searching a unit

[Guest]

hi,my name is darren i am a new person on this forum iam wondering if it is possible to find out wich unit my greatgrandad was in i have his service number besides that all i know he was in the ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY i was wondering if i could narrow it down to the unit he was with?he was in the army from 1914-1920,also is it possible to find out why his service number starts with the letter L.

THANK YOU IF ANYONE CAN HELP!

DARREN

[Paul Johnson]

Hi Darren,

Welcome to the Forum.

If you would like to reply to this post and give us your g/grandfathers name and any details you have about him then I am sure we can help you.

Regards

PAUL JOHNSON

[Jim Strawbridge]

ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY i was wondering if i could narrow it down to the unit he was with?he was in the army from 1914-1920,also is it possible to find out why his service number starts with the letter L.

                                               

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

According to Williamson the L denotes local enlistment. I assume that this means that he signed up rather than waiting to be called up but perhaps someone on this Forum can confirm this.

[Paul Johnson]

Jim,

That's how it was explained to me recently, although I stand to be corrected.

Darren,

I have replied to your email.

Regards

PAUL J

[davidfegga]

The 'L' does indeed denote a 'locally' recruited brigade. At the time the artillery recruited nationally, but in 1915 they employed a scheme to recruit locally (their version of pals battalions?). I think that this applied to the brigades from 150's to 180's . My Grandads Bgde 175 was known as "Staffordshire" as they recruited mainly from the Black Country towns, and it was raised by the local M.P

Dave

[andrew_jackson]

Hi Darren,

There's a chance that your great-grandad appears on this page:

http://www.pals.org.uk/howitzers/list.htm

If you do find him there, I hope you'll get in touch.

All the best,

Andrew

[Aaron Nelson]

Hi pals.

Thanks for helping Darren out here as much as you can, I recommended him on to this site after seeing his post on another website. After all the help I got on this site I recommend this site as much as I can now.

cheers aaron.