MGC 6th Res?

[ryan89]

I have a copy of my great grandfathers demobilization form. I states that he orginally enlisted for the 12th Reserve Royal In Fusi in May of 1915. When he was demobilized in February of 1919, he was serving with the 6th Res MGC. I am having trouble tracing what battalion, division, company, corp, etc... the 6th Res MGC would have been part of. I also have his service medals and they say he was part of the MGC. I would appreciate any assistance or hints as to locating the specific units and engagements the 6 Res MGC took part in.

[Hoplophile]

Both of the units you mention were reserve units. That is to say, they were units that remained within the United Kingdom for the duration of the war for the purpose of managing (and, in many cases, training) men who would serve (or, in the case of demobilisation, had served) in other units. However, as these reserve units were linked to specific service units (units that served overseas), they give some clues as to where your ancestor may have served. For example, it is most likely (though far from certain), that your ancestor served in the 109th Infantry Brigade of the 36th (Ulster) Division. Three of the four battalions that served in that brigade were the battalions of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers that were most closely associated with the 12th (Reserve) Battalion. These were the 9th (County Tyrone), 10th (Derry) and 11th (Donegal and Fermagh) Battalions.

The 109th Brigade formed its machine gun company (the 109th Machine Gun Company) in January of 1916. Thus, it is quite likely that your ancestor served with one of the aforementioned battalions before joining the brigade machinegun company. Alternatively, your ancestor may have served in an infantry battalion until some point in 1918. In that case, he would have joined the divisional machine gun battalion, the 36th Machine Gun Battalion.

Alternatively, your ancestor may have joined one of the other battalions of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers before joining the machinegun company of his brigade or the machinegun battalion of his division. These two divisions were the 10th and the 16th Divisions. (The 5th and 6th Battalions served in the 10th Division and the 7th and 8th Battalions in the 16th Division.)

Whatever division your ancestor served in, chances are that he served in an infantry battalion before joining the Machine Gun Corps. (In the winter of 1916 the machinegun sections of infantry battalions were brought together to form brigade machinegun companies. The men of those sections were, by virtue of this transfer, incorporated into the new Machine Gun Corps. Nonetheless, the sections usually retained a strong connection to their battalion of origin for quite some time. Similarly, the spring of 1918 saw the machine gun companies of infantry brigades combined to form divisional machinegun battalions, with the relationship between brigades and the machine gun companies that they had formed two years before remaining a close one.)

With this in mind, your best bet for getting a sense of where your ancestor is likely to have served is to read the divisional histories of the divisions that I have mentioned.

If you wish to achieve a higher degree of certainty, look through this forum for posts in which members discuss the art of deciphering serial numbers. That art, which is well beyond my ken, offers much higher degree of precision than the method I used to compose this message, which is based entirely upon the relationship between various units.

Good luck!