Concentration of Graves records. Good enough to change date of death?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Tom Tulloch-Marshall said:

With regards to paperwork for the war effort, yes there are references in the CWGC archives. One surprising item which was substantially sacrificed (apparently signed-off by Fabian Ware himself) were the WW1 "Final Verification Forms".

 

   Very,very interesting. Can we infer from this that the Final Verifications were dumped because they duplicated what was on the"Finals" (and others) that are now digitised?  Is there any paperwork you have come across to support/refute/comment on this??

   Post-cataract op. I wil lbe heading for the 2 files at Kew noted above. All roads-for me at least- seem to be leading to how the casualties branches worked within the War Office. An interesting tit-bit did emerge from the CWGC archive listing- that Ware in 1916 was advocating that the Germans should set up some sort of IWGC equivalent. It would be good to know  what Ware's thinking was on this- it strikes me that the statistics of how many burials and plots the early wartime efforts of Ware et al were involved with, there seems to be little details on what they did with German remains-which must have run into thousands.

[jay dubaya]

Where does CSI come into it? I inferred no such thing.

There is an absence of facts in this field and for me, that void of proof crates assumptions, interpretations and speculation which in turn leads to discussion. Whilst I'm always happy to discuss in this field - I offer none of my interpretations as fact even where they contain proof but this may not be conclusive proof - take from it what we will - research and discussion is the common ground that may help us all have a better understanding of the elements that draw us here.

I thought these acronyms had gained some recognition for those interested although I may have been the first to coin WRR - War Records Revisited 

 

Jon

Edited 13 September , 2020 by jay dubaya
Tom - thanks for the confirmation of the paper pulp

[jay dubaya]

So the Final Verification Reports demise probably ties in with the move to Wooburn House. A snippet from CWGC/1/1/1/34 (SDC 4) - on the surface the diaries and notebooks look interesting. although he does go on to err on the side of papers relating to the development of the three entities.

 

Edited 14 September , 2020 by jay dubaya

[Guest]

So may we take it that the final GRU reports, as digitised really are "final" as being based on verification records no longer extant??  Which means they are "final" both as an administrative process and because there is no effective way to take the matters further after a century??  This was the original question.

[Matlock1418]

Observations/questions from a mere babe compared to the knowledge & experience of others contributing to this thread

On 13/09/2020 at 13:15, ss002d6252 said:

Interesting to note in the penultimate paragraph; "A list of the missing is to be sent to Berlin as soon as possible for comparison with the records there" [my underlining]

Nobody has previously referred to German [and other Central Powers] equivalents for casualty reporting and their 'missing'

Is this the same as the below?

An interesting tit-bit did emerge from the CWGC archive listing- that Ware in 1916 was advocating that the Germans should set up some sort of IWGC equivalent. It would be good to know  what Ware's thinking was on this- it strikes me that the statistics of how many burials and plots the early wartime efforts of Ware et al were involved with, there seems to be little details on what they did with German remains-which must have run into thousands.

Interested to know what the Germans etc. did set up - both for their own, and their enemy nationalities', remains

 

And as a potential mirror of CWGC - what does the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V, hold on these subjects?

Compare and contrast CWGC/VDK seems a research project for someone, or has it already been done?

 

And likewise - what was done with German etc. remains by IWGC

 

So may we take it that the final GRU reports, as digitised really are "final" as being based on verification records no longer extant??  Which means they are "final" both as an administrative process and because there is no effective way to take the matters further after a century??  This was the original question.

A/the big question - and seemingly still not answered by CWGC so far - certainly not as a general rule.

A 'case by case' basis one still has to suspect.

:-) M

[Tom Tulloch-Marshall]

23 hours ago, Tom Tulloch-Marshall said:

 

First point above, - no it cannot have been anything like a present day "Crime Scene Investigation. Why do people, from the CWGC down, keep inferring that it was ? 

 

21 hours ago, jay dubaya said:

Where does CSI come into it? I inferred no such thing.

 

Correct; you did not infer a contemporary "CSI" situation, and I did not say that you did. The main offenders are the CWGC and the MoD - and others.

Unfortunately this topic is probably adding to an already confusing situation because unsupported theories and speculation are being proposed in a way which might be interpreted as proving something to be correct.

Tom

[Tom Tulloch-Marshall]

   Very,very interesting. Can we infer from this that the Final Verifications were dumped because they duplicated what was on the"Finals" (and others) that are now digitised? 

 

No.

Tom

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, Tom Tulloch-Marshall said:

 

No.

Tom

 

  Then why were they dumped?  

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

 

Although I have been following this thread, I have only today had chance to read through all the contributions that have been added since I posted last week, awesome in serving as a reminder that things that I had regarded as “written in stone” on the CGWC website are not necessarily written in stone at all, and highlighting how difficult it is to work out how reliable the information that we have about a particular case is, and whether/where there might be additional information to be found.

 

On 06/09/2020 at 21:41, Matlock1418 said:

 

Interesting indeed.  https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/549388/HENRY GODFREY

Notably it may also be of interest to observe his CWGC Grave Register, Headstone Schedule [sadly no FaG photo of headstone and free view of WGPP photo of headstone https://www.twgpp.org/photograph/view/3390227 is unclear] and web commemoration all indicate 8/9 Sept 1916 - but if you currently download/print-off a CWGC Certificate of commemoration it resoundedly plumps for only 8 Sept 1916!

 

Even more interesting = the 2/5 LF WD at the NA https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7354878 notably WO-95-2923-2_1 p151-2/248 which has for 8 Sept 1916 "Relief effected by 3.30 AM" and a relatively quiet day "Capt Hedley wounded about 4.30 AM. Slight shelling during the day, very few casualties" [no mention of Godfrey on 8 Sept] but on 9 Sept the LF are involved in an attack - "Sec Lieut Godfrey (Killed)" is at the bottom of the page for 9 Sept 1916

Edit: It is interesting to note I feel that the hand-writing at the bottom is slightly different [possibly later?] and after the listed officers ends with "334 other ranks killed wounded and missing" - one has to wonder about how quickly, how accurately and when such a casualty list entry was made and if any substantiveness it might thus offer [or not!]

 

HG's Officer's service record is at the NA https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C697855 [sadly not yet digitised] - I wonder what is in there ???

 

 

My reason for posting is that I had not realized, Matlock 1418, that you had edited your original reply to my post so as to include the additional information quoted above.

 

In his diary my grandfather has included a detailed account of the 2/5^th’s time at the front from 7^th to 9^th September 1916, including “going over the top” at 5.45pm on 9^th September. He was OC of "Z" Company, and had 5 other officers under his command, one of whom was Godfrey. My grandfather was wounded in the action, and when one of his junior officers arrived wounded in his ward at the CCS on 11th September he says “Thus I knew that all the officers in “Z” Company had been killed or wounded”, the implication being that he knew that Godfrey had been killed by that time. As I said in my earlier post, there was scope for Godfrey having been killed before they went over the top, as the trenches they were in were being shelled, but it would have been quite extraordinary for my grandfather not to have mentioned that fact, as he obviously would have been affected by it, both emotionally and strategically. But it is also strange – and untypical - that he does not mention it occurring after they went over the top, either on the footing that he witnessed it, or recording the circumstances in which he learnt of it. He mentions Godfrey’s death only at the end of his account summarising all the officer casualties suffered by the Battalion in the action – which is analogous to the way in which it is handled in the War Diary.

 

I can’t help feeling that it is more likely that Godfrey was killed after they went over the top, as my grandfather omitting to say how he learnt of his death is easier to accept than his forgetting to note the death of one of his officers before the attack, and that would be consistent with the War Diary’s date, though not with the CWGC commemoration certificate. I can’t help feeling that the reason for the 8^th being inserted as the date of death on the latter may be that CGWC, having taken the unusual step of hedging its bets on the Gravestone Register and Headstone Schedule, couldn’t bring itself to do so on the certificate, and therefore chose to plump for the earlier date without any particular rationale for that.

As you say, it would be interesting to know what Godfrey’s records say at Kew, but sadly in current circumstances I shan’t have been able to discover that in time to add an illuminating footnote to the published version of my grandfather’s diary, which is already with the printers.

 

On 12/09/2020 at 21:10, thetrenchrat22 said:

I do believe that the IWGC, did not look at, if they did have access to service records during the Great War.  
 

whilst looking at the Gordon Highlanders in Fosse 7 Cemetery, France.  The CWGC records shows 1 of them died with the 10th Battalion, where in fact he served and died with the 9th Battalion as his service records have survived.  The medals rolls also show the 9th.

 

 

 

While I cannot comment on whether the IWGC or CWGC had reference to the service records, my grandfather’s diary is – in my humble view – conclusive (even without the official LF WD) that the CWGC have got it wrong with regard to information relating the unit in respect of at least two Grave Registration records.

 

First, as I already mentioned in post 10 of the thread https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/281198-accidental-shooting-of-an-officer/page/2/, Stanley Leslie Moffatt's headstone shows him as being in the 2^nd Battalion, not the 2/5^th Battalion LF, and secondly A.D.G.O. Kerr, of the Middlesex Regiment, is shown by the CGWC as being attached to the 1/5^th LF rather than the 2/5^th LF.

 

 

With regard to the former, I wonder on reflection whether the reason why there is no information about the family in the CWGC records, nor did the family cause an inscription to be made on the headstone in contrast to his brother Cecil who died 13 days earlier (see my post referred to above), originates from the error in relation to the unit, so that the family were not in fact contacted about him?

 

Both Kerr and Moffatt are mentioned in the War Diary of the 2/5^th Lancashire Fusiliers, so do the experts think this should be enough to enable the CWGC to correct their records with regard to the unit information, including on Leslie Moffatt’s headstone? I recognize that it is too late to add any inscription from the family to the headstone.

 

[Tom Tulloch-Marshall]

23 minutes ago, A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy said:

Although I have been following this thread, I have only today had chance to read through all the contributions that have been added since ...

 

Incorrect, I'm afraid.

(Quite a few now watching with interest).

Tom

[jay dubaya]

2 hours ago, Tom Tulloch-Marshall said:

 

Correct; you did not infer a contemporary "CSI" situation, and I did not say that you did. The main offenders are the CWGC and the MoD - and others.

Unfortunately this topic is probably adding to an already confusing situation because unsupported theories and speculation are being proposed in a way which might be interpreted as proving something to be correct.

Tom

 

Confusing - Yes

Fact based - Far from it

Worth exploring/discussing - Yes

 

What do you propose we do Tom, - not discuss or offer interpretations? If we don't scrutinise what we have access to now, how on earth should we expect to progress.  Without the conclusive proof - that probably no longer exists - we will have to reflect on balanced opinions and interpretations  - I take none of this as proof but a better understanding which includes your reticent approach

 

[Aurel Sercu]

It's not that I intend to hijack, but only to say that yesterday I advanced  my own specific problem in a different Topic. First I planned on mentioning it here, but for some reason maybe better to start a different Topic.

 

It is about the mentions GRU and E in the 6th column of the Graves Registration Report Forms, with which I have had problems with for years. (And I desperately need a clear view and solution...)

 

If you are interested, you can find it here :

https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/284945-graves-registration-report-forms-silly-questions/?tab=comments#comment-2933857

 

Thanks,

Aurel