Royal Field Artillery

[Guest Wendy Edley]

Hi All,

I am researching my family history, and I am puzzled by a WW1 photograph that he had. He served in the 176th Brigade RFA. This was a four battery Hoitzer brigade, which went to France in January of 1916. The Brigade was broken up in that summer (presumably it was felt that one howitzer battery per brigade was sufficient) and in May 1916, his battery, designated "C", was transferred to 152 Brigade as "D" battery. He continued to serve with them until 1919, when they presumably were disbanded.

According to the information I have gleaned, there were 198 men in a battery. The photo that I have is dated 1919 and bears the inscription "survivors of the old "C" battery 176 Brigade". There are only 25 men on the photograph, which implies a casualty rate of 87%. Even allowing for men invalided out through wounds and sickness, this seems to me to be a very high attrition rate, even by WW1 standards.

Could this be the case, or could he have meant that these 25 were the only ones of his particular friends/comrades left? [The 176th was a local brigade raised in Leicester, 90% of the men coming from the immediate vicinity of Leicester.]

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Andrew Hesketh]

The battery may well have one or two horrific days, and such a high casualty rate is not abnormal - certainly several infantry battalions would, over the course of the war, have lost many more men than they originally started with.

However, if the date of the photo is 1919, when demobilisation was under way, it is possible that a number of men had already been allowed home, resulting in a limited number of 'survivors' on the photo. Alternatively when the original Brigade was broken up it is possible that a number of men were 'redistributed' so that not all the original C battery went on to form the new D Battery. Finally perhaps not everyone was available for the cameraman at the time!

The above is all pure speculation of course!

All the best,

Andrew

[jhill]

I am sure someone will post precise casualty rates for the various arms of the service, but until that someone gets his/her figures together I can give you these approximate Canadian numbers:

Total sent overseas (all arms): 400,000 (perhaps a bit more, I have misplaced my figures)

Total fatal battle casualties (all arms): 52,000

Total gunners sent overseas: 38,000

Total fatal battle casualties: 2,000

Deaths due to disease and injury are not included. In this case "overseas" can mean England.

Obviously the infantry was the most dangerous of the major arms. However, gunners were still not too safe. There was a war on!

[martync]

Hello Wendy, I don't know if you are still following this Forum but I would be very grateful if it were possible to get an electronic copy of the photograph you have. My great uncle Alfred Healy joined 176 Brigade RFA in Leicester on 10 June 1915 and was in C battery he survived the war (he lived until 1967) and was awarded the Military Medal in 1918, although I have not yet been able to find out any details of why this was awarded (or even which battery he was in then) and it seems he did not talk about it my Mother, his niece did not know about it. I suspect there is a chance he may be on the photo as according to his service record he was demobilised at the end of March 1920 and was in the UK from 26 April 1919 and so I would be interested to see it if that was possible.

 

Best regards,

Martyn

[Roger H]

Martyn

 

I think Wendy may have been pruned from the forum after several years of inactivity. You can't get her details by clicking on her name

[jtjmartin]

Martync. I have just read about your gt Uncle.  My grandfather joined the 176 Leicester RHA sometime between 10th and 14th June 1915. He lived in Erskine St. He ended up in 27bty RHA part of 32 Bde and was KIA 29th Aug 1918 near Monchy (Arras). He was L29100 Dvr John Martin. I have a photo taken in 1917 possibly summer might be of 176 bty but cannot be sure. If interested let me know, if you have any info of that time 1915-1917 I would be very interested.

[Ron Clifton]

On 07/07/2003 at 17:57, Andrew Hesketh said:

Alternatively when the original Brigade was broken up it is possible that a number of men were 'redistributed' so that not all the original C battery went on to form the new D Battery.

The reorganisation of May 1916, which resulted in the formation of mixed RFA brigades, involved the transfer of whole batteries between brigades, so it is unlikely that there were any surplus men available for redistribution. Similar considerations applied to the

January 1917 reorganisation, but in this case batteries broken up usually sent complete sections to other batteries.

On 07/07/2003 at 16:23, Guest Wendy Edley said:

According to the information I have gleaned, there were 198 men in a battery.

Actually 199 for a six-gun battery, though the numbers varied very slightly over time. Four-gun batteries had about 140 all ranks.

 

Ron