RGA in Palestine

[J T Gray]

A remark by a friend made me check the MICs for his old school teacher - luckily there are only two Harold Blayneys!

The info on the abstract (he's not closely related enough to me to be worth £3.50 unless someone else is really interested) fits with what I know about him. There is obviously a lot of RGA knowledge here, can someone confirm where and when they were in Palestine? Google throws up a lot of passing references, but no definitive answer - it's obvious they were there, but not where and when.

Thank you for your help,

Adrian

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Adrian

This may be of interest

Dave

[J T Gray]

Thanks, Dave! It looks like quite a limited number of the RGA (though I have no idea how many men would have made up a Battery). Might have to blow the price of a pint-and-a-bit on the card to see if it gives the number.

Next stop - Shadrach Gowlett. Surely thre can be only one MIC with a name like that?

Adrian

[J T Gray]

Nothing I can see that might give the battery, but interesting to note that he arrived in Egypt on August 26th 1918 as a Sergeant and made a 2nd Lieutenant!

Adrian

[rflory]

If your man is 2nd Lieutenant H J W Blayney, RGA, I can tell you that on 19 Sept 1918 at the beginning of the Battle of Sharon he was serving with 314th Siege Battery, RGA.

Regards. Dick Flory

[J T Gray]

If your man is 2nd Lieutenant H J W Blayney, RGA, I can tell you that on 19 Sept 1918 at the beginning of the Battle of Sharon he was serving with 314th Siege Battery, RGA.

Regards.  Dick Flory

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's him! Thank you! Go on - don't keep me in suspense - how do you know that? (Edit: I've just seen some other posts and you are obviously the man to ask on artillery units. Perhaps I'll rephrase that as "Where did you find the information?"). He is not a family member (though he beat a few - if he treated his men like his pupils I suspect that he'd have got a grudging respect - taught amazig things, but a VERY hard disciplinarian), so my research is unlikely to go far beyond this thread. However I MIGHT put him in he local history magazine as a challenge to others to try and fill in some of the gaps as to men from the village who served.

Interestingly, the village historian recorded him (I'd guess from interviewing his family) as joining up on June 9 1916 - I wonder why, if that date is right, it took so long to get him to a front line, and why the promotion?

Adrian

[rflory]

Adrian wrote:

That's him! Thank you! Go on - don't keep me in suspense - how do you know that? . . . .

Interestingly, the village historian recorded him (I'd guess from interviewing his family) as joining up on June 9 1916 - I wonder why, if that date is right, it took so long to get him to a front line, and why the promotion?

Adrian: I found the information in Footnote 18 in 61, How Some Wheels Went Round, a history of 61st Heavy Artillery Group, RGA. The footnote lists all RGA officers of the units serving with 61 HAG during the Battle of Sharon.

Harold Joseph Watson Blayney enlisted as a Gunner, RGA (Regimental Number 96270) on 9 Jun 16, and worked his up the ranks to Serjeant, before being commissoned as a Temporary 2nd Lieutenant, RGA on 20 May 1918. If you are interested his papers are available at the National Archives under WO339/120009.

Regards. Dick

[J T Gray]

Well well well. Thank you very much for that reply, Dick. Given that most of the men who returned from "my" villages are now forgotten it is nice to find at least one whose records are in the archives still (we didn't run to many officers!), even if he is one not always fondly remembered.

Adrian