Notification of death

[Mick M]

Has anyone seen this before and what may it mean?

Reported missing on 8.5.17 then in early July the status changed to;

"Missing believed killed after action"

While the battalion were being relieved the Germans mounted an Infantry attack in force with artillery..the last 2 platoons were caught up in the fighting and remained to help the relieving Battalion repulse the attack. The individual was never recovered...

[FROGSMILE]

I would suggest that initially he was reported ‘missing’ (whilst known that he was part of the sub-unit caught up in German offensive action that occurred during the battalion’s ‘relief in place’, but not precisely what had happened to him).  Subsequently, ‘after the action’, and after details of what occurred became known, he was then reported killed.  There’s always fog in war, but at that time, when there was no low level battlefield radio, that was even more the case.  That would be my take on the annotation anyway.

Edited 20 June , 2022 by FROGSMILE

[Mick M]

20 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

I would suggest that initially he was reported ‘missing’ (whilst known that he was part of the sub-unit caught up in German offensive action that occurred during the battalion’s ‘relief in place’, but not precisely what had happened to him).  Subsequently, ‘after the action’, and after details of what occurred became known, he was then reported killed.  There’s always fog in war, but at that time, when there was no low level battlefield radio that was even more the case.  That would be my take on the annotation anyway.

Thank you, I was a bit confused as it would usually read, missing presumed killed in action.....I expect I'm not picking...

[FROGSMILE]

9 minutes ago, Mick M said:

Thank you, I was a bit confused as it would usually read, missing presumed killed in action.....I expect I'm not picking...

Yes that would be a more conventional statement I agree.