9th Gordon Regiment (A company)? pioneer batalion

[kenf48]

5 hours ago, Von said:

 

 

 

Having now looked the the A&SH diary - which is hard to read and not as detailed  - it appears that 100 + men joined them in the first week or two of August but there were concerns mentioned that many of them were poorly trained. It is clear from their diary that the A&SH were being heavily utilised for front line offensives at the time and although there is no specific mention of it, it may be reasonable to assume that the less prepared men were moved to the 9th Gordons for pioneer work. I would assume that a less well trained serviceman would be more of a risk if there was no time to train them to the required standard. Is this reasonable to assume???

 

Reading on in the diary for the 9th Gordons into the September it would seem that the pioneers were sometimes utilised on the front line to temporarily hold positions during offensives while the other troops moved forward. But most of the work seems to have been road maintenance and trench digging/maintenance, often in very difficult situations. There is a lot of detail about what they did and exactly where, including when and were they moved camp and the schedule for breakfast, cleaning the billets, rout and order of march. It really is fascinating. 

 

I am also struggling to work out which service man you were able to locate the service record for - I can't seem to find the service record for any of the men who were transferred to the Gordons at the same time.

 

 

 

The service record of S/41336 T Dick is extant an on FMP. 

 

It shows, as noted above,  this draft from the 3rd Bn A & SH embarked Folkestone on 30 July 1917 and disembarked Boulogne the same day. From there they probably entrained to 19 IBD at Etaples arriving on the 31st.  Pte Dick's record shows they were posted to the 11th Battalion in the U.K.  The IBD was where men were put through arduous further training to assess their fitness for trench warfare.  It was also very common for men to be transferred to other units at the IBD, Pte Dick's record shows he was posted to the 9th Gordons as above on the 12th August, joining them in the field on the fifteenth.  He never served in the field with the 11th Battalion A & SH and I doubt you gfather did either.  Incidentally Pte Dick's record shows he was a late Derby Scheme entrant having attested in December 1915.

 

Your gfather was fortunate to be in hospital when the Germans attacked on the 28th March when the Battalion suffered a number of casualties.  Later in the year, in July the Battalion was commended for its actions in the front line at Buzancy.  This was a period of open warfare.  Not for the first time the diary notes 'all ranks were really  disappointed to hear the attack was to be postponed and the battalion relieved without a fight".

 

Ken

[RussT]

5 hours ago, Von said:

 

Hi Russ,

 

Given the help you all gave me yesterday I just wanted to keep you updated and ask a couple more questions.

 

Having now looked the the A&SH diary - which is hard to read and not as detailed  - it appears that 100 + men joined them in the first week or two of August but there were concerns mentioned that many of them were poorly trained. It is clear from their diary that the A&SH were being heavily utilised for front line offensives at the time and although there is no specific mention of it, it may be reasonable to assume that the less prepared men were moved to the 9th Gordons for pioneer work. I would assume that a less well trained serviceman would be more of a risk if there was no time to train them to the required standard. Is this reasonable to assume???

I wouldn't necessarily conclude that. A Pioneer Battalion was first and foremost a fighting unit - they would normally have very fit men with some labouring or other relevant skill - they were tough and hardy given their role. Their insignia comprised the crossed pick and rifle. I would certainly recommend the book mentioned by Ken above "Pioneer Battalions in the Great War" by K W Mitchinson. The 9/GH get numerous mentions as do many other of these oft under-recognised units. I would suggest that typically the men would be hardier than an average infantryman - but I don't think they would be trained in the detailed methods of infantry attack for example

 

As you note below, they were often called upon to hold the line.

 

Also during this time in the war, just a few months of training was typical - so fighting units normally received men with relatively little training and those units could ill afford to be choosy. That was one reason why men had a couple of final intense training weeks at an IBD.

 

5 hours ago, Von said:

Reading on in the diary for the 9th Gordons into the September it would seem that the pioneers were sometimes utilised on the front line to temporarily hold positions during offensives while the other troops moved forward. But most of the work seems to have been road maintenance and trench digging/maintenance, often in very difficult situations. There is a lot of detail about what they did and exactly where, including when and were they moved camp and the schedule for breakfast, cleaning the billets, rout and order of march. It really is fascinating.

 

Make sure you look at the Divisional war diaries as they can give the bigger picture and show how the Pioneer Bn deployed with the Brigades. That is something else to bear in mind - a division had 3 brigades each with 4 battalions and they would be continually rotating in and then out of the line for rest. But a division only had one pioneer battalion - so they would always be on the go !

 

5 hours ago, Von said:

 

I am also struggling to work out which service man you were able to locate the service record for - I can't seem to find the service record for any of the men who were transferred to the Gordons at the same time.

 

 

 

I search for records on FindMyPast rather than Ancestry, which evidently have a much poorer index and search engine. In principle the records below should be on Ancestry but you might need to search harder, perhaps just on name only. If you have FMP, then the below should be relatively easy to find - let me know if you have a difficulty and I can provide links.

 

Out the list of men in this draft, the only men I can find who have a surviving service record are:

 

S/41329 John Brown

S/41336 Thomas Dick

S/41345 Colin Hunter

S/41358 Thomas Scobie

S/41359 Robert Taylor

 

A quick look at the records of the above men shows them to have a variety of ages and pre-war occupations (e.g. miner), and nothing to suggest they were somehow medically inferior.

 

It is interesting to note that the above five men were the only men from this draft to have died during the conflict. That is something oft noticed in service records - one finds records predominately from either the survivors or from the fallen - indicating that the records were stored in different parts of the archive at the time it was damaged.

 

Incidentally, looking at the records again shows that the men embarked Folkstone and disembarked Boulogne on 30/07/1917 and joined the 19th Infantry Base Depot, Etaples on 31/07/1917.

 

The list of men goes from S/41328 to S/41365, which is 38 numbers but there is only 37 men on the list. The reason is because S/41346 James Henderson is missing from the list. I'm not sure whether that is a typo or because he arrived later - his medal roll does show he joined the 9/GH. You might want to look out for him in the war diary !

 

 

 

Regards

 

Russ

 

[Von]

Thank you,

 

Yes I have been searching on Ancestry but have a subscription to FMP at the moment too so will try on there. It’s strange how different search engines work better for different collections. I usually find FMP throws up too many red herrings, Ancestry can be searched much more specifically, but that’s probably too restrictive for these diaries.

 

I see your point regarding the Pioneers, I guess that’s what I meant that they may be less skilled infantry men but may be assessed as more skilled for a different roll. My grandfather was a builders labourer and also worked on roads so I can see why he might have been chosen to work with the pioneers.

 

I have so much to go on and look into, I will let you know how I get on. I’m somehow going to have to write this up into a story with maps to keep. It’s quite a project for me. 

 

Thank you again,

 

Von

 

[Von]

On 19/08/2019 at 19:53, MaxD said:

Next level takes the trench map and compares it with today's aerial images. t mapper or NLS maps side by side (my favourite).  then Google maps or similar and mark up the positions on todays map (but you are probably there already!).

 

Max

 

Not quite Max but I will get there.. 

[Von]

On 19/08/2019 at 21:04, kenf48 said:

 

The service record of S/41336 T Dick is extant an on FMP. 

 

It shows, as noted above,  this draft from the 3rd Bn A & SH embarked Folkestone on 30 July 1917 and disembarked Boulogne the same day. From there they probably entrained to 19 IBD at Etaples arriving on the 31st.  Pte Dick's record shows they were posted to the 11th Battalion in the U.K.  The IBD was where men were put through arduous further training to assess their fitness for trench warfare.  It was also very common for men to be transferred to other units at the IBD, Pte Dick's record shows he was posted to the 9th Gordons as above on the 12th August, joining them in the field on the fifteenth.  He never served in the field with the 11th Battalion A & SH and I doubt you gfather did either.  Incidentally Pte Dick's record shows he was a late Derby Scheme entrant having attested in December 1915.

 

Your gfather was fortunate to be in hospital when the Germans attacked on the 28th March when the Battalion suffered a number of casualties.  Later in the year, in July the Battalion was commended for its actions in the front line at Buzancy.  This was a period of open warfare.  Not for the first time the diary notes 'all ranks were really  disappointed to hear the attack was to be postponed and the battalion relieved without a fight".

 

Ken

 

Blimey Ken, you are all too good at this.

thank you for checking this out.

I'm glad he was in hospital or else I might not have been here.

BW

Von