Cameron or Gordon Highlanders? Help please

[michaelmclaren]

David,

Many thanks for posting the picture of your grandfather it is always nice to put a face to the name. I agree that the local paper would be a good place to continue your research. From Stuart's post I see he is from Ayr. The library in Ayr (Carnegie Library, 12 Main Street, Ayr KA8 8EB) has a local history dept which has newspapers from the Great War, I believe they hold - The Ayrshire Post, The Ayr Advertiser, The Carrick Herald and The Troon and Prestwick Times. If your grandfather is mentioned you may get some good detail.

Please let us know if you find out more

Best Wishes

Michael

[PPCLI]

David,

I have been away for a few days so haven't had a chance to read your reply until now. If you haven't yet paid up for The Scotsman, then don't - I will send you a copy of the full casualty list. Re your grandfather being wounded on the Somme - I wouldn't rule this out just yet since after 1916, it is most likely that being a 'Somme casualty' would indicate sometime in 1918. Unfortunately, publication of the full casualty lists by The Scotsman stopped in December 1917 (only those killed/died of wounds were listed from Jan 1918), so it is still possible that he was wounded on the Somme in 1918.

With the Ayr connection, I think it will be worth your while checking out the Ayrshire World Wars Casualty Databases.

I've been searching ancestry using wildcards in the Reg No (eg '265**' & 'Cameron') but have found the indexing of Reg Nos to be not very reliable.

This search won't work well at all because Ancestry usually only indexes the men by their original regiment and number. As Michael states, the way to search for later war transfer to new units is to find men with similar numbers and search using their names.

Thank you for posting the photo; a picture of the man always adds a lot to his story. Let us know how you get on with the newspaper search.

Cheers,

Stuart

[oldleedsman]

Hi Stuart

Thanks for the reply. I did sign up for the Scotsman for 24hrs, and it was worthwhile as I found some other family records (e.g. a bigamist cousin of my grandfather - actually a trigamist!).

I'm pretty certain he was only wounded once and never returned to the trenches, unless this 1917 wounding was pretty minor. He certainly didn't have any other bullet holes.

I've had a look at the ayr database, but nothing on it yet unfortunately.

Michael has sent me copies of the pages from the medal rolls before and after my grandfather's entry, so I've been slowly working through ancestry for those. Unfortunately, the vast majority of service records are missing, but there does seem to be a consistent pattern emerging. I'm also looking at the other Gordon soldiers mentioned in the Scotsman with similar No.s to my grandfather's. I'll let you know when I've finished.

I was up in Ayr last year doing other family history research and spent a while in the library, but didn't look for my grandfather as I had no dates to go by. I may return one day, but it'll be some time.

My father was really pleased when I was able to show him the Scotsman entry and the other info that you & Michael have helped me with. Like many others, my grandfather would never speak of his time in the trenches, even to his wife, so thanks once again.

David

[oldleedsman]

Hi Michael & Stuart

I've been looking at the soldiers of the Gordon 1/7 Bn who had similar numbers to my grandfather to see if there was any pattern in their movements.

I looked on ancestry at 95 consecutive cases starting with S/40618 as the ones prior to this do not seem to be the 7^th Bn. My grandfather 40633.

I didn't look in detail at 15 Service/Pension Records as they had a very common names and therefore too many records for me to search through (eg Harry Smith, George MacKenzie, Duncan Cameron).

Although no expert in reading these records, my conclusions of the remaining 80 are as follows:

Those with surviving records (10)

• 7 Service records & 3 Pension records were found – a 12.5% hit rate. All of these 10 cases were in the 1/7^th Gordon Bn.
• 9 of the 10 cases came from both the 2/2 Lovat Scouts (one was 3/2) and Camerons (as did my grandfather). The other one was from the Camerons only.
• With the exception of the soldier who didn't come via Lovat Scouts, they all joined the Camerons between 5^th and 8^th December 1916. The records state 'TRANS TO 3 CAM HIGHRS AUTHY' yet they are then listed as being in the 1^st Camerons – can anyone explain ?
• All 10 transferred to France between 4^th and 7^th December 1916, 6 of them stating Folkstone, the others not specifying.
• All 10 joined 1/7 Gordons on 22/02/17. However, for some reason the records on the 'Statement of the Services' pages were then all altered to 01/03/17.
• Whilst in France, 6 of the cases were temporarily attached to 4th Entrenching battalion on 27/12/16 from the 19^th Infantry Base Depot (?Etaples?). The others may have been also, but not all the records have the same detail.
• 3 of them were with the Lovat Scout Bicycle Unit. This is mentioned on the page which lists the clothes on transfer to the Camerons and also mentions Gorleston-on-sea. Anyone know what went on there?

All the records (95)

19 were Killed in Action, 5 Died of their Wounds – 25% of the total. Is this a typical rate?

Bearing in mind that 9 of the 10 surviving cases were in all 3 regiments and that the remaining 85 records therefore have scant data to go on (mainly the MIC):

• Where specified, 38 were in the 7^th Bn (the majority in 1/7) and only 4 in a different Gordon Bn.
• 25 were in all three regiments - Lovat Scouts, Cameron & Gordon
• 54 were in Cameron & Gordon
• 9 were in Lovat Scouts & Gordon
• 7 were in Gordon only
• None of the cases from 40709 to 40725 (where I stopped looking) were in the Lovat Scouts and this includes one of the surviving records.

Cases listed in Scotsman 18^th June 1917

This bit will be of less interest to anyone else. In the range I studied, there were 13 others listed in the same 'wounded' list as my grandfather, plus a further 6 others in other lists that I looked at (although I foolishly only saved the column I was interested in – there could be others on the page, eg Officer classes).

Only 1 Service Record survives from the 13 (Neil McLeod S/40665) – one of the cycling Lovat Scouts. He was wounded on 23/4/17. On this same day there is one other death in the 'wounded' list, plus 2 other deaths from the other 6 Scotsman cases I looked at. In addition, out of the 76 non-Scotsman cases, there were 3 deaths on that date, plus one died of his wounds on the following day. So, clearly there must have been some significant action for the 153rd Highland Brigade then.

Conclusions

It looks as though there was a batch of at least 80 2/2 Lovat Scouts (from 40623 to 40708) who shipped to France from Folkstone and posted to the 1^st Cameron Highlanders at the end of the 1^st week in Dec 1916. Most, if not all, were then temporarily transferred to 4th Entrenching battalion on 27/12/16. They finally joined the 1/7 Gordons on 22/02/1917.

As Michael has pointed out above "On the 3/3/1917 the war diary of the 1/7th Gordon Hdrs states "Reinforcement of 60 other ranks from 4th Reserve Entrenching Batt all originally belonged to Lovat Scouts all in "Cameron" kilt"" so this seems spot on.

Stuart & Michael: do you think there are any other conclusions I can draw from this (rather limited) sample?

David

[michaelmclaren]

Hi David,

Someone's been busy!

I think you have carried out a thorough investigation.

Start with the facts, what do you know for sure?

Your grandfather served in the Lovat Scouts (you have a photo and information from the museum)

He transferred to the 1st Camerons and sent overseas (via 3rd Camerons) again from museum info and medal rolls

Transferred again to 1/7th Gordon Highlanders

Wounded, while with the Gordons, early in 1917 from Scotsman details

You say he had one overseas service stripe which must be for 1917

In the absence of a service record, in order to date the other transfers I think the exercise you carried out is valuable. There are clear patterns, I think it highly likely your Grandfather's service would follow this pattern of movements.

The bigger the sample the more likely you are to get an answer as there may be individual anomalies.

I think you found 10 records out of 80 all 7th Gordons- The problem here is that I don't think anyone knows of patterns relating to records lost, for example could it be that all 80 were 7th Gordons and only 10 records survived the blitz, or could it be that records for the 7th were somehow less likely to be damaged (stored separately) and the other men were from different battalions whose records were mostly lost?

I think we probably just don't know, however we do know (from medal rolls) that your Grandfather was in the 7th.

I think that the 3rd line Lovat Scouts battalions were disbanded at some point with the men joining the 1st Yeomanry Cyclist Regiment and the 3rd (Reserve) Bn Cameron Highlanders-which would be a training Bn providing drafts of reenforcements for front line units (such as the 1st Bn)

At the outbreak of war the Lovats initially were assigned the coastal defence duties, as part of the Highland Mounted Brigade, which were envisaged for the territorial forces. I believe they were assigned coastline around Skegness. I also found a reference which stated that the CO of the 1st Yeomanry Cyclist Regiment was based in the old Post Office, Gorleston.

An analysis of casualties reinforces your other theory with the earliest ones being in April 1917. On the 23rd April 1917 the 7th Gordons were part of an attack on the Roeux Chemical Works. The 51st Highland Division history states that the attack developed "into perhaps the most savage infantry battle that the Division took part in". With no earlier casualties this suggests that the men were not transferred long before this date which fits with your theory.

In summary I believe you now know with a fair degree of accuracy the movements of you Grandfather before his wounding. As for the numbers of men in this draft, from your conclusion- I am not sure because I know of at least some other men in this draft who have a different series of numbers which wouldn't have been in your sample such as David Riach 310286 who transferred from Camerons to Gordons on 3.3.17

In all I think you have done a great job and I am sure you would have found many interesting stories along the way. A newspaper article from the archives in Ayr is what we need now!

Thanks for letting us know how you got on

Michael

[PPCLI]

Hi David,

As Michael has said, I think you have put together a tidy bit of research and should be reasonably confident about the conclusions reached. In the absence of an extant service file, I think you have made the best possible attempt on piecing together your grandfather's service.

The records state 'TRANS TO 3 CAM HIGHRS AUTHY' yet they are then listed as being in the 1st Camerons – can anyone explain?

Procedurally, men were firstly transferred to the regimental reserve/depot battalion and then posted to their overseas service unit.

All 10 joined 1/7 Gordons on 22/02/17. However, for some reason the records on the 'Statement of the Services' pages were then all altered to 01/03/17.

I think someone may have been saving themselves a bit of paperwork. The Gordon Highlander regimental numbers issued to this draft e.g. S/40633, are not from the territorial numbering schema. Prior to 1st March 1917, transfers from a regular/service battalion (1st Camerons) to a territorial battalion (1/7th Gordons) should have resulted in the men being issued with (probably) 4-digit numbers which, on 1st March 1917, would then have been replaced with 6-digit numbers. It looks like these men have been issued their new Gordons numbers at the Infantry Base Depot and then posted to the 1/7th Battalion. Perhaps it was known that the new system was about to start so fudged the dates to save a few hours work.

In my book (of which Michael has a copy), one story is on S/7793 Andrew Geddes, 10th Gordons, who features on another forum member's (Paul Nixon) web site, Chailey 1914-1918. This shows that he returned to France in summer 1916 after recovering from a wound received at Loos in 1915. He was posted to the 1/7th Gordons but was wounded so soon after his arrival with the battalion that on his evacuation to England, his new territorial number hadn't been issued so he signed the nurse's book with his original service number.

So, back to Alexander McCloy - fingers crossed that there is something in an Ayrshire newspaper.

Cheers,

Stuart

[oldleedsman]

Many thanks Stuart & Michael for your comments and support for my general conclusions. I've been pleased that I've been able to find out some idea of my grandfather's war service so I can tell my father.

I agree that the local newspapers are the next place to look.

Think I'll also have a look at the Lovat Scouts and see what they were up to for the 2 years he was with them.

Regards

David

[Waddell]

Think I'll also have a look at the Lovat Scouts and see what they were up to for the 2 years he was with them.

David,

Melvilles "The Story of the Lovat Scouts 1900-80" will give you a lot of information you are looking for.

Scott.

[oldleedsman]

Great stuff Scott. Another one for the the Xmas present list.

Many thanks.

David

[oldleedsman]

As Michael has pointed out above "On the 3/3/1917 the war diary of the 1/7th Gordon Hdrs states "Reinforcement of 60 other ranks from 4th Reserve Entrenching Batt all originally belonged to Lovat Scouts all in "Cameron" kilt"" so this seems spot on.

I've just got hold of a transcript of the 7th Gordon War Diaries and they state for Feb 23rd 1917:

Reinforcement of 116 Other Ranks from 4th. Res. Entrenching Battalion, mostly Lovat Scouts, but transferred to Cameron Highlanders and arrived in Cameron Kilt.

Which fits in better with my grandfather's batch who were transferred on the 22nd Feb (although later altered to the 1st March).

The diaries contain a 650+ word operations report on the April 23rd attack on the Roeux Chemical works - if anyone is interested, I'll post it.

David

[michaelmclaren]

Hello again David,

Glad to see you are still finding more details on your granfather's service, I agree this fits well with your other research. I would certainly be interested on the report you have re Roeux Chemical Works attack.

Michael

[oldleedsman]

This is the special Ops report from the 7th Gordon's War Diary.

Credit goes to Sparky53 who in turn got it from Jim Gordon who did all the hard work and transcribed it from the original.

I'd be interested if anyone knows about J.H. Stitt (sic) who was awarded a Military Cross for his endeavours.

In the book 'A History of the 51st Highland Division' by FW Bewsher, he is called Lieutenant Still yet I can't find any obvious links to him on google under either name.

1/7th. GORDON HIGHLANDERS

Report on Operations 23rd. April, 1917

At Zero the Battalion left the Assembly Trenches and formed up behind the Barrage as shown below

"B" Company.............................."A" Company

"C" Company

"D" Company (in reserve moved up to forward Assembly trench)

Two Platoons of' "A" and "B" Companies had for their objective the BLACK Line and the

remaining two Platoons of each Company the BLUE Line and "C" Company was to assault the BROWN Line.

The leading two platoons of the left Company got into the BLACK Line. A considerable number of the enemy were still there and when these were disposed of it was found that the trench on the right was strongly occupied by the enemy who had not suffered by the Barrage. The remaining two platoons of the left Company went through and went on towards the BLUE Line with the Barrage. There are very few survivors of these two platoons and very few of them appeared to have reached the BLUE Line. Five men ultimately fell back on the BLACK Line. The right Company did not get into the BLACK Line at ZERO -15. The Germans are reported to have been at least 4 to 1 at this point of the trench, and they have appeared to have escaped the barrage. Our men were caught in the German Barrage here. One Platoon ultimately got into the BLACK Line and of this only 1 Sergeant and 2 men were surviving when the remainder got up.

The left two platoons were working to the right and the enemy retired leaving 76 prisoners in our hands, about half way between the BLACK and BLUE Lines.

A Tank came up and it was due to the assistance rendered by this that it was possible to get into the BLACK Line. This was about 3 hours after ZERO. At this time only one Officer and very few N.C.Os were left in the right Coy. and the Company for the BLUE Line.

The Officer was 2/Lieutenant J.H.STITT and went forward to the BLUE Line with the remainder of the two Companies. They were in touch with 6th.Gordon Highlanders on the right. No touch could be got with anyone on the left. A large number of the enemy were killed at the BLUE Line and 50 prisoners were taken. This party also captured a machine gun and two trench mortars. Patrols went forward and they state that they were as far as 800 yards in front of the BLUE Line. A position for a strong point was fixed at the junction of the Communication Trench and the road I.13.a.9.4.) and consolidation was continued during the night.

Messages were sent back but none of them got through. As soon as it was discovered that the attack was held up about 9.a.m. and order was sent to the Reserve Coy. to reinforce but this order did, not get through.

At 11 a.m. it was found the Reserve Company had not gone for­ward and a fresh order was sent. The Reserve Company had already sent forward patrols to try to find what the situation was and they had got in touch with the two platoons of the Left Company in the BLACK Line and a Platoon was sent up to assist them in consolidating.

The remainder of this Company did not go forward until late in the afternoon when they were in touch with. the 6th.Seaforths. They advanced with the 6th.Seaforths Highlanders and commenced to dig a line of trench on the left of that Battalion at about L.7.c.9.4. The Officer Commanding this Company had. orders to be prepared to reinforce our first 3 Companies at any point and in particular to reinforce the 7th.Black Watch as it was anticipated that they might be held up near H18.b.5.7. but the fact that no messages got through either to myself or the 7th.Black Watch and also that the exact situation was not ascertained in time prevented the Company being used so soon as it ought to have been.

The total Casualties ( Killed and Wounded.) were 11 Officers and 202 Other Ranks. Amongst the casualties were almost all the Officers and N.C.Os. of the three leading Companies and these were incurred at the BLACK Line.

Robert Bruce, Lieut. Colonel,

26th. April, 1917. Commanding 1/7th. Bn. Gordon Highrs.

[michaelmclaren]

David

Many thanks for posting.

This may be the MIC for 2nd Lieut Stitt

And this from the London gazette from 18th July 1917

Michael

[oldleedsman]

Thanks Michael. That looks like him. You would have thought Bewsher would get his name right.

I also found a posting here that mentions him.

David

[sandi921]

On 29/09/2009 at 23:24, oldleedsman said:

Hi Michael & Stuart

I've been looking at the soldiers of the Gordon 1/7 Bn who had similar numbers to my grandfather to see if there was any pattern in their movements.

I looked on ancestry at 95 consecutive cases starting with S/40618 as the ones prior to this do not seem to be the 7^th Bn. My grandfather 40633.

I didn't look in detail at 15 Service/Pension Records as they had a very common names and therefore too many records for me to search through (eg Harry Smith, George MacKenzie, Duncan Cameron).

Although no expert in reading these records, my conclusions of the remaining 80 are as follows:

Those with surviving records (10)

 

• 7 Service records & 3 Pension records were found – a 12.5% hit rate. All of these 10 cases were in the 1/7^th Gordon Bn.
• 9 of the 10 cases came from both the 2/2 Lovat Scouts (one was 3/2) and Camerons (as did my grandfather). The other one was from the Camerons only.
• With the exception of the soldier who didn't come via Lovat Scouts, they all joined the Camerons between 5^th and 8^th December 1916. The records state 'TRANS TO 3 CAM HIGHRS AUTHY' yet they are then listed as being in the 1^st Camerons – can anyone explain ?
• All 10 transferred to France between 4^th and 7^th December 1916, 6 of them stating Folkstone, the others not specifying.
• All 10 joined 1/7 Gordons on 22/02/17. However, for some reason the records on the 'Statement of the Services' pages were then all altered to 01/03/17.
• Whilst in France, 6 of the cases were temporarily attached to 4th Entrenching battalion on 27/12/16 from the 19^th Infantry Base Depot (?Etaples?). The others may have been also, but not all the records have the same detail.
• 3 of them were with the Lovat Scout Bicycle Unit. This is mentioned on the page which lists the clothes on transfer to the Camerons and also mentions Gorleston-on-sea. Anyone know what went on there?

All the records (95)

19 were Killed in Action, 5 Died of their Wounds – 25% of the total. Is this a typical rate?

Bearing in mind that 9 of the 10 surviving cases were in all 3 regiments and that the remaining 85 records therefore have scant data to go on (mainly the MIC):

 

• Where specified, 38 were in the 7^th Bn (the majority in 1/7) and only 4 in a different Gordon Bn.
• 25 were in all three regiments - Lovat Scouts, Cameron & Gordon
• 54 were in Cameron & Gordon
• 9 were in Lovat Scouts & Gordon
• 7 were in Gordon only
• None of the cases from 40709 to 40725 (where I stopped looking) were in the Lovat Scouts and this includes one of the surviving records.

Cases listed in Scotsman 18^th June 1917

This bit will be of less interest to anyone else. In the range I studied, there were 13 others listed in the same 'wounded' list as my grandfather, plus a further 6 others in other lists that I looked at (although I foolishly only saved the column I was interested in – there could be others on the page, eg Officer classes).

Only 1 Service Record survives from the 13 (Neil McLeod S/40665) – one of the cycling Lovat Scouts. He was wounded on 23/4/17. On this same day there is one other death in the 'wounded' list, plus 2 other deaths from the other 6 Scotsman cases I looked at. In addition, out of the 76 non-Scotsman cases, there were 3 deaths on that date, plus one died of his wounds on the following day. So, clearly there must have been some significant action for the 153rd Highland Brigade then.

Conclusions

It looks as though there was a batch of at least 80 2/2 Lovat Scouts (from 40623 to 40708) who shipped to France from Folkstone and posted to the 1^st Cameron Highlanders at the end of the 1^st week in Dec 1916. Most, if not all, were then temporarily transferred to 4th Entrenching battalion on 27/12/16. They finally joined the 1/7 Gordons on 22/02/1917.

As Michael has pointed out above "On the 3/3/1917 the war diary of the 1/7th Gordon Hdrs states "Reinforcement of 60 other ranks from 4th Reserve Entrenching Batt all originally belonged to Lovat Scouts all in "Cameron" kilt"" so this seems spot on.

Stuart & Michael: do you think there are any other conclusions I can draw from this (rather limited) sample?

David

 

[sandi921]

Re the above from David.  I have just sent in a query regarding 1/7 Gordon Highlanders.  My Lovat Scout was number 40623.  The 1.Cyclist Battalion patrolled the coastline.  I dont know why it says 3 Cameron Highlanders Authority but my chap also went to Etaples which was the principal depot and transit camp for the BEF with a reputation for harshness.  On 7 Dec 1917 he was transferred to 1/7 Gordons on the Field, but on 29 March 1917 he was 'killed in action'.  Can you tell me please where this would have happened as  I thought they were in training before Arras.  The date of 22/2/1917 is on my transfer and has not been changed.  On the Field 23 Feb 1917.  Is there a photograph of the 1/7 Bn?