Military Abbreviation

[Marigold1]

 

I have a soldier  Jack Ratcliffe who served as  Private 32674 in the 2nd Hampshire Regiment. On his service record it says that he was posted to the Depot on 24th March 1918 and then posted to DFDB (or DJDB?) on 26th November 1918. Does anyone know what this abbreviation means?

At some point he was gassed but I have been unable to establish when this happened.

 

Marigold

 

 

[RussT]

It actually says D IBD, which was at Rouen

 

https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/other-aspects-of-order-of-battle/infantry-base-depots-in-france-1914-1918/

 

Regards

 

Russ

[Marigold1]

Dear Russ,

 

Very many thanks.

 

Marigold

[kenf48]

15 hours ago, Marigold1 said:

At some point he was gassed but I have been unable to establish when this happened.

 

He was gassed (sev)ere, which led to his posting to the Depot which you have identified.  There  is another faded entry for CDPD 10 July 1918 which suggests Command  Depot Perham Down.

 

The war diary for the 2nd Hants has a harrowing entry for 13 March 1918 which shows a shell penetrated the earthworks around the pill box which was being used as Battalion HQ wounding the gas sentry.  He crawled into the HQ and the ‘liquid gas on his clothes etc’ contaminated the whole HQ Staff, servants etc. This was one of the properties of mustard gas, in that it persisted on clothing.  Everyone in the HQ was incapacitated.

 

Given he had already earned the MM my guess is that he was in the pillbox as part of the HQ establishment which included runners, signallers etc

[Marigold1]

Dear Kenf48,

 

Thank you very much indeed for all this extra information. Extremely helpful.

 

Regards,

 

Marigold