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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

4 WW1 brothers, 2 of them a bit of a mystery


simb

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post-11933-1149611685.jpg

Greetings,

I'm working on a bit of a puzzle and somewhat new at this. I came upon this picture recently and it's been a goldmine of info but I still have gaps, seems the more one finds, the more questions there are. I'm pretty sure this is my grandfather & his 3 brothers, on the right is Grandfather, Ernest Alfred Ife Broughton, have his medal card and lucky for me, found his burnt records, everything matches. 2nd right is Edgar Arthur W Broughton, medal card says Serjeant, matches photo. I'm pretty sure the other 2 are their older 2 brothers, George W. & Herbert Broughton, I have a medal card for a George W. ASC, which could be 3rd right, except he seems to have Serjeant stripes which the medal card does not, he has ASC on shoulder. Then 1st left has ... Flying Corps on shoulder, I can find any medal index for either of them that references RFC. Any clues? There's a really Hi-res copy of the photo at http://cq.comox.net/web/sold.jpg it is 2.5Mb.

Sim..

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Sim,

I think your identification is correct - the stripes on the ASC soldier's arm are not rank stripes but either good conduct/long service chevrons i.e. he is a Private, as indicated by his Medal Index Card. Similarly the RFC MICs are not on-line, which is why you have not been able to find the other brother.

Andy.

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Would the presence of good conduct/long service chevrons make one think this was taken after the war? I'm pretty sure he wasn't regular army.

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Sim,

My guess is that with Herbert in the RFC, it is still during the war years. By the war's end he woud have been RAF?

Ian

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Sim

The clean shaven man has one Long Service/Good Conduct stripe, left lower sleeve, and the ASC man has three Overseas Service Chevrons, right lower sleeve.

John Milner

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Thanks guys. Clean shaven grandpa was appointed Lance Cpl before going overseas, I have date at home, so would assume this was early on. What would 3 Overseas Service chevrons denote? Something more than being in France I would assume.

Sim..

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What would 3 Overseas Service chevrons denote? Something more than being in France I would assume.

Sim..

IIRC one red stripe was for service overseas (F & F Only? not sure on this) in 1914 with one blue stripe for each subsequent year

Nigel

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What would 3 Overseas Service chevrons denote?

If you do a search for "overseas service chevrons" on the forum you'll find there have been a number of threads asking the very same question, me included!

The most comprehensive reply I saw was from forum member Joe Sweeney who I hope won't mind me quoting in it's entirety:

AO 4 1918 is paraphrased below:

The date of award of the first Chevron was that on which the individual left the UK, or in the case of those serving abroad at the outbreak of war, 5 August 1914. For Overseas troops, the first chevron was awarded on the date of leaving their own country or were employed on local operations. Further Chevrons were awarded for each succesive aggregate period of 12 months. One month of leave was permitted in calculation. If first point of service was before 31 Dec 1914 a red chevron was awarded after 1 Jan 1915 all were blue.

There are more rules and ammendments with the army orders assoctiated with these chevron's etc. At first PoW time was not counted and this was ammended.

A man who had a red and two blue chevrons, shows that he had 24 months of service overseas starting in 1914. This is calculated by time served overseas and not the year excepting service before 31 December 1914 earned the man a red chevron for his first. The award of the blue chevron came after an aggregate of twelve qualifying months later and not just because 1915 was the next calendar year. A man with one red and 2 blue chevrons could very well have only been authorized these chevrons even though he served for 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918 in France but his accumulated time was only 24 months.

From that I take it that three overseas service chevrons denotes 24 months overseas service.

Hope this helps

Steve

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  • 1 year later...

Where does one look for infor on Herbert, the RFC uncle? There isn't a burned record for him, not do I seem to be able to find an NA MIC. Are there other locations for RFC/RAF records?

Sim..

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