1/4 East Yorks - 201658 L/Cpl Alfred Jordan

[Retd Blue Job]

Hello all! Trying to find more information on my Grandfather, Alf Jordan. He volunteered in 1914 at the start of the War but only lasted a few weeks before they found out he was under age and discharged him. Undeterred, he rejoined once old enough and went out to France, presumably once he had passed his 19th birthday in April 1916. He made it through the war although he was wounded in both the arm and leg. I don't know if these were simultaneous wounds, although this is probably likely. He is listed as wounded in the War Office casualty list of Dec 4th 1918. Various sources suggest a month or so between the wound occurring and it appearing in the list but this is unlikely given that the 1/4 was reduced to a Cadre and sent to Dieppe by July 1918 after being decimated in the German's Spring offensive. I have the Regt's War Diaires (currently Free of Charge from National Archives during the pandemic) but obviously other ranks do not get their names mentioned when wounded or killed. I'd like to ask the collective experience of the forum if there is anywhere else I could be searching to try to tie in any particular action with his wounds. I have trawled the MH106 records at the National Archives site but with no luck. A family photo of Grandad is attached.

[PRC]

2 hours ago, Retd Blue Job said:

the 1/4 was reduced to a Cadre and sent to Dieppe by July 1918 after being decimated in the German's Spring offensive. I have the Regt's War Diaires (currently Free of Charge from National Archives during the pandemic) but obviously other ranks do not get their names mentioned when wounded or killed.

 

Hi and welcome to the forum.

 

Men who were surplus to requirements when they were reduced to a cadre would have been released to other units. Have you checked the diary for the period leading up to this to see if there is any description of where they were sent to.  (I'm assuming the Medal Roll for his Victory Medal & British War Medal, on Ancestry, doesn't list any other Battalions served with and that his medals were issued by the East Yorks Regiment.)

 

I also suggest trying out the British Newspaper Archive to see if he is mentioned in a local newspaper. If you live in the UK I would normally suggest try it out first at your local public library, but a bit of a non-starter at the moment. The main subscription Genealogy sites all have it or something like it, but as part of a premium subscription or bolt on package.

 

A more long winded way is to look at other other East Yorks men listed in the same casualty list to see if you can establish any pattern - which battalion (s) were the men who were Killed in Action \ Died of Wounds serving with. Are the missing men also now known as dead. Are there surviving service papers for any of the other wounded men? You may find it's a hodge-podge, in which case he may not have been wounded in a major action but in the open fluid warfare of the final months of the war where the allies were constantly probing and carrying out bite and hold attacks.

 

Good luck with your search,

 

Peter

[Retd Blue Job]

Thanks Peter!

He is only listed in the 1/4 East Yorks.

Will have a look in the British Newspaper Archive for him - I have checked in there before for him and found all his between the wars court appearances but I don't think I've checked it for 1918 though.

I have started checking a few of the officers from East Yorks Regt listed a day or so either side of him in the Casualty Lists and their dates seem, as you say, a bit of a hodge podge, but I will cross check with the War Diary. I'm guessing the established reporting chain was a low priority during the German's 1918 Spring offensive and I suspect Casualty Clearing stations may have had to move positions in a hurry resulting in an unreliable correlation between the publication of Casualty Lists and their relation to various battles. Will keep trying!

[clk]

Hi,

 

The medal rolls (Ancestry link) indicate that he subsequently served with the 7/East Yorks.

 

Image sourced from Ancestry

 

Alfred (albeit under the surname of Jorden) has a Silver War Badge record (Ancestry link) which says he enlisted on 6.11.1915. His 6 digit service number is as a result of the general renumbering of the TF in 1917 - link. Prior to that he would probably have had a 4 digit number (eg 201619 Evans enlisted 29.10.1915 and was renumbered from 4689). As the shorter number isn't shown on the medal rolls, it implies that he didn't serve overseas until after 1916.

 

Fold3 have an index card which indicates that he was awarded a pension as a consequence of a wound to his left arm.

Image sourced from Fold3

 

To try to date the date of his wounding, I too would try to find service files for other men from his regiment who appear on the same casualty list, to see if there are any commonalities.

 

Regards

Chris 

 

[PRC]

52 minutes ago, Retd Blue Job said:

I have started checking a few of the officers from East Yorks Regt listed a day or so either side of him in the Casualty Lists and their dates seem, as you say, a bit of a hodge podge,

 

Officers are a different reporting chain, so their information is very unlikely to be relevant.

53 minutes ago, Retd Blue Job said:

I'm guessing the established reporting chain was a low priority during the German's 1918 Spring offensive and I suspect Casualty Clearing stations may have had to move positions in a hurry resulting in an unreliable correlation between the publication of Casualty Lists and their relation to various battles.

 

If he appears in a Casualty List in December 1918 this almost certainly has nothing to do with the German Spring Offensive. It's far more likely to relate to an action in the later part of October 1918 or November up to the Armistice. The 7th East Yorks were part of the 17th (Northern) Division who were heavilly involved all the way through the summer and up to the Armistice, including The Battle of the Selle (17th-25th October 1918) and the Second Battle of Sambre (4th November 1918).

http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/order-of-battle-of-divisions/17th-northern-division/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Selle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Sambre_(1918)

 

Cheers,

Peter

[charlie962]

His first wounding was noted in CasList around 26/7/17 suggesting actual wounding late June 1917 ?

 

Charlie

 

edit eg 26/6/17  101 ORs killed wounded and missing. War Diary Ancestry here

Edited 19 May , 2020 by charlie962

[kenf48]

6 minutes ago, clk said:

As the shorter number isn't shown on the medal rolls, it implies that he didn't serve overseas until after 1916.

 

 

Whilst usually a fair assumption I think in this case the compiler of the Rolls has ignored the 4 digit number.  There are a couple of records which show the soldiers went on active service in 1916 but the Rolls only show the six digit number. Clerks, eh!

 

They had 22 OR killed and 89 wounded on the 5th November.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[clk]

1 hour ago, kenf48 said:

Whilst usually a fair assumption I think in this case the compiler of the Rolls has ignored the 4 digit number. 

 

Thanks Ken. I didn't pick up on that. I guess that makes it even less straight forward!

 

Regards

Chris

Edited 19 May , 2020 by clk

[PRC]

Had a quick look on CWGC for men with service number 20165* and 20166* and 20167* then cross referred to SDGW to see if there were any "formerly 1234 East Yorks" type notes but no joy.

 

201651 Private Arthur Berridge, A Company 1st/4th Battalion, KiA 23/04/1917 Son of Charles Thomas and Janet Berridge, of 60, Alicia St., Hull.

201656 Private Clifford Walpole, 1st/4th Battalion, KiA 23/04/1917. Son of William Benjamin and Margaret Miles Walpole. of 14, Fountain Rd., Hull.

201676 Private Alfred Dwyer, 1st/4th Battalion, DoW 08/06/1917. Son of Patrick and Eleanor Dwyer, of 12, Church Lane, Church St., Driffield, Yorks. Enlisted Hull.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[clk]

Hi,

 

Findmypast gives 2 'hits' in their newspaper collection.

Image sourced from Findmypast

 

So it would appear that Alfred was wounded at least twice. Unfortunately, my FMP sub level doesn't let me look at the actual images. However, from the bit that I could see from the Leeds Mercury, 220037 Curry has some surviving service papers which show that he was actually wounded on 29.6.1917. I would have thought that Alfred would have been wounded about the same date. If you could view the full newspaper report (or find the War Office Casualty List on which it was presumably based), hopefully you might be able to firm up a reasonable inference, by finding service papers for some of the other men shown.

 

The War Office Casualty List is the same one that you mentioned in your opening post (weekly list of 10th December, daily list of 4th December 1918), and is available to view (free) from the National Library of Scotland - see here .Following the same methodology of looking for service papers of other men from his regiment that are on the same list, you might be able to narrow down that date of wounding too.

 

Regards

Chris

[kenf48]

56 minutes ago, clk said:

The War Office Casualty List is the same one that you mentioned in your opening post (weekly list of 10th December, daily list of 4th December 1918), and is available to view (free) from the National Library of Scotland - see here .Following the same methodology of looking for service papers of other men from his regiment that are on the same list, you might be able to narrow down that date of wounding too.

 

That list, where records/corroboration survive are 1st Battalion principally 7 - 9 October with a couple later in the month. 

 

Three on the list were killed on the 7th, which says something about the compilation of these lists.

 

 

[Retd Blue Job]

Thanks chaps!

You guys are brilliant detectives. Your experience in searching the archives is just what I was hoping for.

I must confess I hadn't gone back to Ancestry & Fold 3 with his WW1 service number - schoolboy error on my part!

I knew he had two wounds but didn't know they had been inflicted on separate occasions.

I remember as a child seeing what looked like a silver vein in his upper arm. I understand that in the absence of antibiotics, the antibiotic properties of silver were utilized in wound care.

His scars from WW1 and previous length of service are documented on his WW2 enlistment paperwork ( attached)

He enlisted in 1939 for WW2 and went to France again with BEF, this time with West Yorkshire Regt. He was 42 years old. I think he was assigned as Airfield Guard at Arras.

The Welsh Guards who were tasked with defending Arras record that they cobbled together a force comprising whoever was passing through and a couple of companies of West Yorkshire Regt  - mostly older guys who has been tasked as airfield guards there. This information is from a book by the Welsh Guards Major  who was I/C the "Arras Rifles" as he dubbed it.

Luckily Grandad got out and made it back from Dunkirk. I'm led to believe the West Yorks War Diaries of the time were either lost or destroyed

Thanks again all you chaps for looking for me - it has filled in a few gaps in my knowledge and signposted  the way for my further investigation

 

[PRC]

3 hours ago, Retd Blue Job said:

The Welsh Guards who were tasked with defending Arras record that they cobbled together a force comprising whoever was passing through and a couple of companies of West Yorkshire Regt  - mostly older guys who has been tasked as airfield guards there. This information is from a book by the Welsh Guards Major  who was I/C the "Arras Rifles" as he dubbed it.

 

By one of life's little co-incidences I've been spending the day in my Covid 19 project of transcribing notes I've taken from Norfolk newspapers over the years and came across the caption for a very poor quality photograph in the edition of the Eastern Daily Press dated Saturday June 15, 1940.

 

NORFOLK M.C..

 

CAPTAIN JOCELYN EUSTACE GURNEY, of the Welsh Guards, son of the late Sir Eustace Gurney  and of Lady Gurney, who has been awarded the M.C. for resource and courage shown in command of his company holding road-blocks on the outskirts of Arras.

 

I wonder if the West Yorks men were part of his 'resource'

 

22 hours ago, clk said:

Alfred (albeit under the surname of Jorden) has a Silver War Badge record (Ancestry link) which says he enlisted on 6.11.1915.

 

World War 2 enlistment record says his qualifying service is 3 years and 107 days, ending 20.2.1919 which I believe does calculate out as the 6th November 1915  - so most likely a Derby Scheme man if he was 19 in April 1916.

https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/soldiers/a-soldiers-life-1914-1918/enlisting-into-the-army/the-group-scheme-derby-scheme/

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

 

[Retd Blue Job]

One more thing, I note from the second Casualty List that he was a Lance Corporal but by the time of his discharge in Feb 1919 he is back to being a Private.

Anyone know if losing a stripe would have been within the authority of a CO's Orderly Room or would it have to have gone higher?

I suspect that once back at depot or hospital in Blighty he would have been itching to get out for a drink!

[kenf48]

Lance Corporal was an appointment, not a rank.  It was therefore in the gift of the Battalion CO, once he left the Battalion he would revert to private.

[Retd Blue Job]

That's cleared that up somewhat. Thanks Kenf48