George Edward (Wilson) Crowe - COEF

[JustinWilley]

I'm new to this game, so please forgive me for any obvious sources I'm missing.

I'm trying to find out more about my Canadian grandfather's service in WWI.

He enlisted in Toronto and I have found a copy of his attestation paper on the Canadian records web site.

He enlisted in 4 Coy, 1st Divisional Train of the Canadian Army Service Corps on 23/9/14 (OC Maj W O Simons?). His regtl number was 30384.

Beyond that I don't have much to go on. What I do know is:

Date of Birth 18/1/91

He spent most of the war in France

He was in Italy at some point (I have a photo of him with a Kiwi and an Aussie outside St Mark's in Venice!)

He was a L/Cpl in 1915

He was commissioned before the end of the war, and was a Lt when he left the army.

His campaign medals are engraved "Can ASC" - so he must have remained with the Canadian Army Service Corps. They also have the same number 30384.

He wasn't awarded any gallantry medals

Family legend says he was gassed at some point and also spent time in Rouen

I'm not sure where to go from here. I can't find any other records for him on the Canadian Great War Project, and the Canada Gazette doesn't seem to be available on line.

I see on the Canadian archieve site you can order the "full file" on paper - can anyone tell me what's likely to be in there. Will it be much beyond the Attestation Paper? In such a large organisation as the ASC, is there much chance of tracking which sub-units and therefore which locations an individual OR or junior officer was in? Is there an equiv of the UK medal roll cards?

Many thanks for any suggestions

Justin Willey

[Coldstreamer]

welcome to the forum

trouble with service papers is you just dont know whats there until you read them

[Coldstreamer]

if his medals are named as a ranker then he did not serve in theatre as an officer (medals show highest rank reached in theatre)

[JustinWilley]

Sorry, I wasn't clear, the medals have him as an officer, ditto the Italy photo. It's interesting though that the Army number remained the same (maybe the Canadians reckoned that their officers had better memories - or was it only after the introduction of Army rather than Regimental numbers that officers have been given shorter numbers than ORs? ).

One of things I'm trying to find out is when he was commissioned, 1916 or 1917 seems likely.

if his medals are named as a ranker then he did not serve in theatre as an officer (medals show highest rank reached in theatre)

True enough about the papers, I'll just get on and put the request in!

trouble with service papers is you just dont know whats there until you read them