1st Bn Sherwood Foresters October 1917

[hadenmaiden]

I wonder if someone might be able to tell me if I'm barking up the wrong tree somehow?

I'm looking at 70741 Pte John Butler of 1st Bn Sherwood Foresters. CWGC, Soldiers died and Soldiers Effects all show him KIA on 24 October 1917. CWGC shows another man from the same Bn KIA on the same day. Looking at the war diary, the battalion moved to Ypres on 18 October to relieve the 1st Lincolnshires. The only comments in the diary through to 28 October, when they were themselves relieved, is 'The Bn working on railway construction'. No mention of any casualties.

I've checked that I'm looking at the right diary, in the right year. This seems odd, I think it's the first time I haven't seen any mention of casualties on, or shortly after the day. Am I missing something very basic here? Thanks in anticipation

 

[Heid the Ba]

Are you sure he was KIA that day?  If he died of wounds he could have been away from the battalion in hospital so wouldn't be recorded in its war diary.  CWGC just gives 24th Oct as the date of death, I didn't look at the other two.

Edited 10 December , 2019 by Heid the Ba

[PRC]

1 hour ago, hadenmaiden said:

Looking at the war diary, the battalion moved to Ypres on 18 October to relieve the 1st Lincolnshires. The only comments in the diary through to 28 October, when they were themselves relieved, is 'The Bn working on railway construction'. No mention of any casualties.

 

Two potential scenarios to consider.

 

I've used Geoff's search engine to look at the Sherwood Foresters who died between the 18th October to 28th October 1917. Ignoring the one 1st Battalion man who died in the UK, the 1st Battalion men who died overseas during this period are:-

 

20/10/1917

Private 67135 W.Starr – SDGW shows KiA

24/10/1917

Private 70741 John Butler – SDGW shows KiA

27/10/1917

Private 32416 Samuel Alexander – SDGW shows KiA.

Private 78267 John William Elam – SDGW shows KiA

 

This may indicate that this battalion War Diary may simply be one where the daily entries didn't record casualties. It could be that there was an appendix that listed casualties which has gone missing, (many have), which may be still there in the copy thats included in the Brigade War Diary or summarised in the Divisional War Diary.

 

Alternatively there are Private 82036 Stephen William Wheeler and Second Lieutenant Cyril Evers Blurton.who are shown as 1st Battalion attached 15th Battalion, (and there a number of 15th Battalion men who died during the same period). So there may have been a draft intended for the 1st Battalion who were diverted on arrival at the Infantry Base Depot to the 15th Battalion and it may simply be that the paperwork either hadn't been updated or the change was missed \ misfiled.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[hadenmaiden]

Thank you both for your replies, very much appreciated. 

Heid the Ba - yes, both Soldiers Effects and Soldiers Died say KIA. 

PRC, It does seem a fairly 'scant' war diary in parts compared to many, and the October 1917 sheets are followed by some distinctly unhappy pages which refer to the pages being unidentifiable and suggesting that it helps when the diaries are signed at the end of the month! As you say, it could be that they just didn't document all of the casualties. 

His Medal Index Card, and Medal Award Roll both show 1st Bn. - I appreciate that the Medal Award Roll would have been typed up retrospectively, but thought the NMICs were pretty much of the time? 

Very helpful, thank you both.

Edited 10 December , 2019 by hadenmaiden

[PRC]

2 hours ago, hadenmaiden said:

PRC, It does seem a fairly 'scant' war diary in parts compared to many, and the October 1917 sheets are followed by some distinctly unhappy pages which refer to the pages being unidentifiable and suggesting that it helps when the diaries are signed at the end of the month! As you say, it could be that they just didn't document all of the casualties. 

 

Sounds like they had a stiff rebuke for the quality of the record keeping.

 

I overlooked there are also some 1st/5th men who died during this period in France & Flanders. There are so many places where mistakes could be made by the record clerks, not just at the depot for the Sherwood Foresters but in the mounds of paperwork literally just dumped on the Imperial War Graves Commision, (the forerunner of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) in the early 1920's, and then again when the CWGC website was being prepared. I may just be being fobbed off but most times when I make an enquiry about the veracity of the details on the website I get a very quick reply that the underlying paperwork completey agrees with me, the error was in the data capture exercise as part of preparing the information to be published. So a man shown on the CWGC website as 1st Battalion could actually be 1st/5th or 15th or any permutation you can think off.

 

If you have subscription access to Ancestry you should be able to see the Brigade War Diary, (24th Brigade), for the related period. Not only will it have the War Diary for the Brigade Headquarters, it will also have a copy of the War Diaries for all the units that made up the Brigade.

 

Firstly it might be worthwhile checking the copy of the 1st Battalion Sherwood Foresters War Diary to see if it has any additional appendices - including casualty lists \ summary - to see if that talies with the losses shown on CWGC.

 

If there is nothing there then check out the Brigade Headquarters War Diary. I may just have been lucky, but the ones I've see normally have a summary table by unit by day of losses. I believe there is something similar in the Divisional Headquarters War Diary from what I've seen written here on the forum over the years.

 

If you don't see deaths in the quantities shown above, (with a bit of latitude for reporting lag), then it may be that the 1st Battalion is a red herring - after all the sources for that information, (Register of Soldiers Effects, Medal Index Card, Service Medal Roll, Soldiers Died in the Great War and the Commonwealth War Graves) - will all of drawn on the same original source, his service record, for their information. You are not necessarily therefore seeing the same piece of infornation verified from five unique sources but potentially the same mistake repeated five times!

 

3 hours ago, hadenmaiden said:

I appreciate that the Medal Award Roll would have been typed up retrospectively, but thought the NMICs were pretty much of the time? 

 

The Medal Index Cards were literally that - index cards to keep track of the Service Medal Rolls. The decisions on what medals to  actually issue and the qualifying criteria weren't decided until early 1919. Starting with the 1914 Star and then the 1914/15 Star, the cards reflected the basic information on the related Service Medal Roll. With the decision then taken to issue the Victory Medal and British War Medal the exisiting cards were updated with the additional details, and new cards created for those individuals who only qualified for the VM & BWM. Where the MiC's missed out is that they didn't usually include the unit details from the VM & BWM Service Medal Roll, even when that information was available.

 

The Service Medal Roll and the Medal Index Card were therefore contemporary to each other and for administrative purposes existed alongside each other. So like I said, they could be consistant either because the information is correct or because the same mistake has been made twice.

 

Good luck with your search,

 

Peter

[helpjpl]

1.  According to this site re Belper War Memorial, Pte 70741 John Butler 1st Battalion Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regt.) was KIA by a shell on 24 October 1917:

http://www.belper-research.com/bmd/memorials/Belper War Memorial/belper-memorial-names1.html

 

2.  If you have access to findmypast or the British Newspaper Archive the following articles may be of interest:

 

 

Note  

1911 Census:  John Butler (29), postman, living in Belper with his married sister Annie Mason and her family.

1925 Probate Calendar:

 

JP

[helpjpl]

John's little brother, Fred Butler born 01 June 1893, DOW in hospital at Le Havre on 05 July 1916:

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/4019795/butler,-/

 

JP

 

[MaxD]

23 hours ago, hadenmaiden said:

his seems odd, I think it's the first time I haven't seen any mention of casualties on, or shortly after the day.

 

Actually very common indeed unfortunately.  The 24 Brigade diary records total casualties in 1 SF in October 1917 were 5 men killed and 17 wounded and as you have seen, the October diary for the battalion mentions only 2 wounded on the 4th.  The divisional diary records (for the division) 3 killed and 18 wounded on 24th.  This illustrates the understandable inaccuracies in the immediate recording of casualties which is another facet of this problem.  

 

Max

[MaxD]

Hadenmaiden

 

The battalion was working under II ANZAC Corps on light railways and tramways in the area to the east of Ypres.  The relevant II ANZAC Corps HQ Admin diary mentions the Lincolns, 12/13 Northumberland Fusiliers and 15 DLI arriving for work on 11th Oct.  The handover on 18th between 1 Lincoln and 1 SF is not mentioned.  A simple omission I think as on 18 October the ANZAC Corps itself was handing over to the Canadian Corps although leaving certain units at the disposal of the Canadians.  Thus the war diaries speak of the battalions going under the direction of the Australians although by the time they got there, they were working under the Canadian Corps!

 

There were three British battalions attached for work on the roads, railway and cable burying.  On 18 Oct the battalions were relieved, 1 Lincolns by 1 SF (as we know) and 15 DLI by 17 Manchesters and 12/13 Northumberland Fusiliers by 18 Kings Liverpool.

 

Looking at all the diaries, common factors are that their camps were to the west of Ypres in squares H 6 and H 12, the work was to the east in the area between St Jean and the front line and that shelling and bombing from the air of both the camps and the places of work caused a number of casualties.  (Map later)

 

Mention is made of 2 Battalion Canadian Railway Troops and 6 Battalion Canadian Railway Troops as being in charge of the work.  There is no war diary for that period for 2 Battalion and that for 6 Battalion gives no usable detail, HQ Canadian Railway Troops has nothing useful.

 

The relevant trench map is 28 NW.  The camps (H6 and H 12) are to the centre left.  The front lines are to the far east (right) and places mentioned in the diaries are St Jean in C 27 and Wieltje in C 28 and Hellfire Corner in I 10.  Link:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=14&lat=50.8633&lon=2.9139&layers=101464903&b=1

 

This may at least give some broad idea of where John Butler was killed on 24th, either by bombing or by shelling.

 

17 Manchesters diary mentions working under 10, 296 and 268 Railways Companies RE.   There are diaries for the first two but I have not looked at these.  In any event, they will only be of use if 1 SF were also working with them and they give some location detail.

 

(Sources - Battalion and brigade war diaries, ANZAC Corps diaries, Canadian archives and diaries)

 

Max

 

Rainy day in Wiltshire

.

 

 

 

 

[hadenmaiden]

Thank you so much for all of the work that has gone into researching this thread in depth! I've been MIA for a few days, and only just got to see that there are more responses.

PRC - that's great, thank you; the 1st   1st/5th thing was bugging me

 

HelpJPL - I am researching both of the brothers, and the newspaper report is very helpful

MaxD - amazing - your time and effort is much appreciated - it has helped me make a lot more sense of what might have been going on, and will add a lot to the story.

Again, apologies for my tardy reply. Many thanks to all!

 

Edited 22 December , 2019 by hadenmaiden
update