Royal Army Service Corps in Gallipoli

[Kathryn Knight]

I found this on the Lancashire Fusiliers website so I guess this is where the link is ?

[Keith_history_buff]

3 hours ago, Kathryn Knight said:

Certificates of Employment attached.

I've also attached a Personal History Sheet which I presume my grandad typed. This is where I've got a lot of my information from.

[snip]

 

How fantastic that this has survived, thank you for sharing. This corroborates the good gen that Ken has posted.

So, this is the evidence that he served alongside the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers in a logistical capacity. Although my area of interest is a county infantry regiment, I feel a certain amount of dread regarding men who served in the ASC, AOC or RE. Given so many records were destroyed by the September 1940 fire, it amazes me on those occasions when it is possible to pinpoint a person's service to a given formation. 

Not only does this support the assertion that he served in Devonshire and Cornwall Company at Plymouth - (became 247 Company, ASC) Originally in the Wessex Brigade, transferred to the 29th Division -  but also the corresponding element within the 29th Division - (being 1Bn LF) - to which he served alongside.

It also sheds some light on his subsequent service in the Mesopotamian campaign too.

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

The second Certificate of Employment states that in 1919 , whilst in the RAOC, he was attached to 3MT Coy, RASC.
Unfortunately that was a Home Depot unit and did not keep a war diary.

[Keith_history_buff]

4 hours ago, Kathryn Knight said:

Certificates of Employment attached.

I've also attached a Personal History Sheet which I presume my grandad typed. This is where I've got a lot of my information from.

The American historian George F Nafziger has compiled many lists of Orders of Battle as secondary sources. He has been able to do this for the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force in March 1918. The primary source is the official history.*

Within this list, there is mention of:

ADMINISTRATION
  HQ of Inspector-General of Communications at Basra
    Base Ordnance Depots
    Nos. 30, 55, & 111 Companies, Army Ordnance Corps

and I also came across

Army Troops:
  Other:
   No. 1 Mechanical Transport Column
      No. 818 Mechanical Transport Company (Ford vans)
      No. 971 Mechanical Transport Company (Ford vans)
      No. 1014 Mechanical Transport Company

Link:
http://www.314th.org/Nafziger-Collection-of-Orders-of-Battle/918BCMA.pdf

 

* Moberly, Brig. Gen. F.J.,
The Campaign in Mesopotamia, 1914-1918,
1923, London, HM Stationary Office.

 

[Keith_history_buff]

For the purposes of demobilisation, I presume that upon returning to the UK, the RAOC men who had been supporting the RASC were grouped with No 3 MT Company RASC? I'd not been able to find anything out about this unit.

It is common enough to see infantrymen discharged from reserve battalions, which have not been in a theatre of war, as documented on silver war badge rolls, so presume would be a similar scenario, especially if a formation has come to be disbanded?

[kenf48]

 

7 hours ago, Kathryn Knight said:

've also attached a Personal History Sheet which I presume my grandad typed.

His recollection, at least 40 years or so after the event is a fine document and well worth preserving. 

Whilst not nit-picking I think his service needs to be put into context if for no other reason than respect for the memory of this brave man.

He does not mention it but the Territorial Force and the men therein were 'embodied' for war service on the 4th August 1914.  The TF was originally formed for Home Defence and so they would have been posted to pre determined 'war stations' in the UK. See https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/order-of-battle-of-divisions/29th-division/

The 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers 29th Division famously won '6 VCs before breakfast' when they disembarked:-

25 April 1915. 'W' Beach, Helles

Capt. R.R. Willis
Capt. C. Bromley 
Sgt A. Richards, 
Sgt. F.E.Stubbs.
Cpl. J.E.Grimshaw.
Pte W.Keneally

Gazetted at various times.

These are the 'Six VCs before breakfast' gained by the 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers and recommended (though not by individual names) by Major General Hunter-Weston to GHQ on 15 May. Hamilton supported this but there was much bureaucratic bungling at the War Office before permission was given, under the rules for the VC, for a ballot to be made. Three of the men were gazetted in August but it was not until 1917 that the other three were gazetted, by which time several had been killed in action.

(Courtesy of the Gallipoli Association https://www.gallipoli-association.org/campaign/victoria-crosses/)

One of the very rare occasions when the award of the VC was made by ballot.

The war diary of the 29th Divisional Train shows the first elements, the Supply Section landed on 'W' Beach on the 28th April, as previously noted. The diary goes on to state, "Commenced transport of supplies to the firing line using pack mules of the Zion Mule Corps. Subsequently limbered wagons of the 1st Line Regtl Transport were used for this purpose. (in all probability the transport including the Lancashire Fusiliers).  The horses and wagons of the supply train disembarked on 'W' Beach on the 30th April and immediately began to supply ammunition and supplies to the front line which would include the remnants of the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers.

It is unclear from the war diary but you will see from the link above the 29th Division was evacuated from the Peninsula on the night of the 7/8 January 1916 and returned to Egypt.

Keith has given us the ORBAT for 111 Company which was at Basra.  He was transferred to the RAOC in August. The war diaries for Mesopotamia are available for free if you register from the National Archives.  111 Company did not apparently leave a diary but you can browse from here

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/C78431

As he states he was evacuated  on the Hospital Ship 'Assaye' in 1920 but that ship is down as departing from Alexandria,whether or not that was en route from India is unclear from the records, but without a service record difficult to pin down the period on the Employment Certificate from March 1919, and he does not mention it.

I have the greatest respect and admiration for veterans of the conflict, and their memories are precious but they have to be carefully considered as someone once famously said in an entirely different context 'recollections may vary' but there memories are no less valuable and now they are gone all we have to remember them by.

 

[Matlock1418]

9 hours ago, Kathryn Knight said:

This is part of his pension record at WFA/Fold3/Ancestry

It's a Ministry of Pensions' pension ledger page [front] - from which his regional pension reference 8/MD/3055 was obtained - Region 8 was SW England, which is not surprising given his Plymouth address - shows the Malaria disability he claimed/was awarded for - the page reverse shows his final degree of disability and pension payment, still a single man it would seem.

His earlier initial claim pension index card is also interesting [later annotated with 8/MD/3055] ... Discharged 14.3.20 he was awarded 5/6 pw from 15-3-20 until further notice [Interpretation: Under the prevailing 1919 Royal Warrant this was the 6-14% degree of disability rate for a pension Class V soldier/Pte without wife or child(ren)]

M

[Keith_history_buff]

A partial transcription of what I found to be of interest:

'After a short spell in Egypt was transferred [in August 1916] to the [now renamed since December 1918] R.A.O.C. and went with a Mobile Workshop Unit to Mesopotamia... later moved with the advancing British arm. Was among the first troops to enter Baghdad when it capitulated. Returned to India after a bad bout of malarial fever... Returned to England in 1920 by Hospital Ship.' 

The aforementioned George F Nafziger has yet another order of battle 

LINE OF COMMUNICATION UNITS
   (Basra)
      Army Ordnance Corps
         Base Ordnance Depot Nos. 35, 55, & 111 Companies,
         No. 35 Ordnance Mobile Workshop
      Indian Ordnance Detachments (2 cos)

and 

Advanced Base Section
   (Baghdad - Advanced Base)
      Advanced Ordnance Depot
         Nos. 34, 49 & 50 Ordnance Mobile Workshops

This is dated 18 November 1917. It is derived from information in the official history.

http://www.314th.org/Nafziger-Collection-of-Orders-of-Battle/917BKMA.pdf

The following made for an interesting read, on something I know little about. 

It's a different war, but I believe a family member did something similar in 1941 during WW2 in a Light Aid Detachment, a term not in use in the Great War.