Translating my Great Grandfather's medal card.

[RichardsProductions99]

Hello all!

 

I was just wondering if anyone knows approximately how long it would take from a soldier being wounded/sent home, to appearing in a casualty list?

I have found an entry about my Great Grandfather being reported as wounded, dated October 1915. He was however wounded in the May of that year. Would such a delay be feasible?

 

I still cannot find any reference to another wound he sustained, as shown by his wound stripes.

[clk]

Hi,

 

For what it's worth, my understanding is that as a very rough rule of thumb you often/commonly see men appearing on casualty lists about a month/a month and a half after their date of actual wounding. If you have access to the list from October 1915, one thing to try is to look for service records for other men on the same list to see when they were wounded. That may enable you to make an inference about your Great Grandfather (within a couple of days or so), and then cross reference to the unit war diary to see if anything obvious jumps out. If he was wounded in May 1915 that sounds like a separate wounding which may appear on a separate casualty list circa May/June 1915.

 

Regards

Chris

[RichardsProductions99]

I have been looking at other soldiers on the same list, particularly those of the 3rd R.F. which my Great Grandad was with at the time. Whilst many don't show the date they were wounded exactly, a couple were wounded in the timeframe of the 29th-30th of Sept 1915. Around that time was a struggle of the Hohenzollern Redoubt, in which many were wounded and killed.

This may suggest that Lewis was wounded a second time in the space of 1915.

 

But two main problems with that hypothesis are that:

1. according to the medal roll, Lewis' stint with 3rd R.F. ended with his confirmed wounding on 28.5.1915 when he was shot in the arm by a sniper. So how was he back there in September 1915? 

2. His next stint at the front with 32nd R.F. begins on 4.5.16. It then ends suddenly on 15.9.16. Around the time of the battle of Flers-Courcelette.

 There is then a huge gap to him joining 2nd R.F. on 4.3.17.  Would this gap not tally with a second wound? But as I have said, I cannot find any reference whatsoever to him being on a casualty list for 1916. 

 

It's a conundrum that's driving me crazy. What are the chances of both his medical record, and his casualty list entry being destroyed/lost?