gary thomson Posted 14 December , 2007 Share Posted 14 December , 2007 hi, i am helping a friend research his greatgrandfather PRIVATE : ANDREW NAUGHTON 49797 157 COMPANY MACHINE GUN CORPS. Can anyone out there provide any info on this man ?. in patticular we are looking for info on how he won the military medal which we believe was issued on 11/12/17 ?. i have obtained a copy of the london gazette 6th supplement which gives the date of the award but gives no detail on how the medal was actually won. can any of you m.g.c.or london gazette experts out there help us with any info on this man no matter how trivial .any help would be much apprieciated. thank you. gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sotonmate Posted 14 December , 2007 Share Posted 14 December , 2007 Gary You might get a citation from the War Diary of 157 Company MGC, which was attached to 157 Infantry Brigade, which is at Kew under WO95/4613 and covers the period from March 1916 to March 1918. You can get a download of Diary pages for a fee of 8.50. A problem could be when it appeared in the Diary,it might have been a different date to that shown in the LG,so you need to be sure of that before settling on pages. It might be that you can ask for the NA to find it and make sure it is in the set number of pages the 8.50 buys,I think it is 10,so you might like a bit of the action prior to reading about his exploits. Best wishes Sotonmate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stebie9173 Posted 15 December , 2007 Share Posted 15 December , 2007 Andrew Naughton seems to be part of a Draft of men (probably the original contingent of Infantrymen transferring to The M.G.C.) from the 5th, 6th, 7th Battalions, Highland Light Infantry to the 157th Machine Gun Company: There are about a dozen men on Ancestry with numbers 47700 to 47799, of which these are the 5 closest. Whilst sometimes dangerous to draw too many parallels to other mens service, if you can match the 1914-15 star date of entry to these then you should be able to get a reasonable idea of his possible career. Note that one of these men later moved Machine Gun Companies, which illustrates that at the moment we only know where Andrew Naughton was to mid-1917. 1784 James Carmichael, of Glasgow. Enlisted 9-3-1914. Served with 7th H.L.I. Embodied 5-8-1914. Embarked to Middle East, 25-5-1915. Wounded 24-11-1915. Hospital at Alexandria, 1-12-1915. Attached to Brigade Machine Gun Company from 13-3-1916. Discharged to enlist in Machine Gun Corps 25-7-1916. Joined Machine Gun Corps, No. 49779 , 26-7-1916. Posted to 157th Machine Gun Company, 26-7-1916. Embarked to France from Alexandria aboard H.T. Indarra, 10-4-1918. Arrive Marseilles, 17-4-1918. 157th Machine Gun Company converted to "C" Company, 52nd Battalion M.G.C., 17-4-1918. To UK for Demob., 6-5-1919. Disembodied, 10-6-1919. 1656 John Cowan, of Glasgow, Enlisted 27-1-1914, Served with 6th H.L.I., Embodied 5-8-1914, Signed Imperial Service obligation 22-11-1914. Embarked to Middle East, 25-5-1915. Landed with 1/6th H.L.I. at Galllipoli, 2-7-1915. To Egypt, 1 to 5-2-1916. Attached to Brigade Machine Gun Company from 5-3-1916. Discharged to enlist in Machine Gun Corps 25-7-1916. Joined Machine Gun Corps, No. 49793 , 26-7-1916. Posted to 157th Machine Gun Company, 26-7-1916. Embarked to France from Alex. on H.T. "Caledonia", 10-4-1918. Arrive Marseilles, 17-4-1918. 157th Machine Gun Company converted to "C" Company, 52nd Battalion M.G.C., 17-4-1918. To UK for Demob., 6-5-1919. Disembodied, 8-6-1919. (Quite a bit of hospitalisation included also) 1469 Daniel Cowan, of Glasgow, Enlisted 11-2-1913, Served with 6th H.L.I., Embodied 5-8-1914, Signed Imperial Service obligation 5-8-1914. To M.E.F., 25-5-1915. Landed with 6th H.L.I. at Gallipoli, 2-7-1915. To Egypt, 1 to 5-2-1916. Attached to Brigade Machine Gun Company from 5-3-1916. Discharged to enlist in Machine Gun Corps 25-7-1916. Joined Machine Gun Corps, No. 49794, 26-7-1916. Posted to 157th Machine Gun Company, 26-7-1916. Embarked to France from Alex. on H.T. "Caledonia", 10-4-1918. Arrive Marseilles, 17-4-1918. 157th Machine Gun Company converted to "C" Company, 52nd Battalion M.G.C., 17-4-1918. To UK for Demob., 6-5-1919. Disembodied, 8-6-1919. 2390 George Baird, Enlisted 8-9-1914, Served with 7th H.L.I., Embodied 8-9-1914. To M.E.F., 25-5-1915. Landed with 7th H.L.I. at Gallipoli, 2-7-1915. To Egypt aboard H.T. "Ionian", 1 to 5-2-1916. Attached to Brigade Machine Gun Company at Kantara from 26-3-1916. Discharged to enlist in Machine Gun Corps 25-7-1916. Joined Machine Gun Corps, No. 49799, 26-7-1916. Posted to 157th Machine Gun Company, 26-7-1916. Embarked to France from Alex. aboard H.T. "Indarra", 10-4-1918. Arrive Marseilles, 17-4-1918. 157th Machine Gun Company converted to "C" Company, 52nd Battalion M.G.C., 17-4-1918. Wounded, 27-9-1918. Died of wounds, 28-9-1918. 612 Thomas Chambers, of Glasgow. Enlisted 18-3-1909. Embodied, 5-8-1914. Served with 5th H.L.I. To M.E.F., 25-5-1915. To Egypt, 10 to 13-12-1915. Joined 5th H.L.I. at Gallipoli, 2-7-1915. Attached to Brigade Machine Gun Company from 14-3-1916. Discharged to enlist in Machine Gun Corps 25-7-1916. Joined Machine Gun Corps, No. 49787, 26-7-1916. Posted to 157th Machine Gun Company, 26-7-1916. Transferred to 163rd Machine Gun Company (54th Division), 26-5-1917, etc..... (The Cowans were brothers). The reason that these men were discharged and re-enlisted was because the the 5th, 6th and 7th HLI were Territorial battalions and the Machine gun Corps was all Regular Army. At the time, a man would have to be discharged and re-enlist to move between the two types of "battalion". There seems a pretty good survival rate for this group of Service Records! Andrew Naughton's MIC suggests a similar track through the war: Medal card of Naughton, Andrew Corps Regiment No Rank Highland Light Infantry 2952 Private Machine Gun Corps 49797 Private http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documen...p;resultcount=2 The 1914-15 Star Roll (on the Machine Gun Corps Rolls) should give you his H.L.I. battalion (should he have a 1914-15 Star!). He may have gone to join the battalion in Egypt in early 1916... He was not in the 7th Battalion (the man with No. 2952 in the 7th was Walter MacFarlane, Highland Light Infantry, 2952 / 330767 Private), or the 5th Battalion (William Conroy, 5th Highland Light Infantry per MIC, 2952 Private) which leaves. 6th, 8th and 9th. Since, the 6th Battalion were the only ones of the remaining suspects to served in 157th Brigade by 1917, I would go for the 6th Battalion, like the Cowan brothers. His date of enlistment (or transfer to the H.L.I - though probably actually enlistment) based on his 2952 number and assuming 6th battalion seems to be early February - No 2950 William Ard of the 6th H.L.I. enlisted 2nd February 1915. William Ard went to Egypt on 25th May 1915, like the above men, but that isn't necessarily the date that Andrew Naughton went overseas - his MIC should hopefully enlighten us. I would suspect that a machine gunner of 52nd Division would be most likely awarded a M.M. during one of the major battles of Gaza. It is quite a bit late for the 1st & 2nd Battles in March/April 1917, and pretty quick off the mark for the 3rd Battle (27-10-1917 to 7-11-1917) Very quick summary of the 52nd Divisions involvement at the 3 battles of Gaza: 1st Battle of Gaza (26-3-1917) - Held in Reserve and not used. 2nd Battle of Gaza (17-4-1917) - Attack the central turkish position of Ali el-Muntar, east of Gaza city. Heavy casualties taken without reaching the Turkish trenches. 3rd Battle of Gaza (involved from 2-11-1917) - Attack along the beach at Gaza. I hope this helps, Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stebie9173 Posted 17 December , 2007 Share Posted 17 December , 2007 Have you managed to download Andrew Naughton's Medal Card yet, Andrew? Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gary thomson Posted 17 December , 2007 Author Share Posted 17 December , 2007 Have you managed to download Andrew Naughton's Medal Card yet, Andrew? Steve. have a copy of his service record and medal card but can not find any detail of any citation regarding the mm also checked london gazette found mention of him but no detail or citation ( have to say though my computer skills are very poor so it may be there just not able to find it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ian turner Posted 17 December , 2007 Share Posted 17 December , 2007 Gary, I think Steve was suggesting that you look at the date he first entered a theatre of war (might be on the medal card) - if he earned the 14-15 Star such info is likely to be on there. No, the card doers not cary the MM citation however. With this date then you might be able to guess at his service info, as Steve suggested. Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stebie9173 Posted 17 December , 2007 Share Posted 17 December , 2007 You didn't mention you had his service record! Never, mind it was good practice for me in decoding service records.... How close was Andrew Naughton's service to the ones shown above, by the way? Unless someone somewhere is keeping a big secret, there are no official sources for the vast majority of MMs apart from the London Gazette announcement (no citations were published for MMs except for a few very, very late ones, and some nurses MMs), and the Medal Card giving the unit and Gazette details. Local newspapers, the unit war diary (rare) and published histories (even rarer for the MGC) are the only remaining sources for most types of unit. there are a few exceptions where MM citations are recorded, the most well known one being the Tank Corps, but that doesn't help here! Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gary thomson Posted 17 December , 2007 Author Share Posted 17 December , 2007 You didn't mention you had his service record! Never, mind it was good practice for me in decoding service records.... How close was Andrew Naughton's service to the ones shown above, by the way? Unless someone somewhere is keeping a big secret, there are no official sources for the vast majority of MMs apart from the London Gazette announcement (no citations were published for MMs except for a few very, very late ones, and some nurses MMs), and the Medal Card giving the unit and Gazette details. Local newspapers, the unit war diary (rare) and published histories (even rarer for the MGC) are the only remaining sources for most types of unit. there are a few exceptions where MM citations are recorded, the most well known one being the Tank Corps, but that doesn't help here! Steve. thanks for that steve, ther are many similarities with the above mentioned men he was initially in territorials before transfering to the mgc there is also mention of being on board ht ionian and ht indarra and being hospitalized in alexandria with shrapnel wound to neck ?.ther is also mention of being in the gallipoli area. sorry if i seem abit vague but i do not have hisn service records personally as they actually belong to a work mate in glasgow (i live in dundee ) so i am working from memory here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staffsyeoman Posted 17 December , 2007 Share Posted 17 December , 2007 Note to Moderators - two threads here that need merging Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gary thomson Posted 18 December , 2007 Author Share Posted 18 December , 2007 Note to Moderators - two threads here that need merging sorry that was my mistake. i accidently posted the same question twice !!!!!!. gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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