Help finding Alfred Thomas Beadle L 9935 POW records.

[Margaretnolan]

Hi. I’m trying to locate this man’s prisoner of war records, that’s if he was one. I’ve looked but can’t find.
Link below to his service records.

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/1219/images/miuk1914e_124884-00052?treeid=&personid=&rc=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=DsX2&_phstart=successSource&pId=143570

Thank you.

Margaret

 

Edited 11 December , 2022 by Margaretnolan

[charlie962]

Fascinating correspondence in the file. This is the key letter (original handwritten version also in file).

Courtesy Findmypast  

Next step is to see if Sgt Legge made a pow statement. 

Legge is Sgt RP Legge L/7210 who was taken 20/10/14 and survived the war.

I find nothing for Beadle using FindmyPast's indexing of ICRC.

Edited 11 December , 2022 by charlie962

[Margaretnolan]

Thanks Charlie. I could find Legge on the ICRC. And I notice Private soldiers are listed separate to Sergts..Lance Corporals and Corporals. Every day a school day!
 

Margaret

[charlie962]

This letter is also relevant, courtesy Findmypast

[Margaretnolan]

His date of death is given as 20th October 1914. CWGC entry below. I forgot to add it.
I’ve searched the newspapers for mention of him as being missing but nothing coming up.

https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/874371/alfred-thomas-beadle/

 

Margaret

Edited 11 December , 2022 by Margaretnolan

[charlie962]

Courtesy Findmypast newspapers East Kent Times 9/12/14.

 

[charlie962]

The Times 17/2/1916

[charlie962]

[charlie962]

Soldiers Effects entry Feb 1916 says presumed killed in action 20/10/14.

Courtesy Ancestry.

Edited 11 December , 2022 by charlie962

[Margaretnolan]

Charley. It looks like Arthur Beadle died and was not taken prisoner..am I right in saying that?
 

Margaret 

[George Rayner]

12 hours ago, charlie962 said:

The Times 17/2/1916

Soldier Chapple has the same date of KiA in Soldier's Effects so looks like Beadle did die in October 1914

George

[charlie962]

6 hours ago, Margaretnolan said:

Charley. It looks like Arthur Beadle died and was not taken prisoner..am I right in saying that?
 

Margaret 

Margaret,

The Soldiers Effects says 'presumed' killed in action.

The account given by Pte Bushell suggests Beadle was alive when captured. 

There does not appear to be a surviving account by Legge of what happened to Beadle. Legge probably made one of those returned pow statements but it does not seem to have been preserved.

Legge ended up in an Internment Camp in Holland early 1918 so communication with the family of Beadle would have been quite possible. Beadle's mother was provided with contact details earlier. There may have been a reply but by early 1916 the Army had no definite news and declared Beadle 'presumed killed in action'. Hence Soldiers Effects entry and published 'killed' in Daily Casualty List, both 1916, ie 16 months after he went missing.

His body was never found so he is on Plugstreet Memorial. 

I've tried a search on newspapers without further result to what I have posted above. Perhaps there are newspaper local to his mother that are not yet digitised but in local library?

Have you tried contacting relatives? Not just of Beadle but of Legge?

How difficult it must have been for Beadle's family to hear Bushell's account but nothing further. In the confusion and tension of a capture there was more than one soldier who never made it to pow camp.

Charlie

[charlie962]

I note that Legge has a service record postwar held by the MoD.

Unlikely to hold a copy pow statement but who knows.

From Ancestry index of postwar discharges:

 

"RP Legge

B. 22 Apr 1884

Army Other Ranks, Discharges for 1921-1939

6278072 "

Edited 12 December , 2022 by charlie962