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Remembered Today:

William Thomas Bentley


J Licence

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So this is all that is known.

 

I have the marriage certificate so know that the information is correct.  Elsie Emma was 27 when they married. I also have a photograph, although I don't know when it was taken. The child is my aunt, she looks to be about 8 when this was taken. She was born in 1916. So William T Bentley was still alive into the 1920's.  Family sources said that the marriage failed and she went back to live with her parents. She is buried in Ipswich Cemetery under the name of Bentley.

 

As far as I can see, we are struggling to tie the man here who married in 1917 , to the soldier who enlisted in Reading a few years earlier

 

As I said earlier in this thread, if we could get his POW information, that should give the Reading soldier's DOB. But a number of us have searched, and failed to find, the POW card for Bentley. It, like many POW cards, has been mis-filed/mis-named, and if so, the chances of finding it are not good

 

 

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Went through all the bentleys in FMP POW records and eventually found the ICRC index card for 19751 William Bentley which referred me to the doc PA29995 on the ICRC site

 

Here is the man living at 156 Friar St. The unit is unclear but he was taken prisoner on 23/11/17 at Cambrai. 23/11/17 is the date 92779 is taken POW. I am assuming 19751 is the Beds Yeomanry number. The Beds Yeo is indicated on the Pension Card on Fold 3. 

https://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/List/3655166/698/29995/ and same image https://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=GBM%2FICRC%2FC_G1_E_04_01_0150%2F0198&parentid=GBM%2FICRC%2FR%2F024714

bentley1.jpg.7235aab6d57549dbe522c33f348ad506.jpg

 

 

Hopefully that answers all the questions but would like opinions. But seems to link everything together.

Coutesy FMP and ICRC

 

 

 

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That is a great find, you are a man of great patience to winkle it out.

 

We seem to be tantalisingly close now.

 

The service number, as you say is wrong for his Tank Corps number. Can anyone say if 19751 could have been his Yeomanry number

 

The POW is almost certainly the Plasterer in Bury St Edmonds in 1939 register. There is a slight variation in age POW =3 Mar 1898 and Plasterer = 19 Mar 1898

 

The POW gives his address as Reading, which is his parents address (he and they are there in 1911 census), rather than his wife's (he married just before being taken POW)

 

The fact that he walked out on the family means that will still cannot be certain - can anyone put a more positive spin thn that?

 

Personally I am reasonably certain that the Reading born man did marry in 1917 and later went to Suffolk when he died. And I am doubtful that we can tease any more out of the facts

Edited by corisande
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I think we can the POW record PA29995 with a pinch of salt

Top man on the page is 24372 appears to be 23831 Joseph Bates born 3/12/1895 in Rotherham. He has a George Murray on the same POW record page with 25484 on it and born the same day as the man on PA29995. However there are other records for Murray with 37863. See PA18276. The 26585 John Peare is in fact 6585 John Peare 2 Irish Guards. So I think records have been somewhat confused. Perhaps the clerk at Cassel had a few too may steins the night before, So I think we must treat the number 19751 with some caution.

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1 hour ago, Mark1959 said:

, So I think we must treat the number 19751 with some caution.

 

Agreed, but it does give his DOB and his address in Reading which both link us to the Reading born man. The Service no , if we could crack it, might help us too. Whatever way you look at it, that POW card is our man

 

A further question on that POW card, what is his unit given on it - I cannot make it out?

 

 

Edited by corisande
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36 minutes ago, corisande said:

The Service no , if we could crack it, might help us too.

As my previous post - unfortunately not on the pension card

37 minutes ago, corisande said:

A further question on that POW card, what is his unit given on it - I cannot make it out?

POW card = a great find Mark.

I think it is: "5 B T G" which at a pinch could be 5th Bn Tank Guards [or perhaps interpreted as Tank Corps?]

:-) M

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I can't thank you all enough for all your hard work. It does seem that all these snippets are coming together. Maybe that is why, according to oral family history he treated his wife badly, and she left him. Perhaps his POW experiences left him very bitter.

 

It is strange that I have another ancester who was captured at Cambrai, but he unfortunately died in a POW camp and is buried in Germany.

 

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4 hours ago, corisande said:

Can anyone say if 19751 could have been his Yeomanry number

 

A check of men in the CWGC database with nearby service numbers cross-referenced to Soldiers Died in the Great War and a check for surviving service records gives us

 

92775 Gunner Alfred Hopkins, F Battalion, died 05/04/18, buried France. SDGW formerly 1980 Hampshire Yeomanry. No surviving service records, (FMP).

92776 Gunner Frederick Green, F Battalion,  died of wounds 04/08/17,  buried Belgium. SDGW formerly 1583 Hampshire Yeomanry. No surviving service records, (FMP).

92778 Corporal Frank Septimus Lock 5th Battalion,  died 23/10/18, buried UK. SDGW enlisted Reading, formerly 2268 Berkshire Yeomanry. No surviving service records, (FMP).

 

(No matches 92780 to 92800)

 

So potentially there could have been another unit, (M.G.C. ?), between them serving in the Yeomanry and joining the Tank Corps, and the 19751 service number could relate to that.

 

This is speculation but the earlier posting of the relevant Casualty List shows that he was “Previously reported missing, now reported wounded and prisoner of war in German hands”

Nothing on the P.A. report to indicate the extent of his wounds but does raise the possibility that the initial identification of his service number came from his I.D. Tag – the quality of which could vary considerably, rather than via an interrogation.

 

While it’s probably the unit starts with a 5, ( so possibly E Battalion),  but looking at the individuals identified from CWGC, there is the possibility that it could have been meant to be an F, (as in F Battalion).

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

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Hi,

 

8 hours ago, corisande said:

Can anyone say if 19751 could have been his Yeomanry number

 

On 11/06/2021 at 14:26, corisande said:

William Thomas Bentley #92779

 

14 Sep 1914 Enlisted in Berks Yeomanry in Reading

 

 

If he did enlist with them on that date in 1914, it looks likely that his original service number was probably  2***

 

2054 Franklin - attested 11.9.1914

2055 Scrivener - attested 11.9.1914

2097 Turner - attested 14.9.1914

2107 Rumble - attested 15.9.1914

2109 Woods - attested 15.9.1914

 

4 hours ago, PRC said:

No matches 92780 to 92800

 

 

There are some service papers for 92784 Chamberlain which show that he too was transferred from the Berkshire Yeomanry.

 

There are also papers for MGC (Heavy Branch)/Tank Corps numbers thereabouts which might point towards a transfer date of early 1917:

 

92758 Davies - transferred from Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry on 30.1.1917

92762 Barrow - transferred from North Somerset Yeomanry on 31.1.1917

92768 Barton - transferred from North Somerset Yeomanry on 31.1.1917

92799 Girling - transferred from Surrey Yeomanry on 2.2.1917

 

Regards

Chris

 

 

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Thank you Chris & Peter

 

So what we have now is

 

William Thomas Bentley

 

14 Sep 1914 Enlisted in Berks Yeomanry in Reading. His service number  looks to be somewhere between #2050 and #2120. We have not found it

1917 Late Jan/early Feb transfers to MGC (Heavy Branch)/Tank Corps  #92779

1917 Nov 3 taken POW. So was in Tank Corps when taken prisoner. POW records (unclear writing) indicate he may have been with 5 btn Tank Corps @delta may be able to comment

1918 Nov 11.  released from POW

1919 Apr 11.  discharged with SWB from Tank Corps

 

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7 hours ago, Matlock1418 said:

As my previous post - unfortunately not on the pension card

POW card = a great find Mark.

I think it is: "5 B T G" which at a pinch could be 5th Bn Tank Guards [or perhaps interpreted as Tank Corps?]

:-) M

Possibly a battalion of the Irish Guards, which would fit with what appears to be ? B I G.  There were just two battalions of Irish Guards during WW1, 1st and 2nd, so it’s a question of whether the squiggled digit can be squared with either of those numbers.

Edited by FROGSMILE
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1 hour ago, corisande said:

William Thomas Bentley

 

14 Sep 1914 Enlisted in Berks Yeomanry in Reading. His service number  looks to be somewhere between #2050 and #2120. We have not found it

1917 Late Jan/early Feb transfers to MGC (Heavy Branch)/Tank Corps  #92779

1917 Nov 3 taken POW. So was in Tank Corps when taken prisoner. POW records (unclear writing) indicate he may have been with 5 btn Tank Corps @delta may be able to comment

1918 Nov 11.  released from POW

1919 Apr 11.  discharged with SWB from Tank Corps

 

If we are agreed that the man in the civil records and the soldier are one and the same then possibly a little bit more to flesh that out.

 

14 Sep 1914 Enlisted in Berks Yeomanry in Reading. His service number looks to be somewhere between #2056 and #2106.

1917 Late Jan/early Feb transfers to MGC (Heavy Branch)/Tank Corps  #92779, (if he wasn’t renumbered when the Tanks Corps came into being in June 1917).

1917 April 4 – is with the MGC (Heavy Branch) at Wool, Dorset when he marries in Ipswich. Rank given as Gunner. (Banns had been read at Wool 4th, 11th and 18th March 1917, so he can be presumed to also be based at Wool at that time).

1917 July. Goes to France, (according to report in the Reading Mercury December 22nd 1917).

1917 Nov 23 taken POW at Cambrai. So was in Tank Corps when taken prisoner. POW records (unclear writing) indicate he may have been with 5 btn Tank Corps. Subsequent War Office Casualty List records him as Wounded and a Prisoner.

1918 Nov 11.  released from POW

1919 Apr 11.  discharged from Tank Corps as a Serjeant as a result of wounds. Receives Silver War Badge.

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

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Sorry 5th Bn is not one of the unit's I have researched

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1 hour ago, delta said:

Sorry 5th Bn is not one of the unit's I have researched

 

Hi,

 

We don't know for sure it was 5th Battalion - that is just one possible interpretation of his unit on the report received by the International Committee of the Red Cross from the German authorities.

 

Cheers,

Peter

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Hi, I've been trying to make sense of this mystery and bizarrely enough, I can only conclude that there were two men called William Thomas Bentley in the Tank Corps, both of whom were captured by the Germans.

 

The reason I know something about this is that Pte 2774 William Thomas Bentley belonged to D Battalion and was captured during their attack in the Ypres Salient on August 22, 1917. He was in D46 Dragon, the entire crew of which was captured when it became ditched behind German lines. I included a detailed German account of this in my book with extracts from their interrogation report. The ICRC records show this man was born in 1888 in the West Ham area of Forest Gate. He was repatriated in November 1918, and at some stage was clearly renumbered 200809 - this is confirmed by the medal register which shows he was captured on August 22, 1917.

image.png.5f909fd4df8f4732e2ab43216b4dc439.png

 

 

This much is pretty certain, but all the research above indicates there was also a Sgt 92779 William Thomas Bentley, who was previously in the Berks Yeomanry, and was born in Reading in 1898. He was discharged in 1919 with the Silver War Badge, and the newspaper reports indicate he was captured during the Battle of Cambrai on November 23, 1917. The only mysteries are the number shown on his ICRC records (19751) as this doesn't seem to make sense and could well be a mistake. The other question is about his unit, which is shown as "5 B I G" (the Germans used a J for a capital I, and the index card shows this quite clearly). 

 

This would suggest E (later 5th) Bn, who were in action on November 23 and suffered quite heavy losses. However there is a full casualty list in the War Diary, including other ranks and missing men, and he does not appear. I would therefore suggest the unit isn't correct, but don't have any useful suggestions. But at least we can now identify him clearly and separate him from the other W.T. Bentley in D Bn who was captured in August 1917.

 

Hope this is helpful!

 

John

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8 minutes ago, johntaylor said:

But at least we can now identify him clearly and separate him from the other W.T. Bentley in D Bn who was captured in August 1917.

 

Well done. Thanks for clarifying that. I thought that was probably what was going on with the two men, but did not have the perserverence to follow it through as you have done:)

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Hi John,

 

3 hours ago, johntaylor said:

This would suggest E (later 5th) Bn, who were in action on November 23 and suffered quite heavy losses. However there is a full casualty list in the War Diary, including other ranks and missing men, and he does not appear. I would therefore suggest the unit isn't correct, but don't have any useful suggestions.

 

Would it be possible to post a copy of the list? What I was wondering, and probably a fruitless long shot, is to see if any of the missing men have ICRC records, and how they were written up; and if anything might be deduced about what appears to read as "5 B I G", other than perhaps an unknown meaning/error. I'm happy to do the leg work where I can.

 

Regards

Chris

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Hi, I think I've solved this one. I was puzzled as to why the ICRC records would refer to 5th Bn, as tank battalions weren't numbered until Jan 1918, so a prisoner in Nov 1917 would have referred to his battalion by its letter. That made me wonder if the number 5 referred to a company, as these were numbered at the time (in fact the PoW records for the other William Bentley show the number 12, which was his company within D Bn).

 

Anyway No. 5 Company was in B Bn, which was also heavily engaged on Nov 23. Fortunately the crew lists have survived, and Ian Verrinder has helpfully included them in his book Tank Action in the Great War (Pen & Sword). This reveals that Pte 92779 W. Bentley was a Lewis gunner in B30 Bally Hackle II, which was indeed in No. 5 Company of B Bn. This was one of a number of tanks destroyed during the desperate battle to seize the village of Fontaine, three days after the initial attack at Cambrai. Three members of her crew were listed as killed and the rest as missing, including Pte Bentley.

 

So the mystery is solved - the Private Bentley from Reading (i.e. the subject of the initial inquiry) was captured during one of the fiercest tank battles of the war, when the Germans were struggling to withstand the British advance after being driven back on a broad front by a surprise attack on Nov 20. When the tanks of B Bn entered Fontaine they were met by fierce resistance and most were destroyed in a desperate street battle. There is an excellent account in Ian's book, with a very good summary here:

https://sites.google.com/site/landships/home/narratives/1917/cambrainarratives/comp-coy-b-battalion-23-november-1917

 

There are many German photos (and newsreel footage) showing the aftermath of the attack, and this photo shows Bally Hackle II: https://www.flickr.com/photos/7700258@N05/8346431635/in/set-72157601074582281/

 

I still can't explain why the German clerk made such a pig's ear of the PoW register. However, having been through a lot of ICRC records I'm familiar with this chap's rather florid writing, and my guess is he didn't speak very good English and struggled to make sense of what people were saying. The number (19751) was completely wrong, but when it came to the unit he'd obviously realised that a lot of British units were known by abbreviations, so he simply made up his own ones for everything. The "5 B" clearly refers to No. 5 Company in B Bn, and the rest looks like "I (or rather J) G", but may possibly have been intended as "T C" for Tank Corps.

 

No-one can say for sure, but at least we've identified both Private Bentleys and established where and when they were captured.

 

All the best,

 

John

 

 

Edited by johntaylor
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35 minutes ago, johntaylor said:

but at least we've identified both Private Bentleys and established where and when they were captured.

Well done John with your recent analysis - a great result all round.

:-) M

Edited by Matlock1418
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The cherry on the icing on the cake. Well done all and John for his expertise

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On 12/06/2021 at 14:55, J Licence said:

I can't thank you all enough for all your hard work. It does seem that all these snippets are coming together. Maybe that is why, according to oral family history he treated his wife badly, and she left him. Perhaps his POW experiences left him very bitter.

 

Thanks for your messages, and I'm very pleased to have helped sort this out. In fact I was already slightly confused about the William Bentley in D Bn, and now realise I'd muddled up some of his records with the other William Bentley in B Bn. It's a remarkable coincidence that two men with identical names from the same unit were captured in the same year, but this is indeed what happened.

 

Regarding the original inquiry, we can presume that William was suffering from what we now call post-traumatic shock disorder, which wasn't then understood or recognised but had terrible effects on many men long after the war. When you read about the fighting in Fontaine it was clear he went through hell, with his officer and two of his mates killed beside him when their tank was knocked out.  William was lucky to get out alive, but like many others he must have been mentally scarred by what he went through, both in action and subsequently as a PoW.

 

If you get the chance post-lockdown I would recommend a visit to the new museum in Flesquieres where Deborah is on display. This is a female Mark IV tank, identical to Bally Hackle II, which was hit by shellfire and then buried on the battlefield before being rediscovered 80 years later, as described in my book Deborah and the War of the Tanks. Philippe Gorczynski, who discovered Deborah, is always fascinated to meet anyone whose ancestors were involved in the battle, and I'm sure he would be delighted to take you to Fontaine and show you the scene of the battle.

 

All the best,

 

John

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All

 

As I belong to the Suffolk WFA it may well be I can persuade our tour organiser to fit in a visit to Fontaine and Flesquieres sometime in the near future. 

 

So now I can put together his war history along side with his civilian history. 

 

Thank you.

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi John

I've come rather late to the party but I hope this assists

Bentley Gunner W.T., Tank Corps, late Berks Yeomanry, son of ex-PC Bentley off 156 Friar Street, Reading – Missing: PHOTO Reading Chronicle 11-01-1918 Gunner W.T. Bentley, Tank Corps formerly of the Berks Yeo has been missing since 23 November [1917]. He joined the army on 14th August 1914, and went to France in July 1917. Deceased was 19 years of age, and was educated at St James School, Reading. His Parents lived at 156 Friar Street, Reading. Rdg Merc 22-12-1917. Ditto Reading Chronicle 21-12-17

I am afraid the photo below is not very good but you might get a better result if you could see the original.

bentley.png.c819aaa702fb798f9a98b95738762601.png

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Hi Andrew, many thanks for the newspaper photo from Jan 1918 which is a very good find. We had already seen the earlier article from Dec 1917 where he was listed as missing - I can't imagine what his family must have thought when they saw the article and read: "Deceased was 19 years of age". Fortunately the local paper got it wrong on that occasion (not for the first or last time!)

All the best, John

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Many thanks for the newspaper clip. The picture certainly looks like William from the other photo I have.

 

Regards

Jean L

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