Norfolk Regiment Casualty and Sickness Book - what might 'ah Arret' mean? And how debilitating was Trench Fever?

[JDB]

Yes, that seems the most likely doesn't it. Well, as usual, each new source brings up more questions than answers but also lots more colour to add to the picture.

Very interesting discussion overall. Thank you Craig and thank you all for your input. 

[helpjpl]

 

1.  Five men from the battalion who died between 04 August and 15 August 1915 are buried in the Norfolk Cemetery at Becordel-Becourt:

https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/39402/G CHASE/#&gid=1&pid=2

 

 

2.  IF this is your man, I don't have access, then he appears on the August list as killed:

https://search.findmypast.co.uk/search/british-newspapers?date=1915-09-08&date_offsetdate=1915-09-14&lastname=hipperson&modifiedfacets=true&exactnames=true&exactkeywords=false

 

JP

 

 

[JDB]

Wow, thank you so much for these. yes that's him in the Lynn Advertizer- George Hipperson -  and no I have Ancestry but not FMP access so that's great. Thank you. 

 

Now the Graves registration - thats so interesting - thank you again!  I was looking at that cemetery the other day (virtually) and did wonder  - the diary is daily up to the 1st Aug but then they marched up to Fricourt and it reads:  

 

2^nd - 22^nd  We were in the trenches. Extremely quiet all the time.

During this period we had the following casualties

6 killed

11 wounded

 

So I guess, there's 5 of the 6 who were killed on the Graves Registration Form - but not my Acting Corporal George Hipperson - yet dates both sides of him - hmmm... now why would that be, I wonder?  It definitely says killed in action on his MIC and Rolls so I didn't think he'd been one of the wounded...

 

All ideas welcome!

[RussT]

I think it is a place name - but what?

 

Here is the SER for 3/10812 Chase with the men above and below his entry in the SER (having unrelated dates and units to that of Chase) - the top one is Fauquissant in Action & the bottom one is St Jean Ypres in Action.

 

Regards

 

Russ

 

 

[TEW]

A copy & paste from TNA Education . It's a diary extract from WO95/1864 for June 1915.

 

June 30th 1915

Intermittent hostile shelling during day especially about Y wood and the ARRET. Enemy redoubt about I.18.A.6.9 shelled by 4.5” and 6” Howitzers, at 6 p.m. with very good results, 8 dead being seen near parapet.

 

Also mentioned are Cambridge Road & Witte Poort Farme, the latter near Bir  Cross cemetery, not far from Hell fire corner and Hill 60 to the south!

 

There are two Arrets marked on a map. One at Hell Fire Corner. This one is a railway crossing or terminus of a loop railway? but could well have been used as a location taken from a word on a map.

Sheet 28.I.10.d.2.3.

 

Second one is even closer to Hill 60, this is simply the railway 'Halt' near Manor Farm on later maps. Sheet 28.I.22.c.7.4.

Both on McMaster 28NW4 June 1915 as Arret.

TEW

[FROGSMILE]

There is a place called ‘Arrest’ on the Somme: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest,_Somme

Might that be it?

[TEW]

Plug Arret as a keyword into a diary search and it comes up as a location for 2nd Cavalry Division. This equates to the Hell Fire Corner Arret in my previous.

 

And the Hill 60 context from the OP is:

 

Whatever the diagnosis, the timing is pretty crucial as he was either at Hill 60 in early May 1915 or he wasn't....

TEW

Edited 25 February , 2021 by TEW
Format

[FROGSMILE]

39 minutes ago, TEW said:

Plug Arret as a keyword into a diary search and it comes up as a location for 2nd Cavalry Division. This equates to the Hell Fire Corner Arret in my previous.

 

And the Hill 60 context from the OP is:

 

Whatever the diagnosis, the timing is pretty crucial as he was either at Hill 60 in early May 1915 or he wasn't....

TEW

Thanks TEW, apologies that I misunderstood your earlier mention of it.

Edited 25 February , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[helpjpl]

 

1.  1st Bn Norfolk Regiment were in the trenches at Fricourt from 2nd to 22nd August 1915.

 

2.  George Albert Hipperson was KIA on 05 August 1915 at Arret and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

 

3.  Isaac Albert Laud was killed in action at Arret on 09 August 1915 and is buried with 4 of his comrades at Norfolk Cemetery, Becordel-Becourt:

a)  https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56632953/isaac-albert-laud

b)  https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/39524/

 

4.  Pte G Chase (04 August - Arret):

https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/39402/

 

5.  Pte John Frederick Clewer (5/6 Aug - In Action (edit):

https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/39406/

 

6.  Pte Arthur Towler (12 Aug - Arret In Action (edit):

https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/39648/

 

7.  Pte Thomas William West (15 Aug - Arret In Action (edit):

https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/39664/

 

8.  The cemetery, at Becordel-Becort, was begun by the 1st Norfolks in August 1915 and is only about 3.0 km from Fricourt.

 

9.  I can't find a place called Arret near Fricourt. The village of Arrest (Somme) is 103km from Fricourt and Hell Fire Corner is 145km from Fricourt.

 

10.  Fricourt had a railway line and an arrêt  was a station which had  a wood or brick shelter, if one was provided, with a rudimentary platform.

 

JP

 

Edited 26 February , 2021 by helpjpl

[TEW]

Yes, realised the location differences after I posted. The NYD fever in May 1915 and Hill 60 context not relevant to his death in Aug!

 

Although the two diary extracts I put up show that 'Arrêt' can be used as a place name.

 

Another point is that the arrêts marked on the Ypres sheet in 1915 became halt on later maps.

 

I don't know with any precision which trenches they held 5/8/15 but he's hardly moving far from his alloted zone, there must be an arrêt nearby.

 

Just as an example there is a halt marked near Becordel-Becort on a 1916 map at 62d.E.12.d.9.9. Or the station in F.3.c. Like my Ypres examples these could easily have been marked as arrêt on earlier maps, the area could easily have become known as the anglicised 'Arret'.

 

Checking the map again is it likely he was in 62d.F.3.c?

TEW

 

 

[JDB]

Wow, Russ, helpjpl, Frogsmile, Tew and Russ -  Thank you one and all for your contributions.  You are so skilled and knowledgeable - I take my hat off to you. I'm so grateful.

 

And, yes, that seems to make so much sense of Arret as a location - albeit a station halt  / hut whatever now -  and the attachment of the actual page (which I have subsequently had from the museum now - see below)  - clearly does say 'at Arret' so it fits. 

 

After the discussion here yesterday, I emailed the Royal Norfolk Museum again and had another reply from Kate Thaxton, the curator. She is working from home but is hugely helpful and was able to send me an image of of the actual page in the Casualty and Sickness Book as a pdf  - which I hope I have attached alright. 

 

I also asked if she could supply some more information regarding the context of the book and how it came into being. She replied with the following: 

 

The large hardback volume was originally intended and printed as a recruitment register and I have not found another Regiment with a similar record of casualties. So I assume that it was started at the Regimental depot here in Norwich on the decision of the officer commanding. In 1914, some poor clerk was tasked with recording each blue/green slip sent in with details in the book, before  passing the information on to the War Office. It was not done on an individual battalion basis, it contains the details of 15,000 men from the two regular battalions  (1^st & 2^nd) and the three Service battalions (7^th, 8^th & 9^th)  with a few additional from other battalions all mixed up. Like you, I am having to work from home at the moment, so do not have access to the Museum office & archive so cannot get to my Casualty Book files. However,  we have had the book digitised and it is now transcribed, and in an expanded form with standardised medical terms, hospital titles etc. although not in a format I can currently make publicly available on line. I have attached the page that George Hipperson appears on.

 

Each entry records the individual soldier’s number, rank, name, and battalion or battalions. It then records against their name details of the casualty, sickness or prisoner of war status, including details of hospitalisation. The years covered run from August 1914 through to the early months of 1919 and the return home of prisoners of war. The book started roughly alphabetically (as you will see George Hipperson is on a page of Hs) but as the War carried on becomes more random. Information seems to have come in batches as a group of men from the same battalion are often on the same page. Men who were sick or wounded on a number of occasions have the additional information added, often in a different hand, all of which suggests information was recorded as it was received, not collated as a project at a later date.  I confess I am not clear of the chronology of the administrative process of getting information back to regimental depots, army records and pay and pensions etc.  I do not think RAMC were involved with the book and when I enquired at their Museum, they did not seem to know of any other similar record.

 

I found that so very interesting - just still puzzling why he wouldn't have been buried in the Norfolk Cemetery though... especially given it was comparatively quiet time..... or maybe he was but his plot  was subsequently lost???

 

 

[helpjpl]

 

Arret, near Becordel-Becourt and about 3 km from Fricourt, is marked on this map of September 1915:

 

 

From here:

 

JP

 

[TEW]

From CWGC-  Norfolk Cemetery. 549 First World War burials, 224 being unidentified, cemetery almost doubled post armistice from battlefield clearance.

 

Seems likely he is one of the 224? You can get all the concentration sheets and check for map refs and/or obtain the grave reports to look for UBS that may be him. Battle damage to his plot/marker seems likely as well.

 

Helpjpl has put up two potential locations for the Arret in question.

 

I trawled a few diaries and note that the Norfolks took over from the French 3rd Aug and called their sector C3 which I couldn't ID. 7th Queens sent a company to be attached to Norfolks around 10th Aug and then fully took over the sector 22nd Aug which they called D3 (see map). D3 & C3 should therefore relate to British trenches 93-100 in blue.

 

15 Infantry Bde. diary mentions sector C3 being shelled from Tambour on 5th Aug which is opposite trench 95.

 

The Fricourt Station/Arret is pretty close to trench 92 ish. My only concerns with the other Arret near Becordel is why would he be there to be KIA rather than his assigned trenches.

 

Finally, I found another more detailed map showing sector D1 for late August. Unfortunate that D2 & 3 were missing but the relevant point is that the trenches had French and British trench names. Possible that 'Arret' may have been a trench that led down to the station.

 

I think this map is in the Brigade diary for 7th Queens.

TEW

 

 

 

 

[RussT]

6 minutes ago, TEW said:

Possible that 'Arret' may have been a trench that led down to the station

 

Rats Alley has two mentions of Arret

 

One as: Arrêt (Zillebeke) Map Sheet 28NW4 Ypres, Map Reference I22c6.3

The other as: Arret Trench (Hallu Station) Map Sheet 66dNW1 Punchy, Map Reference A21d

 

Not sure it helps

 

Regards

 

Russ

[JDB]

Thanks again HelpJPL, Russ and Tew - the maps are terrific - yes, I can see what you mean about the Arret near Bercordel, Tew.  Either way, though, the extra information has really spotlighted the area so well that just to come this close to a couple of well reasoned possibilities is pretty special -to see those trenches so clearly, makes a massive impact. I am grateful for the reference for the maps which I will double check but that's good to know.  And yes, maybe he is in Bercodel Cemetery but unidentified. Its a rather happy thought.

Thank you all for your input - so interesting and utterly priceless! 

[helpjpl]

1.  I didn't put forward that Fricourt Station was the location for Arret where Pte Hipperson and his comrades were KIA. I posted the map on 25 Feb to show that Fricourt had a railway line and a clearly marked station whereas an arrêt was just a a station that had a wood or brick shelter, if one was provided, with a rudimentary platform.

 

Fricourt Station was a Type 1 station:

A type 1 station had a main building with its ridge at right angles to the track, and a wing each side, one of which contained a goods hall. A type 2 station had a main building with its ridge at right angles to the track and smaller wings. A halt had just a main building. An arrêt had just a wood or brick shelter, if one was provided, with a rudimentary platform.

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

 

2.  7th Bn The Queens took over sub-sector D3 near Becourt from the 1st Norfolks on 22 August. Prior to that, from 09 August, some of the Queens went to work with the 1st Norfolks in their trenches in D3.

http://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk/war_diaries/local/7Bn_Queens/7Bn_Queens_1915/7Bn_Queens_1915_08.shtml

 

3.  Becordel and Point 71 are mentioned in the Queens WD from 08 to 13 Sept:

http://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk/war_diaries/local/7Bn_Queens/7Bn_Queens_1915/7Bn_Queens_1915_09.shtml

 

4.  The Norfolk cemetery was begun by the 1st Norfolks at Becordel-Becourt in August and the September map shows a blue (British) trench line running from Becordel-Becourt to Arret.

 

5.  I haven't come across a trench name used instead of a place name in the Register of Soldiers' Effects - but I stand to be corrected.

 

JP

[FROGSMILE]

Does that mean that Arret was perhaps what used to be called in the UK (perhaps still is although our crowded country rarely seems to mention one) a Hamlet, i.e. a tiny village without a church)?  I did think initially that Arret was perhaps a place of human occupation, but with the mention of trenches and railway halts I’ve lost track of where this conundrum has reached.

Edited 27 February , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[TEW]

Frogsmile,

 

No, I don't think hamlet is an equivalent. I'm aware that an arret is a very basic halt on a railway line rather than a station proper.

 

It's just how the term was being used in my opinion is not 100% satisfied. A railway arret/halt does not seem to be a suitable location for noting a place of death in records. Bit like saying 'died at crossroads'.

 

As they had just taken over from the French and the Queens were using a map with French & English trench names later in August it seems to stand to reason the Norfolks took over trenches etc. wholly named  in French.

 

Jury's out for me as to whether he died at the actual Arret near Becordel or in his assigned trenches near the station (I know this is not an arret).

 

I just wonder if the French had named something 'arret' or had another temporary arret nearer to their trenches. Even a trench name is an unlikely place of death which is why I think Arret has to be more than a trench or a railway halt. Unless arret wasn't understood by the Norfolks who had just inherited a French trench system. 

 

Anyway, I think there are two possible locations, unless a Norfolks UBS  concentration turns up with a suitable map ref. I doubt we'll ever know.

TEW

 

 

[ss002d6252]

5 minutes ago, TEW said:

It's just how the term was being used in my opinion is not 100% satisfied. A railway arret/halt does not seem to be a suitable location for noting a place of death in records. Bit like saying 'died at crossroads'.

We also need to keep in mind that the records at the effects branch had come from forms transcribed by the AG branch from the originals. Errors do sometimes creep in so it's possible the original form had more location detail and a clerk at the AG or the effects branch (or both) had truncated the details,

Craig

[JDB]

Frogsmile, HelpJPL, Craig and Tew, I've just read over your last contributions for which I am grateful.   Yes, I can understand the Fricourt station reference better now - and the distinctions between the types of stations and halts you mention. Also, that unless something more specific comes up, it remains an odd reference to make for a place of death. It really is a conundrum, yet still closer than we were when we set out on this trail thanks to your input. 

Can I ask for clarification on the references made to UBS Concentration records - is this different to the graves registration report?  I know the general principle of concentration but is there other documentation I can seek out on this? I don't think I've seen any references to it before. 

[TEW]

You'll find UBS (unknown British soldier) on Grave Registration forms AKA GRRFs and on the concentration sheets. CWGC normally have both on their server. Concentrations can be UBS or knowns, sometimes there is a little detail, they may know a regiment but no number or have a partial number or initials.

 

When you look for a soldier at X cemetery the result will show a Grave Report if he has one, a concentration sheet if that was the case and a headstone report.

 

Researchers sometimes want all the GRRFs or all the concentration sheets for that cemetery.

 

There is an easy way however to get all the EG. Concentration sheets in one go. Otherwise you'd have to trawl through all 325 records at Norfolk C for the knowns to get the sheets one by one.

 Norfolk C has 224 unknowns which is about the same number for the later concentrations.

 

There must be about 37 sheets of GRRFs that show knowns and UBS. There should be about 26 concentration sheets but I'm having trouble finding any. Plus it seems another resource does not have concentration reports for Norfolk C.

 

I'll have to check later and report back, it may be the sheets are lost.

TEW

 

[JDB]

I haven't seen these before at all and I've had a look at the searches and loads of other information on CWGC but I'm not seeing any links to concentration reports anywhere. 

 

Anyway, I downloaded the names of those with graves and it seems the earliest buried who began the cemetery were 5 of the 6 mentioned in the Norfolk diary (plus one from Queens 7th) but obviously not Hipperson being the 6th - though there are death dates either side of him on the 4th and 6th and the same day as him on the 5th. 

 

Just as an aside - he doesn't appear to have an entry in the Soldier's Effects Register either - not sure if that has any bearing on anything. 

[TEW]

Can't speak for the soldiers' effects.

 

Concentration reports are normally available alongside the grave registration forms and headstone schedules for each man, assuming they were concentrated. They are not hidden anywhere.

 

I have been looking and can't find a record of a identified concentration into Norfolk C. Once I find one I can get all these sheets in one go.

 

I think the problem could be that the concentrations are all or nearly all unknowns. Unknowns don't have a CWGC entry. Either that or the concentration sheets were lost long ago.

 

My hunt is not helped by using phone, if I get a chance with laptop tomorrow I'll look again.

TEW

 

 

[ss002d6252]

35 minutes ago, JDB said:

Just as an aside - he doesn't appear to have an entry in the Soldier's Effects Register either - not sure if that has any bearing on anything. 

Based on when he died there should be an entry and possibly even two.

 

Edit:

https://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc=YaU375&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&indiv=1&dbid=60506&cp=0&msddy=1915&msddm=8&msddd=5&_F00061C3=norfolk&new=1&rank=1&uidh=784&redir=false&gss=angs-d&pcat=39&fh=0&h=632984&recoff=&ml_rpos=1&queryId=6bd3fc22182dfb6604ec537fc5fb13f0

Craig

[JDB]

Brilliant! Thanks so much Craig - I'd tried a couple of variations but not Higgerson - need to use a wildcard next time....