S/Sgt J.E.M Brunskill RAMC - was he a Turkish POW ?

[davidbohl]

I researched one of our players a few years ago S/Sgt John Edmund Moss BRUNSKILL RAMC #1409 and created a webpage for him http://www.seftonrugby.org.uk/BrunskillJEM.html

A family member in the USA contacted me today and said he was a Turkish POW for 9 months, I have had little success in finding any records of this, do any exist please ?

There is a J.Brunskill in the UK, British Officer Prisoners of War, 1914-1918

Name:	J Brunskill
Rank:	Major
Regiment:	Royal Army Medical Corps
Date Missing:	12 Sep 1914
Repatriation Date:	29 Jun 1915
Record Number:	5265
Section:	Western Theatre of Operations.

 

Many Thanks

Dave

Edited 26 December , 2019 by davidbohl
update link

[Guest]

Hi DB-   he is well covered  on the RAMC in the Great War website. I post a copy of  his entry ,with a Thanks to the site-which I have always found excellent.

 

RAMC profile of: John Handfield BRUNSKILL M.B., B.Ch.
	<a href="http://www.ramc-ww1.com/images/noprofile.jpg BRUNSKILL M.B., B.Ch." target="_blank"><img src="images/noprofile.jpg" border="0" alt="John Handfield BRUNSKILL M.B., B.Ch." title=" John Handfield BRUNSKILL M.B., B.Ch. " width="227" height="300"><br>Click to enlarge</a>   Place or Date of Birth: Rathmines, Dublin on the 17th April 1875 Service Number:   TF Number:   Rank: Lt/Col Unit:   Attached To: Staff = D.A.D.M.S. - 5th Division Enlistment Location:   Also Served: Various - see below Outcome: Continued to serve after the war Date Died: 21/7/1940 Age Died: 65 Where Buried and/or Commemorated: Kingston upon Thames Awards: MiDx4, DSO; OBE Gazette Reference: 17/2/1915, 15/6/1916, 4/1/1917, 30/4/1919; 1/1/1917; 3/3/1919.
	Other Information: John was a student at Trinity College, Dublin and played for Dublin in cricket at county level, scoring 25 and 58 when Dublin beat the MCC on tour in 1895. He gained a commission in the Medical Services, at the rank of Lieutenant, on 29th November 1900, then went to West Africa 1901-1903, gaining promotion to Captain on 29th November 1903. He was then posted to India 1905 - 1909. On 29th August 1912, John was promoted to the rank of Major, and was serving under this rank when war broke out. He embarked for France on the 9th August 1914, as Deputy Assistant Director for Medical services for the 5th Division. On 26th August 1914, he was in the village of Reumont, which was under heavy shell-fire. Shells smashed into the roofs of houses and onto the roof of the church where the wounded were being treated, and so orders were issued for the field ambulance there to retire with its wounded. Unfortunately there were only two ambulance wagons available at the time. These wagons were loaded to full capacity, then John, along with two other R.A.M.C. officers remained to care for and transfer to German hands the remaining 60 wounded. He stayed there himself until captured and became a prisoner of war. Because of his devotion to duty at this time, John was mentioned in one of the first of the Commander-in-Chief�s despatches. He was repatriated (exchanged) on 29th June 1915, but returned to France the same year. He served under the rank of temporary Lieutenant Colonel from the 23rd September 1915, and became the Officer Commanding No 29 Casualty Clearing Station. He remained with this unit until 1917, when he was transferred to Mesopotamia, and served at Dunsterforce, N. Peria and Norperforce. His post as temporary Lt/Col ceased on 29th October 1917, but he gained full promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on the 28th August 1918. It is believed that he was stationed at the field hospital at Gazincourt at a time when there was a serious train accident and distinguished himself with his courage at dealing with the casualties - for which he was mentioned in dispatches. He married Elizabeth Mabel, the daughter of the late A Robinson, and was a specialist in Bacteriology. John retired on pay on the 27th April 1920 but rejoined the army in 1921 and continued to serve. He was the son of T R Brunskill. [Personal details kindly provided by Lt/Col Brunskill's grandson]

[davidbohl]

Thanks GUEST, so I can discount that record and hope the forum bods can find the Turkish pow record for JEM.

Dave

[Skipman]

Click

 

Mike

[davidbohl]

Good link Mike, thanks

The reverse of the index is dated 17 Nov 1916

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

Hi David- 2 Brunskills, 2 RAMC, 2 POWs and in 2 places-No wonder my brain hurts!!

Sergeant Brunskill, if a POW of the Turks and repatriated should turn up on the Foreign Office correspondence registers, which are printed and available at TNA- there is also a wall full of file cards from FO for the war years. I have found it useful before, so willtry to look him up when I next hobble over there.  There is still a large amount of materials on POws of the Turks in the FO records that seems little used.-  

 

[PRC]

According to report R50074 he was captured during the Battle of Katia, 23rd April 1916.

https://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/List/5811992/708/50074/

 

Summary on wiki here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Katia

 

Hope that helps,

Peter

[Guest]

Yes-that all make sense- The  R report on the POW card is dated 1st September 1916- and he has clearly been put to work at a hospital in Damascus.(or else was wounded /ill and a patient)

 

 

So-we arelooking for a repatriation in the first half of 1917?????  I have had to track other of my casualties who ended up in similar circumstances.  I have a hunch the man will turn up in American records of the Foreign Office-they had a hospital there.

[davidbohl]

The later R50310 record has him 31/10/1916 transferred to Afion-Karahianar which is in Turkey Afyonkarahisar

 

Edited 13 November , 2019 by davidbohl

[charlie962]

There were 2 exchanges of prisoners in 1916. Brunskill was not amongst them.

 

I think there was an exchange planned late 1917 but delayed again and again and didn't happen until 1918. I haven't got my notes in front of me but will look when I get home to see which CasLists they might have been reported in.

 

Charlie

[charlie962]

There was a release of seriously wounded men in Feb 1918 who passed via Constantinople to Switzerland then to England c Feb 1918 but Brunskill not amongst them. I suspect he had to wait for the end of the war like the rest. If you do find a repatriation date for him I would be interested to know.

 

Charlie

 

Edit: there were several other RAMCs taken at Katia. many died in captivity but survivors included

John Cook 1868

William Russell1796

Walter Brown 1546

Frank George Lyon 1998/434060 (who I think was mentioned in Spackman's book)

 

I've tried to see if they have any useful records/links but couldn't see anything.

Edited 14 November , 2019 by charlie962

[PRC]

6 minutes ago, charlie962 said:

There was a release of seriously wounded men in Feb 1918 who passed via Constantinople to Switzerland then to England c Feb 1918 but Brunskill not amongst them. I suspect he had to wait for the end of the war like the rest.

 

Charlie,

 

Coming at it from another couple of angles - is there anything on the medical personnel side for the camp at Afion - Karahissar that might relate. As an RAMC senior NCO he is unlikely to have just been dumped in the general populace.

 

Also the OP was that he was a POW of the Turks for 9 months. Given a date of capture of the 23rd April 1916 that would tend to suggest a release date of January 1917 - although that might include travel time back to the UK depending on where he was released to, (Switzerland?). Are the lists you have seen of everyone - including accompanying medical personnel - or just the wounded who presumably had to give their promisee not to return to the fight.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[charlie962]

Peter,

My lists are compiled rather piecemeal. As you know, Turkish record keeping was low priority! So I gather bits here and there and try to make sense. The big archive I've not seen is the FO files that GUEST refers to. A number of pages are on FindmyPast but the majority is not on line. I am always looking for new sources.

 

Col Spackman's book gives a good idea of the frustrations of the medical men who were expecting early repatriation which didn't materialise for the majority.

 

I started a thread on the 1916 exchanges here. There were two and both were carried out by sending the men down the Tigris.

 

I am only aware of the Jan/Feb 1918 release as the next one and this was done via Switzerland as I said above. It was part of the 'Berne Agreement' undertakings but was delayed repeatedly. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

So I am puzzled  by the idea that Brunskill was PoW for 9 months ?

 

Charlie

 

[PRC]

Charlie,

 

No worries - it was just a thought and I never know what random gems you might have filed away. I realise Colonel Spackman's book probably wouldn't have added anything but just wondered if Brunskill might have turned up as a signatory for a notification of death, etc at Afion which would definately then place him at the camp on a given date.

 

BTW - I tried looking at the list of contents in FO383/452 to see if any of the documents mentioning Afion were available via Google search, but struck out. However I noted there was one document that did appear to reference at least one of the medical men at the camp:-

 

Letter from K S Abdul Kayam, assistant surgeon and prisoner at Afion Kara Hissar, complaining of inadequacy of income to cover basic subsistence.

(I can't find an ICRC card for that name).

 

Thanks for looking.

 

1 hour ago, charlie962 said:

So I am puzzled  by the idea that Brunskill was PoW for 9 months ?

 

Me too ! Might be the sort of thing that made the local press if someone has British Newspaper Archive access.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[davidbohl]

Peter/Charlie, thanks ever so much for persevering with this one, JEM's grandson has quoted "He was captured by the Turks at Gallipoli and he was a POW for about nine months until the English worked out a deal for release". He did speak to his grandfather and got a bit more out of him as the whisky went down, so it may be close to the truth.

As a side track the Red Cross document had his address as "The Nook, Victoria Park, Wavertree", the grand building still exists and looks like separate flats now.

Thanks

Dave

 

[PRC]

1 hour ago, davidbohl said:

JEM's grandson has quoted "He was captured by the Turks at Gallipoli

 

Which is where family legend meets cold harsh reality. He wasn't captured at Gallipoli - the last Allied troops had left the peninsula over three months before he was captured.

 

He was captured in the Sinai desert, most likely when the units his field ambulance were supporting were over-run in an action that did little to enhance the reputation of the British Yeomanry with either the Regular Army or the Colonials who had to step in to save the situation.

 

The "nine months" may be true, but once the source becomes suspect then an extra level of checking needs to be applied to try to weed out Chinese whispers and false conclusions - he was captured by the Turks so it must have been at Gallipoli - that may have crept in over the years.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[charlie962]

5 hours ago, PRC said:

K S Abdul Kayam

I think this is Sayad Abdul Rayim, Sub assistant surgeon,57th Ind Stat Hosp. He appears on sheet R50170 and was taken at Kut.

 

The indians often appear on the sheets but rarely in the index that is on ICRC. Whether there is another 'indian' index not yet digitised at ICRC or whether they didn't bother (??) I would not know.

Edited 14 November , 2019 by charlie962

[charlie962]

The NLS Casualty Lists run into 1919 and include poW repatriations. I've ploughed through RAMC listings and look what I found:

[charlie962]

Might be worth looking at Brawn (sometimes Brown !) Service File. Taken Katia; Originally reported DoW but corrected.

Shows how some had a slow route home:

 

Looks like evacuated Turkey on HMT Thesus 3/12/18 ? (should this be 13/12/18?)

 

Charlie

 

Edit I wonder if this is HMS Theseus who left Constantinople 13/12/18 (the date his svc record says he ceased to be a pow)

She went to Batum in the Black Sea so must just be a coincidence ??  ...or is it ?

Edited 14 November , 2019 by charlie962

[charlie962]

4 hours ago, davidbohl said:

he was a POW for about nine months until the English worked out a deal for release

He clearly was not released early !

[PRC]

42 minutes ago, charlie962 said:

The NLS Casualty Lists run into 1919 and include poW repatriations. I've ploughed through RAMC listings and look what I found:

 

Great find Charlie.

 

So the information that he was RAMC that David already knew is confirmed.

The information that he was captured by the Turks, which came from the American relative and which was new to David, is confirmed.

The rest, captured at Gallipoli, released after 9 months, appears to be "hokum" , but along the path of discovery a lot of new information has been gathered that can be used to update Brunskill's webpage on the Sefton RUFC website.

 

Is that a fair summary.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[davidbohl]

Well done Charlie again, ForcesRecords have picked up on the typo of "Brumskill" and different RegtNo #344027 instead of #1409

 

As you say Peter I'll be able to update his ww1 career on our website in great detail.

Dave

 

MIC sourced from Ancestry

Edited 14 November , 2019 by davidbohl
MIC

[charlie962]

12 minutes ago, davidbohl said:

ForcesRecords have picked up on the typo

The SWB record is under the 344027 number, isn't it ?

 

But what FWR don't give you is the original list . Its the other names on that list that can produce other avenues of research . Brawn's record is a bit of a mess on dates etc but has some interesting snippets.  He was at AKH as a PoW suffered malaria (didn't they all) was hospitalised and when released went in to a hospital in Aleppo. Since Aleppo wasn't liberated by 5th Cav Div (among others) until Oct 1918 he presumably wasn't 'released before that. Then to Alexandretta 22/11/18 and left Turkey December for Egypt........etc

[PRC]

50 minutes ago, davidbohl said:

 

As you say Peter I'll be able to update his ww1 career on our website in great detail.

 

David,

 

I think the one thing that hasn't been touched on is the unit he was serving with when he was captured - I don't believe it's mentioned on the ICRC records and I suspect the Service Medal Rolls aren't that specific.

 

The British force defeated at Katia on the 23rd April 1916 was the 5th Mounted Brigade - a name it had only been known as since the start of March 1916. In fact on mobilisation in August 1914 it was a Territorial Force Unit, the 1st South Midland Mounted Brigade. Prior to moving from Egypt to Gallipoli in 1915 it was renamed the 1st (1st South Midland) Mounted Brigade.

One of the units that made up the Brigade was the Brigade Field Ambulance which during the course of the war was retitled the 5th Mounted Brigade Field Ambulance, RAMC. I believe that was the name they were known by at the time John Brunskill was captured.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Cavalry_Brigade_(British_Indian_Army)

The Long, Long Trail only seems to cover them up until they left 2nd Mounted Division in January 1916.

 

1 hour ago, davidbohl said:

ForcesRecords have picked up on the typo of "Brumskill" and different RegtNo #344027 instead of #1409

 

As a Territorial Force unit I believe the soldiers in this RAMC (TF) Field Ambulance would have been including in the renumbering exercise that took place in the opening months of 1917. Of course being a prisoner by the time this happened John would have been unaware of the new service number issued for him, and indeed may have remained unaware until his release. At a wider level this can cause all sorts of problems reconciling record sources and CWGC certainly has headstones for men buried well into 1917 with their old service numbers shown and conversely men who died in 1916, (or more accurately were still regarded only as missing at the time the new numbers were being issued), and so have ended up with headstones and webpages on the CWGC site that show the later service number.

 

Hope that helps,

Peter

[davidbohl]

10 hours ago, charlie962 said:

The SWB record is under the 344027 number, isn't it ?

 

Well explained Peter,

I hadn't picked up on his award of a SWB by Charlie, it wasn't noted on his original #1409 mic

 

Dave