frederick Diffell- 8173.

2nd Bn Wiltshire Regiment. Killed March 29th 1915. I believe he was a POW but this info is all I know, I know his parents but nothing about his service or why he is buried in Germany.

any information is greatly appreciated.

regards

shelley

[Mark1959]

Died Gottingen, Germany as POW.  originally there but later moved to where he now rests.

 

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/903246/diffell,-/

 

POW records from ICRC 

https://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/File/Details/3440851/3/2/

do not add a lot apart from he was captured at Ypres.

Went overseas on 7/10/1914. This is when the 2nd Battalion Wilts landed at Zeebrugge.

Entitled to 1914 Star and Clasp, British War and Victory Medals

Edited 5 January , 2019 by Mark1959

[Shellbe]

Thanks so much for your quick reply..  I don't understand what the card is saying, so he was captured by the Germans and died a POW.? Sorry I'm not very clued up hence me turning to the experts on this site.

regard

shelley

thanks so much for the added bit of info, it brings a name to life for me (Genealogy geek that I am🙄)

Edited 6 January , 2019 by Shellbe

[jonbem]

can't see a Diffell here

https://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/File/Search#/3/2/224/0/British and Commonwealth/Military/Diffell

regards

Jon

[PRC]

If you follow the link in post 2 to the International Red Cross webpage for William you'll see three PA references. If you put them into the search box beside the card:-

 

PA871 simply tells you he was captured at Ypres.

PA2018 advises he died of tuberculosis in the Camp Lazarette (Hospital) at Munster, Gottingen

PA2257 repeats much of PA2018 under the header which my schoolboy German translates as buried at Gottingen.

 

Post war the decision was taken to concentrate all the graves throughout Germany into four major war cemeteries.

 

If you then look at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission webpage for William and scroll down you'll see three tabs - the middle one of which is titled "Concentration". This shows he was moved to Niederzweheren in the late autumn of 1923.

 

Hope that helps,

Peter

[jonbem]

damn predictive text, should've been "can"

[Langdon]

Looks like he enlisted in 1908 - see this useful Army Service Numbers site here. This tallies with the 1911 Census where aged 20 he's at the Portobello Barracks in Dublin where the 2nd Battalion was stationed. Also #8188 Henry Poole enlisted in August 1908 (Ancestry service records).

The 2nd Battalion had 450 men and 12 officers captured at Reutel in October 1914.

 

Mike

Edited 6 January , 2019 by Langdon

[PRC]

The page of the report received from the German authorities that the IRC have recorded as PA871 contains a number of other Wilts Regiment men. The report was received by the IRC on the 30th December 1914, (date stamp at the top of the page).

 

Sergeant Major George Dale, captured Reutal.

Corporal Isaac Daneels, 1st Battalion, captured Zonnebeke

Private Charley Dash, captured Reutal

Private Arthur Dasch, captured Ypres

Private Thomas Davies, “R. Wiltshire”, captured Zonnebeke

Private Charly Dickson, captured Ypres

Corporal Robert Dinning, “R. Wiltshire”, captured Zonnebeke

Private Raymond Dixon, “R. Wilts. Fus”, captured Reutal.

 

The pages immediately before or after it are either administrative or in a different format. You have to go to page PA868, (scroll up from PA871), to get to the another part of the list.

 

Private George Drapper, captured Ypres

Private William Drew, captured Reutal

Private Thomas Drew. “2 Wilts Regt”, captured Ypres

Private Edward Drewett, captured Ypres

Corporal Harry Drewett, captured Reutal

Private James Driscoll, captured Zonnebeke

Private William Drun, “2 Wilts Regt.”, captured Ypres

Private Thomas Duk, Armentieres

 

So there seems to be a distinction between men captured at Reutal and men captured at Ypres, although this may simply be caused by them being captured by different units.

 

The men captured at Zonnebeke were all probably 1st Battalion men and so can be discounted.

 

Of the men captured at Ypres:-

 

Private 8736 Arthur Dash, (not Dasch), C. Company, was captured 24th October 1914.

Private 9289 Thomas Drew, D Company, was captured 24th October 1914.

Private 7470 Edward Drewett, B Company, was captured 24th October 1914

 

The others I either couldn’t find a match for or all the IRC has is the original report.

 

The 24th is the day the Battalion was over-run at Beselare, to the east of Reutal, which leads me to think the distinction is simply between who they were captured by.

 

See the Great War Forum here for more information.

Cheers,

 

Peter

[Shellbe]

21 hours ago, PRC said:

 

WOW so much information thank you so much.. so he died of TB at the hospital? Would he still be POW when he died? Why was his grave moved in 1923?

all this hard work is very much appreciated.

regards

shellbe

[PRC]

34 minutes ago, Shellbe said:

WOW so much information thank you so much.. so he died of TB at the hospital? Would he still be POW when he died? Why was his grave moved in 1923?

all this hard work is very much appreciated.

regards

shellbe

 

My German isn't brilliant but looks like he died of Tuberculosis in the Hospital attached to the Prisoner of War Camp and he was most definately a Prisoner of War.

 

Post War the newly created Imperial War Graves Commission took from the Army, Navy and Air Force the responsibility for maintaining War Graves in perpetuity and the creation of permanent memorials to those who had died and who had no known graves. A number of decisions were taken, driven both by cost and practical considerations, to consolidate many of the known graves into a smaller number of cemeteries.  It was also taken into account where cemeteries could be expanded to bury those men recovered from the battlefield or small \ hard to maintain cemeteries.

 

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is the successor to the Imperial War Graves Commission, and their website has this to say about the history of the cemetery.

 

The cemetery was begun by the Germans in 1915 for the burial of prisoners of war who died at the local camp. During the war almost 3,000 Allied soldiers and civilians, including French, Russian and Commonwealth, were buried there. In 1922-23 it was decided that the graves of Commonwealth servicemen who had died all over Germany should be brought together into four permanent cemeteries. Niederzwehren was one of those chosen and in the following four years, more than 1,500 graves were brought into the cemetery from 190 burial grounds in Baden, Bavaria, Hanover, Hesse and Saxony. There are now 1,796 First World War servicemen buried or commemorated in the Commonwealth plot at Niederzwehren. This total includes special memorials to 13 casualties buried in other cemeteries in Germany whose graves could not be found.

 

It goes on to list significant German cemeteries where bodies were recovered and includes:

 

GOTTINGEN MILITARY CEMETERY, Hanover. 88 burials of 1914-1919.

 

Source: https://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/91502/niederzwehren-cemetery,-kassel/

 

Hope that helps,

Peter

 

[Shellbe]

That is amazing thank you so much, when some people say I lost an ancestor in the war people automatically think shot or blown up, as sad as the facts are they need to be discovered and told, keep the persons memory alive. I wonder how many of th 2nd Bn died like pt Diffell, was the full 2nd Bn captured do you think ? Really appreciate all your hard work on that information, thank you very much.

regards

shellbe

PS: can you recommend a place to search for a photo of him maybe?

[PRC]

On 06/01/2019 at 23:52, Shellbe said:

That is amazing thank you so much, when some people say I lost an ancestor in the war people automatically think shot or blown up, as sad as the facts are they need to be discovered and told, keep the persons memory alive. I wonder how many of th 2nd Bn died like pt Diffell, was the full 2nd Bn captured do you think ?

 

It looks like his time in a Theatre of War as a combatant starts with him landing at Zeebrugge on the 7th October 1914 and ends with his capture near Reutal on the 24th.

 

The Battalion War Diary shows that after landing at Zeebrugge they moved on to Ostend and seemed to have formal billets \ barracks until they marched out on the 13th. After that and up until the fatal day they seemed to have spent their time in trenches.

https://www.thewardrobe.org.uk/research/war-diaries/search/regiment:11/month:10/year:1914

 

The next bit is speculation, based on men I’ve researched from the Norfolk Regiment. I can’t guarantee that the experience is comparable.

 

A small but significant number of 1st Norfolk men who went out to France in August 1914 would subsequently die from tuberculosis. Some had survived the fighting of the autumn of 1914 and the winter of 1914/15 but were then medically discharged in 1915. Their condition was put down to the cold and damp nature of the campaigning they had endured during that period, with reference being made to the sort of the accommodation that the fighting had forced upon them. Letters home from the soldiers talked of turning animals out from barns so they could sleep dead tired on the warm straw they had just vacated. I don’t know how endemic bovine tuberculosis was in northern France at the time, but that must be considered a possible source of the infection. The Medical boards were normally quite thorough in investigating pre-existing causes, (there is usually a reference to whether other family members had TB\Consumption\Phthisis or had died from it) but disability was usually confirmed as 100% caused and aggravated by active service "in the current conflict".

 

Of men that were captured there was talk of being held in such barns for several days with no heating, proper bedding and little in the way of food. Some of these men would later die from TB in PoW camps.

 

As there is nothing in the War Diary of the 2nd Wiltshires that mentions such sleeping arrangement, it’s possible that it’s where they were held after capture that was the issue. Of course the War Diary doesn’t go into great detail, so a farm building may have been used as a headquarters \ medical aid post \ cookhouse \ strongpoint, etc,etc.

 

Of course if he didn’t contract it then, he would have been in close confinement on the train and subsequently in a PoW camp to men who had been exposed.

 

While it’s possible he could have gone out there with TB, I think it’s unlikely.

 

As a pre-war regular who enlisted in 1908 its very likely he was still in the colours at the time of the outbreak of the war. The standard enlistment term was seven years in the colours, (i.e. in uniform serving in a military unit) and five years in the reserves. Other options were available or a man could buy himself out or he could be discharged on grounds of ill-health or discipline.

 

He could possibly have been a returning reservist. The reservist would have been in work in “civy street” and either that or his accommodation could have left him exposed to the tuberculosis bacilli.

 

It’s unlikely a serving man would have diagnosed tuberculosis before he went overseas – most likely he would have been isolated and in hospital. 

 

It would seem very probable then that his TB is as a direct result of going to war rather than separate to it

 

I’ll come back later on your photograph query,

 

Cheers,

Peter

[Shellbe]

What a fascinating read, thank you so much, your knowledge is unbelievable, you should write a book or have your own website. 

Thank you again for enabling me to get to know this young man.

regards

shellbe