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Remembered Today:

"2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade


harry1895

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Please can anybody help me discover which specific Company Joseph Dorow No 4816 was in during the War.

He served in India before the War and was one of the very few Regulars who actually survived the War!

From a Document produced  by Bridgeman, I believe he was in C or D company when he was in India

He joined as a Rifleman and was a Lance Corporal at the end of the War.

His Roll Card and  Silver Badge card do not mention his Company, He even has a mention in the 2nd volume of the History of the Rifle Brigade, winning a Boxing tournament in Oct 1917, and again his company is not mentioned!.

 

Any advice/help would be appreciated

 

Harry1895

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Dorow was reported wounded in the Daily Casualty Lists of 5/9/17 and 22/12/17 . Of course no Company let alone Bn is given. He's a L/Cpl on both. No obvious Hospital Admission related to this but FMP does have one of those (undated) bits of paper from someone elses file saying Dorow and another 2nd Bn man had frostbite- again no company.

 

I note his medal roll lists 2nd Bn twice, suggesting he may have had a spell back in UK ?

 

I'm presuming he is the man born 1895, from Soho, he married in 1918 (but that won't give you a company). What about an absent voters list ? probably not.

 

I note his wife, an air raid warden in WW2, is commemorated by CWGC. There are some interwar newspaper clipping that may be reference to him having a spot of trouble ?  But no ref on that back to military service.

 

What about a Rifle Brigade Chronicle for 1918 ? By the time that volume came out censorship may have stopped ?

 

So having looked around at various sources I have failed to find you an answer!

 

charlie

 

 

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Charlie

 

Thank you for your efforts.

 

A Document prepared by Bridgeman, about the survivors of the 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade regulars, who had served India,  shows that Joseph Dorow was wounded on the 1 Aug 1917 and the 21 November 1917.

There is also a Roll Card for the a Joseph Doron (not Dorow) that shows he was later transferred to the 5th Battalion (the Reserve Battalion...presumably after he was wounded).It shows he was discharged in 1919 because of his wounds. Dorow and Doron are the same person as the number 4816 is the same!

 

The Joseph Dorow I am researching, is the one you have outlined.

I have now discovered what he got up to in his civilian life(!!). He was my grandfather, and the air raid warden was my grand mother. I never met them and knew very,  very little about them.

 

It is the odd missing parts of his Army service that I am trying to establish. I know this is probably impossible, but I am trying work out which specific battles he may have fought in. Knowing the Company he was in,  would at least, reduce the options.

 

Where do you find the Daily Casualty lists so I can check the 1st Aug 1917 and 21 November 1917 woundings?

 

Again, thank you so much

 

Harry1895

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22 hours ago, harry1895 said:

Where do you find the Daily Casualty lists so I can check the 1st Aug 1917 and 21 November 1917 woundings?

Useful to find that the typical 4-5 week delay in appearing on the Daily Casualty Lists was applied here (viz CasLists 5/9 and 22/12/17)

 

The DailyList 5/9 was part of the WeeklyList 11/9/17 on FindmyPast Newspapers here.  A long list;

pm sent for the other- where his name is spelt Dorrow

 

Charlie

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The battalion war diary has no record of casualties on 1 August (they were out of the line training from mid July to mid August) and on 21 November they were having baths at Brandhoek.  There are other days around and about when the battalion took casualties that would have got into the relevant casualty list but no names are recorded. The boxing match in October doesn't get a mention in the diary but the battalion were in training for much of the month.

 

Max

 

Diary at the National Archives WO 95/1731 (three parts).  Ancestry if you have it at:

 

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interactive/60779/43112_1731_0-00212?pid=495210&backurl=https://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc%3DdVB2072%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource%26usePUBJs%3Dtrue%26indiv%3D1%26dbid%3D60779%26cp%3D0%26gskw%3D1731%26new%3D1%26rank%3D1%26uidh%3D6x5%26redir%3Dfalse%26msT%3D1%26gss%3Dangs-d%26pcat%3D39%26fh%3D0%26h%3D495210%26recoff%3D%26ml_rpos%3D1%26queryId%3Dfed0c6420aabf4c9c935d8c630037efa&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=dVB2072&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&_ga=2.129167628.1855462414.1580393010-1555101898.1539262208#?imageId=43112_1731_0-00000

Edited by MaxD
Diary ref
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Charlie

 

Thanks for message to my personal box....you will get my reply soon.

----------------------------------------------------

Max

 

From what I am discovering, it appears that if  somebody is wounded, the various types of records may not record the correct date.

Not surprising I suppose, considering the circumstances they were under.

However, I will now plough through the National Archive  Diaries of the 2nd battalion and see what else I can find.

 

Thanks for your help......much appreciated

 

Harry

 

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1 hour ago, harry1895 said:

From what I am discovering, it appears that if  somebody is wounded, the various types of records may not record the correct date.

It wasn't just for admin purposes that release of casualty figures to the public was delayed a month. There would also be a security element, not giving away one's losses too quickly!

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Harry,

Following your messages to me, I have gone through all the material I have, including the Bridgeman account you refer to. Given the regular battalions lack of notice re. OR's compared to other battalions it will be virtually impossible to determine his Company, even a service record is unlikely to mention his company. Apologies for the delay, life has a habit of creating obstacles sometimes.

 

Andy

Edited by stiletto_33853
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Hello Andy

 

It is very rarely possible to ascertain in which company an infantryman served. He could be moved between companies by his CO for any number of reasons, and these would not be recorded outside his unit. Your best chance is if you have the name of an officer under whom he was serving, and find that officer's name mentioned in the War Diary, with a note of the company he was in.

 

Alternatively, there may be a reference to a particular company being involved in a particular action, which you may be able to tie up with one of the times he was wounded.

 

Ron

 

 

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Hi Ron,

 

Agree wholeheartedly and have just helped someone who knew his officers name, hence we were able to work out company and platoon. Given Harry's posting and wounds suffered, unless he has the name of an officer in both cases of returning to the battalion it will be extremely difficult to ascertain.

 

 

Andy

Edited by stiletto_33853
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Ron/Andy

 

Ron

Thanks for your suggestions and it was good to see that you and Andy share the same views about "the infantryman and which Company".

 

Andy

Thanks  for replying to my various messages...…for you it is always worth the wait.

Sadly, as probably "the" Rifle Brigade expert on GWF, if you possess no records that can answer my questions, it is unlikely I will be able to solve this riddle.

However, I will persevere and follow up your various suggestions, and in the coming years I may even come across a 2nd Battalion Riflemen letter that refers to Joseph Dorow.

 

Thanks to all those who have contributed comments/ideas etc

 

Harry

 

 

 

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On 02/02/2020 at 14:03, harry1895 said:

<snip>

It is the odd missing parts of his Army service that I am trying to establish. I know this is probably impossible, but I am trying work out which specific battles he may have fought in. Knowing the Company he was in,  would at least, reduce the options.

 

Harry1895

 

Harry,

Welcome to the Rifles family here on the Forum!

 

Knowing he was in 2nd Battalion should tell you at which specific battles he was present.  Knowing his unit in more detail will usually only confirm his actual disposition at each battle/action.

 

I think you'll get most of what you need from the 2/RB war diary.

 

Cheers,

Mark

 

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Welcome Harry,

The problem you will find is that the 2nd had a torrid 1915, suffering very heavily at Neuve Chapelle. After this battle the battalion was sent soldiers from some of the other regular battalions to help bring them up to strength and re-organised. He might have been in "D" Company and moved to "A" Similarly after the action of 9th May at Fromelles where they suffered heavily again and re-organised again, was he moved again??

After he was wounded what Company needed replacements when he returned to the 2nd, even a service record would not record such moves. The Regular battalions records, although better technically do not have the level of personnel details that the Service battalions do, although not all of them have these personnel records.

 

Andy

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi, i'm researching my Great Uncle John James (Jack) Samuels who served in the 2nd Batt Rifle Brigade from 1908 through to Feb 1919 - his picture from India is my profile pic. There are a lot of references in this post about various documents and I'm particularly interested in the Bridgeman document referred to. Is someone able to point me to where I might find it ?

 

Jeremy

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Jeremy,

This is not so much a document but a card listing all the men from "C" and "D" Companies from March 1914 before their amalgamation under the four Company System, their awards, fates as in wounded, killed etc. Having gone through the list your Great Uncle John does not appear on it. This card is quite large and runs alphabetically.

 

Andy

DSC00521.JPG

DSC00522.JPG

DSC00523.JPG

Edited by stiletto_33853
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Thanks Andy, at least from that information I now know he wasn't in companies C or D. I have an entry for him from the National Roll, as below, I'll have to see what else I can find out about him. 

313228297_nationalroll.png.b4e62db5a87f516d7afde866b3cc647d.png

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Hi Jeremy,

No Service record that I have come across. He enlisted in July 1908, i.e. 2927 enlisted 8/7/08 2933 on 13/7/08.

 

 

Andy

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A few more pictures of their time in India from a photograph album of a member of the 2nd

img025.jpg

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Andy,

How were the companies referenced after the eight to four mergers?

 

Was it as simple as ...

Old A + Old B = New A

Old C + Old D = New B

Old E + Old F = New C

Old G + Old H = New D

 

In other words, after the restructuring, Samuels could not have been in new 'B' Coy as he's not on the Bridgeman list of old coys 'C' & 'D', but could have been in any of the other three.

 

Mark

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Hi Mark,

That was my thought also as this list was comprised before the 4 Coy system was adopted. Just digging out what information I might have on this.

 

Andy

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if you're able to find out anything that would be great,

 

I also have a number of pics from India, below are a couple of group pics, with Samuels being the one reading the paper and then on the left of the other group with a fag in his mouth. In the pictures there is also one of  grave commemorating B Thompson 2767, who died in Calcutta on 18th August 1910. As his photo was in the set I assume he was a mate of Jacks and therefore probably in the same company. 

IMG_2115.JPG.2943dc8e19d12e526d6b99f861cd97fc.JPG1626158857_RBgroup.jpg.4592413f2b944a168e9bddec6109f686.jpg

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Thompsons record survives

Screenshot 2020-03-01 at 20.25.45.png

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I've transcribed the medical handwriting ...

 

Quote

Febrile with convulsive symptoms, early symptoms were chiefly headache with some fever, then hyperpyrexia with conjugate deviation of head and eyes first to right, then left and before death to right again.

Treatment - Ice to head and neck. Cold sponging, and a little chloroform for convulsions.

Post mortem showed small pontine haemorrhage.

 

 

Basically the poor chap had a haemorrhage in his brain stem, leading to stroke, fever, seizure and death.

Edited by MBrockway
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