John Shaw Posted 13 November , 2003 Share Posted 13 November , 2003 I have found what I think may be a French dog tag, it is the same size as the ones in Albert museum. On one side it says (LAINE Francois 1904) on the other (PERONNE 630) Any help please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeppoSapone Posted 13 November , 2003 Share Posted 13 November , 2003 I have found what I think may be a French dog tag, it is the same size as the ones in Albert museum. On one side it says (LAINE Francois 1904) on the other (PERONNE 630) Any help please. Search the new database of WW1 French army dead: http://www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.go...fr/index_en.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CROONAERT Posted 13 November , 2003 Share Posted 13 November , 2003 John. I'm assuming here that it's a small,oval tag probably made out of either aluminium or zinc with either one hole at one end or two holes ,one at either end. If this is so, then you have the French Mle 1881 tag, issued between 1881 and 1918. On your tag, the soldier's name is Francois Laine and he was the "class" of 1904 (ie. he was born in 1884). His regimental enlistment number is 630 and the military district in which he was called up was Peronne. This is either the tag that he was issued with when he was first called to do his "national service" in 1904, or it's one of the tags that he was given (could be the same one) when he was called back up (as a reservist, this would have been in August 1914). Basically, he would have served 1904 - 1907 (or 1905 -1908) as a conscript, 1907 - 1914 (or 1908 - 1915) as a reservist.He would then have served a period as a territorial, but the onset of war would have put paid to this running this smoothly. Alternatively, he could have been a regular but ,no matter what, he would have been back in full time service probably by the end of August 1914. Hope this is of some help, Dave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul guthrie Posted 13 November , 2003 Share Posted 13 November , 2003 Dave was French conscription for 2 or 3 years at this point? If 3 as you say it must have changed to 2 since shortly before the war they changed ot 3 to try to offset the large German manpower advantage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CROONAERT Posted 13 November , 2003 Share Posted 13 November , 2003 Paul. (I'm going off the details from several paybooks in my possession here, rather than from from any text books). I believe it was 3 years because in the paybooks for "Class of 1889" it's 3 years, "Class of 1902" it's 3 years, "Class of 1909" it's 2 years and "Class of 1913" it's also 2 years. As far as I can see, it would have been 3 years in the 1904 class. Apart from the 1889 paybook (the owner of which was re-called on 2nd August 1914), which is Engineers, the rest are all infantry. Maybe the different arms had different lengths of service? Dave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CROONAERT Posted 13 November , 2003 Share Posted 13 November , 2003 Paul. This is the relevant section from the 1909 book. In this case, even though he's "class of 1909", he didn't join the army untill October 1910 (a full 19 months after his 20th birthday), so you can see the 2 years service. This particular chap had an extremely long service life as he got mobilized yet again in January 1939! Dave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CROONAERT Posted 13 November , 2003 Share Posted 13 November , 2003 ...and this is the page for the 1889 book. You can see here that her "went in" in 1890 and passed to the reserve in 1893. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul guthrie Posted 14 November , 2003 Share Posted 14 November , 2003 Interesting Dave. The village of Lucy le Bocage, that may be off a bit, the one near Belleau Wood where US Marines made their attack June 1918 has a war memorial different from most in that it has the year of the men's class by their names rather than DOD. Also interesting is a shell, live I assume, lodged in a nearby garage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Shaw Posted 17 November , 2003 Author Share Posted 17 November , 2003 Thankyou Gents Francois Laine is not on the regester of French war dead. Lets hope that he survived the war and lived a long and happy life. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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