Driver for Field Artillery Brigade

[tamiwell]

Hello,

I'm researching an Australian soldier named Stanley Roy McLaren (22349) who was a Driver for the 23rd Field Artillery Brigade and then later the 7th Field Artillery Brigade.  His records are confusing me a little, initially he was part of the '23rd Howitzer Brigade - 109th battery' when he left Australia, then it was recorded as the 23rd FAB and then transferred to the 7th FAB.  I'm just not sure if the 23rd Howitzer Brigade is the same thing or part of the 23rd FAB?  

What I would also love to know is what sort of role a Driver would have had in these Brigade's?  Would they have driven the carts with the heavy artillery?  He was wounded in action at one point and it was recorded as a 'SW'.  Then on another piece of paper it was recorded as a 'GSW'.  Would it have been more likely that he suffered a SW though if he had been with the artillery than a GSW?  That's what I'm leaning more towards as the most likely scenario.....and the 'SW' was what was recorded in the more detailed section with the note of his hospital admission.  

Thank you,

Tamara

[Waddell]

This is very helpful for Australian artillery (it is in part B Branches on the left side of the screen)-

 

 https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/OrderOfBattle/index.html

 

The Field Artillery Brigades were reorganized to align with the British ones (integrating howitzer batteries) when the AIF went to France, that will be why he was transferred to 7th FAB.  

 

Drivers drove the horse teams pulling the guns and limbers.

 

GSW and SW  tend to be interchangeable for gunshot and shell wounds. The best way of determining the type of wound would be to look at the FAB war diary for the day he was wounded. Counter battery fire is quite likely.

 

Scott

 

 

[Ron Clifton]

Field artillery brigades were within divisions. Originally there were three "ordinary" brigades and one howitzer brigade in each division, but fro May 1916 onwards the howitzer batteries were swapped with 18-pounder batteries: thereafter all FA brigades were mixed and the subtitle Howitzer was dropped. McLaren's battery was presumably swapped into 7th Field Artillery Brigade in or around May 1916 (I don't have my details of all the swaps to hand at present.

 

GSW as the standard medical abbreviation for Gun Shot Wound, and it applied whether the gun was an artillery piece, machine gun or rifle.

 

RFA Drivers drove the wagons or gun carriages, most of which were pulled by six-horse teams, the drivers riding on the left-hand horse of each pair.

 

Ron

Edited 26 June , 2020 by Ron Clifton

[MaxD]

The first part can be understandably puzzling because both 23rd Howitzer Brigade (23 FHB) and 23rd Field Artillery Brigade (23 FAB) existed at the same time up to early 1917.  Looking at his record, both entries in 1916 on sheet 4 seem to suggest that he has been posted before the April** date to 23 FAB, the writing is quite clear.  However, in Jan 1917, the transfer to 7 Field Artillery Brigade is, again clearly, from 23 FHB .  But, on the casualty sheet (sheet 7) the April 1916 to Dec 1916 is to and from 23 FAB !! .  The date coincides with the disbandment of 23 FHB and of 23 FAB!!.  His discharge document is clear that prior to 7 FAB he was in 23 FAB. !!

 

My reading of it is that he went from 23 FHB to 23 FAB almost as soon as he arrived in UK and that the earlier hospital entries are an error but I need to look more closely at some more diaries to see if the dates can be tied down a bit more clearly.  In any event, luckily he remained in 7 FAB from arrival in France at the start of 1917.

 

The drivers were primarily concerned with the horses that pulled the many wagons with stores and ammunition that his battery took with them.  There were also drivers of the gun teams, 3 to the six horse.  They were also responsible for looking after the horses from the gun teams and the others while the guns were in action.

 

Gun shot wound was a standard term which covers injuries by artillery shell and mortar bombs as well as rifle fire.  The SW and GSW are the same incident anyway.  It may be that the war diary has some detail - you can look for it here:https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1339003  War diaries for both the 23rd FHB and FAB don't show up in Aus War diary collection.

 

I'll come back if I can find something to clarify the period between March and Dec 1916.

 

Endorse what Scott says about the diary.

 

Max

 

PS the diary only records the total of casualties in August - 39 wounded and describes enemy artillery on 29th August (when he was reported wounded as "very active from 4 pm to 9 pm"

 

**The date he went to hospital with the ankle injury looks like April but can't be as he didn't arrive in UK until July 1916.

Edited 26 June , 2020 by MaxD
PS added

[MaxD]

There is no on line diary for 109 Battery or 23rd Field Howitzer Brigade (the first artillery unit he started with) or 23rd Field Artillery Brigade which is a bit frustrating.   7 FAB did not take 109 Howitzer Battery (it took 107) so his movement into 7 FAB would seem to have been as an individual.  7 FAB diary  and 3 Div Arty diary or items on the Virtual War memorial do not clarify exactly when the re-organisations took place.  The extract below seems a bit late and is not supported by 7 FAB diary which seems to have had its howitzer battery (107) by November 1916 

 

Virtual War Memorial:

 

The Howitzer Brigades were short lived though.  Because of supply constaints in respect of the guns, and other considerations, the Howitzer Brigades were broken up and the batteries distributed among the Field Artillery Brigades of each Division in early 1917 as had been originally intended. 

 

Max

[tamiwell]

Hello everyone, thank you so very much for trying to help me figure all this out!  There are so many pages for the August diary (of the 7th FAB) I must have missed the part that mentioned the enemy artillery on the 29th.  Can you remember what part of the August diary you found that in?  There were 4 parts to the diary, I should probably include that entry in his biography so would love to have a copy of the page it came from.

When they say Driver, that means he would have sat in the wagon driving the horses in front of him?  He wouldn't have ridden a horse itself?  Just wanted to clarify that, his father worked as a horsebreaker I believe for a time so he was probably very easy around horses.  

Thanks!

Tamara

[Waddell]

They very much rode a horse as part of a team. Have a look at post.10 in this thread-

 

Scott

 

[tamiwell]

Oh wow Scott thank you so much for that!  That was a perfect post to guide me to, I love all the photos there showing what Stanley would have been doing.  I had presumed he would have been driving the horses from the wagon but he would have actually been riding the horse.  That's really good to know as it confirms he was very comfortable around horses prior to the war which fits in well with his family history.  It all makes much more sense now!

[Waddell]

Ammunition was carried in horse drawn wagons by the Divisional Ammunition Column.

 

Scott

[MaxD]

1 hour ago, tamiwell said:

Can you remember what part of the August diary you found that in?

 

Part one https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1357096?image=14

 

Max

[davidbohl]

This could be him from the Adelaide newspapers on Trove

Dave

 

 

 

[MaxD]

His record personal details confirm that it is him.

 

Max

[MaxD]

2 hours ago, Waddell said:

They very much rode a horse as part of a team. Have a look at post.10 in this thread-

 

'He would indeed have been trained to ride as Frogsmile's input to the other thread illustrates very well but there were wagons to be driven again as described in the other thread so he would do both.  18 of the 45-50 drivers in a 6 gun battery were on the gun teams at any one time.

 

Max

 

 

Edited 27 June , 2020 by MaxD

[tamiwell]

davidbohl yes that is definitely him!  Thank you so much!

Thank you Max too for the diary page, that saves me a lot of time looking for it : )

Tamara

[WhiteStarLine]

Hi Tamara, you've got some great responses so I've only 2 things to add.  Here's a photo immediately below that my grandfather took of Field Artillery Brigade reinforcements on parade on Salisbury Plain, showing the horse team and limbers just as the others have described.  The men in his tent (he is number 8 in the photo) went on to be drivers in the Divisional Artillery Column, 8th FAB, 10th FAB and 11th FAB (or transferred to Signals, as he did).  You can see the Stowasser leggings and spurs on each of them.

 

The other resource you might want to visit is the Facebook page for Ben Edgecumbe, 12th F.A.B.  His service would have been similar and he left 300 photographs and an easy-to-read diary.  Several are of brigade drivers.  Caroline has put these together nicely and they give a snapshot of everyday life.  By early 1918, the Australian brigades were all operating in the same area, roughly, so they parallel your man's service.  You can jump to just the photos.  My grandfather lived a few streets from Ben and was in the next troopship in the same convoy. 

 

 

1 Beverley
2 Leo Sykes 
3 Dickson
4 D Morpeth. Partner in a Melbourne stock agent firm - a very decent chap
5 W Millikin was in Lincoln Stewarts a good chap and the wit of the tent.
6 Jack Joyce - mainly noted for a very happy disposition, nothing puts him out.
7 Dick Froomes Dick is generally looking for something to eat.
8 E Frost. not quite the larrikin he appears.

 

Douglas Moore MORPETH - Military Medal
   For gallantry and devotion to duty during the period 24.8.18. to 31.8.18.
   As a Brigade Section linesman, Sapper MORPETH was daily engaged repairing forward lines under heavy shell fire.  He worked with the greatest courage under very difficult and trying circumstances throughout the Operations of the Brigade.

 

[tamiwell]

Thank you so much, those are some great photographs! 

 

I forgot to ask everyone earlier....there is a photograph of Stanley in uniform wearing one of those chest straps with all the little pouches (you can see in the above photo from whitestarline), can anyone tell me what they were for? 

 

[MaxD]

They are called Bandoliers (sometimes spelled bandoleer) and are for carrying small arms ammunition.

 

Max

[Peter Le Duc]

Tamara,

this may be of interest. I discovered it whilst researching my Grandfather, who was a Driver / Gunner / Bombardier albeit British.

Peter

 

A Driver in the RFA

To become a Driver it took a great deal of confidence, patience and hard work on both man and horse to become a team. Each Driver was allocated two horses, no smaller than 15 1⁄2 to 16 hands & weighing 1200lbs each, to look after. Each pair of horses and Driver where trained for the position they would hold in the gun team. Before a Driver could embark on riding he would have to learn the following harness drill:

The Driver’s Gospel

The Head Collar fits over the horses head true & parallel behind the cheek bone. Two fingers between the noseband & nose, one finger between browband & brow. The throat lash so adjusted to prevent the head collar slipping over the horses head.

The bit is placed flat & smooth in the horses mouth One inch behind the corner tooth...two inches behind the corner tooth of a mare.

The Britching (Breast Collar) hangs horizontal from the padded neck strap, one hand’s breadth above the play of the shoulder.

The Blanket (on a team horse) placed rough edges near & off (inside).

The Saddle is placed on the horses back, one hands breadth behind the play of the shoulder. The reason...the horse has eight true ribs & ten false. The saddle rests on its true ribs.

The Girth is placed flat & smooth around the horses barrel (belly) & should be tightened one hole at a time.

The Surcingle is placed flat & smooth around the girth & should be as tight as the girth & no tighter.

The Britching hangs horizontal from the hip in line straps & should be 16 inches below the root of the dock & one inch clear when pulling.

The Curb Chain is turned from left to right, first link from nail up & must be two fingers clear.

Driver's conducted their training at their Battery. JNCO's would attend a senior riding course at a Riding Establishment such as the Riding School at Bordon in Hampshire co located with 41 and 36 Brigades.A standard gun team consisted of 6 horses and three drivers. Three Driver’s were assigned to each gun team. The Driver sat astride the horse on the left hand side of the team. Training for the men and horses was progressive. During training the men learned to ride a single horse bareback and then with a saddle before moving onto teams of 4 horses and then as a team of 6. It was a similar setup for the horses. Heavier built or the strongest horses where positioned at the rear of the team and called wheelers. As the gun pulled away it was the strength of these horses that initially moved the gun carriage, they were also the brakes of the gun team. The Driver in charge of this team had to strap a “leg Iron” to his calf. The Leg iron was a large gaiter that buckled over the top of the Driver’s puttees. A steel bar ran through the leather material and prevented his leg being crushed by the centre pole in a tight turn. Horses of middle build were placed in the middle and called Centres. The Driver looking after the Centre’s had to ensure that the horses didn’t become entangled in the traces (leather straps between the pairs) when the gun team went into a turn. The final pair where the lighter built lead horses (usually ridden by a Sergeant). There would have been a Corporal that rode a horse on the left of the gun team that would take over in the event that the Sergeant became a casualty. Although the horses where trained for a specific roll, the Drivers would have to know each other’s job as well as their own. The failure rate for both man and horse was high but those men that passed joined their battery as a Driver. During battle Driver's pulled the guns into line, once the guns where ready the Driver's moved the team to safety. At Ypres, the role changed and they brought up ammunition from the Divisional or Brigade Ammunition Column to the ammunition limbers.

 

A Subaltern’s Odyssey, R. B. Talbot Kelly described the Artillery Driver:

And what of the Artillery drivers? Throughout the war their task was unending, exhausting and cold-blooded. In the long winters they spent their days tending horses, picketed in the open, often knee-deep in liquid, poisonous mud, six to ten miles behind the guns. At dusk they set out on a nightly journey with food and ammunition, over roads swept by shell-fire, through inky, soaking nights of rain and cold. Often they were wounded, often left with screaming maimed horses; always they met terror on each night-bound road. After eight to ten hours of inglorious toil they returned, haggard in the dawning of their muddied horse lines, to prepare for the next night. So on, night in and night out, week by week, month by month for four years. Yet always their horse came first, always in deed and action they were gentle to their ‘pair’ though rough in speech. The British driver almost alone amongst those fighting in the war, showed constant, tender hardiness.

 

[FROGSMILE]

5 hours ago, tamiwell said:

Thank you so much, those are some great photographs! 

 

I forgot to ask everyone earlier....there is a photograph of Stanley in uniform wearing one of those chest straps with all the little pouches (you can see in the above photo from whitestarline), can anyone tell me what they were for? 

 

Further to what Max has explained about the bandolier, each pouch contained 10 bullets (called ‘rounds’) gathered in fives secured in a clip.  
 

Because the bullets had rims (flanges) designed to be gripped by an ‘extractor’ in the rifle’s mechanism, they could not sit neatly side by side in the clip (German ammunition had a groove instead of a rim).  
 

To get around this design limitation the rounds were slid into the clips in such a way that only two were flush with the base of the clip and the other three slightly raised above, which allowed them to sit together side-by-side as snugly as possible.  
 

The purpose of the 5-round clips was to enable the soldier to push the 5-rounds into the magazine of his rifle with one firm depression of his thumb in their centre.  There was a groove at the open top of the rifle above the magazine into which the clip could be guided (the charger guide), once the bolt had been pulled back.  To load the rifle with a clip was described as ‘charging’ it (just as one ‘charges’ a modern phone with electricity).
 

Each artillery soldier had five pouches and so carried 50-rounds.  Further ammunition was carried in a wagon as a first line ‘reserve’ stock.

 

 

 

 

Edited 27 June , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[MaxD]

I was hoping that friend Frogsmile would come along with the sort of comprehensive explanation that is a hall mark of his inputs to this and other forums (fora?) - always good to see!

 

Max

[tamiwell]

Wonderful thank you so much everyone!  Can I just ask another question relating to the bandoliers....why did the artillery men seem to wear them but the other soldiers I am researching (as part of a WW1 project) who were in the infantry battalions are not wearing these?  In fact I can't recall ever seeing photographs of WW1 soldiers with these accross their chests until now!  Was it just because the men of the artillery were transporting the ammunition and that was part of the transportation?  Sorry if it seems like a dumb question, I still have a lot to learn but with all of your help I've already learnt so much, so I'm very grateful,

Tamara

7 hours ago, FROGSMILE said:

Further to what Max has explained about the bandolier, each pouch contained 10 bullets (called ‘rounds’) gathered in fives secured in a clip.  
 

Because the bullets had rims (flanges) designed to be gripped by an ‘extractor’ in the rifle’s mechanism, they could not sit neatly side by side in the clip (German ammunition had a groove instead of a rim).  
 

To get around this design limitation the rounds were slid into the clips in such a way that only two were flush with the base of the clip and the other three slightly raised above, which allowed them to sit together side-by-side as snugly as possible.  
 

The purpose of the 5-round clips was to enable the soldier to push the 5-rounds into the magazine of his rifle with one firm depression of his thumb in their centre.  There was a groove at the open top of the rifle above the magazine into which the clip could be guided (the charger guide), once the bolt had been pulled back.  To load the rifle with a clip was described as ‘charging’ it (just as one ‘charges’ a modern phone with electricity).
 

Each artillery soldier had five pouches and so carried 50-rounds.  Further ammunition was carried in a wagon as a first line ‘reserve’ stock.

 

 

 

 

Wow thank you so very much, this describes everything perfectly, I really appreciate it!

[FROGSMILE]

11 hours ago, tamiwell said:

Wonderful thank you so much everyone!  Can I just ask another question relating to the bandoliers....why did the artillery men seem to wear them but the other soldiers I am researching (as part of a WW1 project) who were in the infantry battalions are not wearing these?  In fact I can't recall ever seeing photographs of WW1 soldiers with these accross their chests until now!  Was it just because the men of the artillery were transporting the ammunition and that was part of the transportation?  Sorry if it seems like a dumb question, I still have a lot to learn but with all of your help I've already learnt so much, so I'm very grateful,

Tamara

Wow thank you so very much, this describes everything perfectly, I really appreciate it!

It’s not a dumb question at all (there’s no such thing) and it’s refreshing that you have taken such an interest.

The leather bandolier was part of a set of equipment devised in 1903 for soldiers of all parts of the Army whose duties required them to be mounted, either on horses, or on wagons, and later on motor vehicles too.  It replaced a similar, earlier pattern of equipment for the same purpose and had incorporated in its design the lessons learned in the second Boer War.  
 

It was issued to a significant proportion of the army including cavalry, artillery, supply and transport and even mounted infantry (on horses and on bicycles).  For the cavalryman there could be extra pouches across a man’s back, and around his horse’s lower neck, in order to maximise his firepower.  For artillerymen, generally just the standard 5-pouches was sufficient.  The bandolier was specially devised to be easy to take on and off the body quickly so as to suit the nature of a mounted soldiers work.

 

For soldiers primarily on foot, such as the infantry, a different equipment was designed that maximised the possible load of ammunition on the front of a man’s body by weight, whilst at the same time carefully balancing the weight of the rest of his load on his back and hips.  This was because an Infantryman had to be able to carry and march with all that he needed, whereas the mounted man could carry the bulk of his other equipment on his horse or wagon.  The standard infantry equipment was made of cotton web and issued from 1908, with the especially clever design feature that when all fitted together it could be taken on and off like a complete harness or jerkin all in one-piece.  However, when war broke out in 1914 it wasn’t possible to mass-produce the volume of web equipment required sufficiently quickly in the limited factories available.  
 

Fortunately Britain and its empire had large, readily supplied leather factories and so an emergency equipment was devised in 1914 and manufactured in great volume by making use of leather pouches attached to a waist belt and supported by shoulder braces.  Although not so cleverly balanced it was effective, and remained in use throughout the war.  It is these two latter equipments that you see in photographs where soldiers are not wearing bandoliers.

 

Edited 28 June , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[MaxD]

7 hours ago, tamiwell said:

Was it just because the men of the artillery were transporting the ammunition and that was part of the transportation? 

 

Prompted by the phrase above, may I dare to just add a little to Frogmile's comprehensive explanation.  The ammunition we are talking about in relation to the bandolier and the infantry equipment is the man's "own" ammunition for his "own" personal rifle.  The artillery ammunition is a different kettle of fish entirely (or perhaps that is obvious in which case apologies for pointing it out!)

 

Max

[tamiwell]

Thank you SO much everyone, you have really cleared all this up for and I've really enjoyed learning more about the role of a Driver!