Samuel Cecil Thomas Everett - Driver Royal Field Artillery

[Paul E]

Samuel was my first cousin and I have just discovered on-line his Army service record. It states that he joined the Royal Field Artillery Special Reserve in February 1911 as a Driver. He was then mobilised and sent to France on August 20th 1914 and seems to have stayed there until May 13th 1919, and finally discharged in March 1920. So he seems to have served from soon after the outbreak of WW1 to well after it's end. His record says he was a Driver with the 3rd Divisonal Armoured Column - Royal Field Artillery, but not much else, which is not a lot to go on for over 9 years in the RFA including almost the entirety of WW1. I would like to try and find out a bit more about his service, can anyone help at all or point me in the right direction? I imagine he would have been driving ammunition up to the RFA Brigades and so presumably well out of harms way, but this is only a guess. I also have seen that Driver might also mean driving teams of horses that pulled the guns, so that could perhaps be more accurate. 

Thanks

Paul 

Edited 14 August , 2019 by Paul E
amendment

[daggers]

I think it would be ‘Ammunition’ rather than ‘Armoured’, and horse transport is most likely.

Others with more knowledge should be able to add more.

D

[Paul E]

Thanks for the response, yes you are right it is Ammunition. On the medal card it said DAC and when I looked that up I misread it. 

His Regimental Number was 11666, if that can help in any way. 

Paul

[MaxD]

Daggers is absolutely right.  It was 3rd Division Ammunition Column (DAC) (you got that) and as a driver his main employment would have been with the horses.

 

Good entry on Wiki here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammunition_column

 

War diary at the National Archives:

 

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7352041

Also on Ancestry:

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interactive/60779/43849_1123_5-00060?pid=713924&backurl=https://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc%3DMvA6534%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource%26usePUBJs%3Dtrue%26indiv%3D1%26dbid%3D60779%26cp%3D0%26gskw%3D1123/5%26new%3D1%26rank%3D1%26uidh%3D6x5%26redir%3Dfalse%26msT%3D1%26gss%3Dangs-d%26pcat%3D39%26fh%3D16%26h%3D713924%26recoff%3D%26ml_rpos%3D17&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=MvA6534&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&_ga=2.162034620.125922551.1564332464-1555101898.1539262208#?imageId=43112_1402_0-00000

 

You may change your mind about "not much else" when you read the diary in the context of the war.

 

Max

 

 

[Paul E]

Thanks MacD, I am reading through the War Diary now. Thanks so much for pointing me in the right direction for it. 

I don't know how he lasted over 4 years doing that, with only two short periods of home leave. His worst injury seems to be a bang to the left knee when he was thrown out of the "box of P.S.Wagon" (whatever that is) due to the roughness of the ground, but the doctor described the injury as trivial. 

Thanks again

Paul 

 

[Ron Clifton]

It is probably G S Wagon - General Service. The box is the driver's seat at the front.

 

Ron

[MaxD]

Yes, badly written G on his record.  Perhaps noteworthy that he went though with a totally clean conduct sheet.  One of the many small cogs in a very large wheel whose contribution, while not involving closing with the enemy, rifle in one hand, grenade bomb in the other and bayonet in his teeth, was valuable in a different way.

 

Max

[Paul E]

Thanks Ron and MaxD. Yes a small cog but looking at the War Diary just making it through over 4 years with all those battles was some achievement. 

His papers refer to SAA as being his Unit, which I am taking to mean Small Arms Ammunition, meaning pistols, rifles and machine gun ammunition. 

I found this on a post back in 2013:

 

"Each section would have supplied ammunition to one of the 3rd Division Brigades as you know,.. on the 1915 establishment 3rd section would have had 57 GS wagons/vehicles carrying 18 pounder ammunition and 21 carrying small arms ammunition.. with 3 'drivers' per wagon.. and 342 horses for 57 wagons.. I think 3rd section/3rd DAC worked with 42nd Brigade RFA, and 9th Infantry Brigade.. but that would need to be confirmed [and would have changed later..]. The DACs were reorganised in May 1916 as the brigades lost their own Brigade Ammunition Columns and men were posted to the DAC [and spare men from DACs used elsewhere..].

each RFA brigade has its own war diary, as does 3rd DAC.. although often not very informative [lists of ammunition shifted... are common..]"

 

Thanks for the help with this. I see he was listed as a Tea Stacker in civilian life, I think I need to find out what that was now!

Paul

 

[MaxD]

Apropos of nothing really, the DAC entrained at Amesbury station for Southampton, now the site of our local, 200 yards local to me, Tesco*!

 

Max

 

*He didn't stack tea there that's for sure.

[David26]

And just to add to the excellent information already provided by daggers, MaxD and Ron Clifton - when Samuel left France in May 1919 he would have returned and been demobilised so would have handed in his uniform and returned to his home.  Like all such soldiers he was retained in the Reserves just in case the peace broke down but when it became apparent that the peace had held, they were all formally discharged in 1920 and so released from the risk of being recalled. 

 

David.