Gunner S.F. Betts 124964 - 307 and 321th Siege Battery RGA

[WillMedard]

Hello all,

Thanks to Long, Long Trail and Ancestry, I have already found a great deal of information regarding my great-grandfather, Sidney Francis Betts.

There a few things on which I am quite insure and would love the input from forum members ! All documents (exclusively from Ancestry) can be found here.

My questions would be the following :

- In his Statement of Services (NOTE : he has two of them !), he was transfered to the 307th Siege Battery on 29 11 16 and then to the 321st Siege Battery on 1 3 17 - am I reading this second date correctly ? It his very hard to read.

- In the same document, he is then transferred to 4th Wwul Arty J.M.B on the 23 01 18 and then XVII Corps TM on the 08 02 18. I don't really understand the meaning of this ? 

 

- On his Medical History, could someone help me decipher the 09 04 17 entry ?

It seems there is no clear indication of when he arrived in France ? Anyhow, it seems he spent the most part of the war in the 321st Siege Battery and survived. I haven't read the War Diary yet (WO95/217/7) but will do over the week-end.

Look forward for your help ! Thank you very much

William

 

Edited 29 March by WillMedard
Password removal

[Michelle Young]

Welcome to the Forum. don’t know how I cloud works, but you might get spammers as you have posted your password. ( since removed) Best to post a link to the Ancestry images and post one or two (no more than 5% of the total images)

[Michelle Young]

I think JMB should be TMB- Trench Mortar Battery. 
He would have gone  to an theatre of war after 31/12/1915. 

[WillMedard]

Hi Michelle,

I have edited the post accordingly. Hopefully it will be ok. I'm not quite sure to understand the 5% rule (as in 5% of a given document so it's forbidden to post an entire document ?)

Thank you very much for your definition of JMB which is actually TMB !

 

William

[Michelle Young]

5% of the total amount of documents.

From Forum Rules

Fair Dealing. 

The 1988 Act provides exemptions under "Acts Permitted in Relation to Copyright Works"  that allows Copyright material to be reproduced. These exemptions largely allow GWF members to post Copyright material under certain strict criteria of "Fair Dealing". For the purposes of posting Copyright material on GWF the following criteria must be met ;

 

Non commercial

For research or private study or criticism or review

 

Not more than is required and not more than 5% of any work by page count, word count or image count

The source is acknowledged

It says 4divnl Arty. ie 4th Divisional  Artillery 

it’s definitely TMB. 

Filled with left (then I can’t read the rest.) 

[Michelle Young]

@Dai Bach y Sowldiwr might be able to decipher the medical sheet. 

[Chris_Baker]

The "4 Wwul JMB" is 4th Divisional Artillery Trench Mortar Battery. See the artillery section on my page, linked below. It is likely to be a reference to V.4 Heavy Trench Mortar Battery. https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/order-of-battle-of-divisions/4th-division/

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

1 hour ago, Michelle Young said:

@Dai Bach y Sowldiwr might be able to decipher the medical sheet. 

Fitted with left truss

Inguinal Hernia

Satisfactory

[Illegible Signature]

 

I know the words don't look like my interpretation, but trust me, in the wacky world of medical hieroglyphics, that's what it is.

Edited 29 March by Dai Bach y Sowldiwr

[jay dubaya]

tissue?

[WillMedard]

Thank you very much for the help provided !

I now have a clearer understanding of what he did. I still have much to do in order to have a precise idea of his whereabouts. 

His journey so far :

28 10 2016 - Joined Army

29 11 2016 - 307th Siege Battery

01 03 2017 - (not sure, hard to read) - 321st Siege Battery

12 05 1917 - According to War Diary (WO95/217/7), unit 321st Siege Battery arrived in France at le Havre on the Mona's Queen 

23 01 1918 - 4th Divisional Artillery Trench Mortar Battery - Possibly V.4 Heavy Trench Mortar Battery. This unit left the division on february 8th 1918, which matches departure date of SF Betts of the 4th Division.

08 02 1918 - XVII Corps Trench Mortars (HTMB moved to Corps level February 1918).

I would like to do this step by step. 

Would it be correct to assume he remained in England till may 1917 ? Or is this unlikely ? I can't find any War Diary for 307th Siege Battery and for the 321th Siege Battery, the diary I have (WO95/217/7) starts on 13 04 1917. I am looking on https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/advanced-search for them.

Thank you for ideas

 

William

 

 

 

 

 

[RussT]

I don't think he served with the 307th SB overseas as they first went to Italy in April 1917.

War Diaries were only kept for units serving overseas in a theatre of war.

War Diaries for individual RGA units whilst serving overseas can sometimes be found (as you have done for the 321/SB when they first went overseas) but mostly they are incorporated into the War Diary of the Heavy Artillery Group (HAGs) in which they served, and they might have served in multiple different HAGs during the course of their war-time service.

Here is the list of HAGs in which 321/SB served - you will need to look for the War Diaries for these HAGs to find out about the activities of 321/SB during their time with them.

Regards

Russ

 

[WillMedard]

Thank you Russ, that is some very interesting information. If 307th SB didn't go overseas before April 1917, this makes me think that he first went overseas with 321st SB on 12th May 1917.

 

Very interesting advice also regarding the War Diaries, I didn't know I could look at HAG level. I am also surprised they changed HAG so many times. For curiosity purposes, may I ask from which document this screenshot comes from ?

 

I will now focus on his time with the 321st SB from early 1917 till January 1918. If anybody has already done some work on this unit, feel free to share !

Edited 31 March by WillMedard
Correction

[RussT]

It seems to me that when 307/SB were earmarked for overseas service, perhaps he was not ready to go with them because e.g. he was considered not quite fully trained. So he was posted to the 321/SB and went overseas with them in May 1917.

The document comes from WO/95/5494, which is free to download.

Regards

Russ

[WillMedard]

Thank you Russ for your help.

I've gone through the War Diary of the 321st, it was very interesting. Upon arriving in France, the unit went to Ypres : Stirling Castle, Messines, Caterpillar (Zillebeke) before being moved to Arras/Tilloy in september 1917 (switched positions with 329 SB). Interesting comment regarding the beginning of the battle of Passchendaele: 1 221 rounds shot on the 31st July 1917 (which is far far more than previous days). Unsurprisingly, no mention of SF Betts (never wounded or killed nor medal, so no particular reason to mention him). 

I was wondering it was possible to use this kind of information regarding Battery location ?

Moving on to the next part of his time in France/Belgium, I've been struggling to find helpful information. V.4 Heavy Trench Mortar Battery seems to have no War Diary, which is frustrating because I have found many War Diaries of other HTMB but not for this one. Only helpful information comes from War Diary of G.O.C, R.A XVII Corps (WO95/943/4-1)  and is a short mention of the reorganisation of HTMB.

Would somebody have any recommandation of where I could maybe find more detailed information ?  XVII Corps Heavy Artillery (WO95/944/4) has no mentions of Mortars which I find confusing since the above extract seems to mention that at least one unit of HTMB was under their control ?

William

 

Edited 2 April by WillMedard

[WhiteStarLine]

50 minutes ago, WillMedard said:

was wondering it was possible to use this kind of information regarding Battery location ?

Hi William and welcome to the forum.  It is possible to locate the battery to within 25 square yards using those coordinates, but you need to do 2 things:

1. The coordinate you copied is missing a sheet number - let us know if he was in Arras or Flanders or somewhere else.  If Flanders, it was in Glencorse Wood,
2. Grey writing on a dark background is easier to read if you give us an extract that hasn't been compressed.

Thanks, Bill

 

[WillMedard]

Hi Bill,

Thank you very much for your help. The location was indeed in Flanders. I did my homework and I think I understand how the location now works. Full location would be 28.J.14.a.x.y (x and y being two missing numbers not available in the above example). In my understanding, the remaining numbers (5068 - 4270 - 3880 - 1177) can't be used or are for something else ?

Regarding picture quality, there is maybe a loss of quality when I use the windows screenshot tool, but I'm not sure what other tools people on this forum use ?

Thanks,

William

 

 

 

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

The 4 digit numbers are  the missing x and y's in your correct  formula. They themselves are 2 digit  coordinates so 5068 is 50.68

So the full coordinate is 28.J.14.a.50.68

Likewise:

28.J.14.a.42.70

 28.J.14.a.38.80 and

28.J.14.a.11.77

 

Edited 2 April by Dai Bach y Sowldiwr

[WhiteStarLine]

29 minutes ago, Dai Bach y Sowldiwr said:

So the full coordinate is 28.J.14.a.50.68

Likewise:

28.J.14.a.42.70

 28.J.14.a.38.80 and

28.J.14.a.11.77

Which puts the battery in Glencorse Wood.

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

1 minute ago, WhiteStarLine said:

Which puts the battery in Glencorse Wood.

Nice plots WSL!

[WillMedard]

This is very interesting, thank you ! I will look into TrenchMapper.

I think I might focus on his time with 321st for the next couple of days, I feel like there is much I can still learn. I will move on to the V.4 HTMB after that and maybe open a new topic considering this would be more about the unit than S.F. Betts. 

 

 

 

 

[WhiteStarLine]

13 hours ago, Dai Bach y Sowldiwr said:

Nice plots WSL!

But only after you worked out that the last groups of 4-digit numbers were simply a postfix for 28.J.14.a - that had eluded me!

Cheers, Bill

[TomWW1]

On 29/03/2024 at 18:05, WillMedard said:

Hello all,

Thanks to Long, Long Trail and Ancestry, I have already found a great deal of information regarding my great-grandfather, Sidney Francis Betts.

There a few things on which I am quite insure and would love the input from forum members ! All documents (exclusively from Ancestry) can be found here.

My questions would be the following :

- In his Statement of Services (NOTE : he has two of them !), he was transfered to the 307th Siege Battery on 29 11 16 and then to the 321st Siege Battery on 1 3 17 - am I reading this second date correctly ? It his very hard to read.

- In the same document, he is then transferred to 4th Wwul Arty J.M.B on the 23 01 18 and then XVII Corps TM on the 08 02 18. I don't really understand the meaning of this ? 

 

- On his Medical History, could someone help me decipher the 09 04 17 entry ?

It seems there is no clear indication of when he arrived in France ? Anyhow, it seems he spent the most part of the war in the 321st Siege Battery and survived. I haven't read the War Diary yet (WO95/217/7) but will do over the week-end.

Look forward for your help ! Thank you very much

William

 

Hello William, where did your Betts live? My mother is actually a Betts by maiden name so this has raised my curiosity 

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

5 hours ago, WhiteStarLine said:

But only after you worked out that the last groups of 4-digit numbers were simply a postfix for 28.J.14.a - that had eluded me!

Cheers, Bill

I think over the years, one sees so many idiosyncratic or badly written entries  in war diaries and service records that the deciphering sometimes seems difficult.

What should be written, and what is actually written depends on the vagaries of the writer, but what could be written is actually very limited indeed. It can't be a word, so that rules out everything in the OED. It can only be a number.

And when you realise that a properly written co-ordinate cannot contain a four digit number, but may contain two pairs of two digit numbers, separated by a dot, then it makes sense.

[WillMedard]

Quote

Hello William, where did your Betts live?

He was from Norwich and I think he had 5 daughters (haven't properly done the genealogy though yet), so it could match !

 

Once again, thank you all. I will enjoy placing on a map the different locations of 321st during their time in Flanders. Maybe I will post the results on the already existing topic about 321st SB.

 

William

[WillMedard]

Hello,

I've been looking into the movements of my great grandfather's unit (see here), the 321st Siege Battery.

There is something I can't explain and I hope you will be able to help me with. The location given for the unit between 19.05.17 till 23.06.17 is in Glencorse Wood (28.J.14.a.50.68), near Ypres. When I look at maps of the area at those dates, it seems Glencorse Wood is behind german lines.

On the map attached (No grid British lines 1st July 1916 and 12 June 1917. - Thanks to TrenchMapper) I put a location mark in Glencorse Wood (highest mark). The three other marks are locations where the SB fired at according to the War Diary (Stirling Castle, Hill 60 and another one). The Blue Line is front line as of 01.07.1916 and the other line is as of 12th June 1917.

Could the location in the War Diary be wrong ? Or am I not using the maps correctly ?

Many thanks

William