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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Arthur Stephen Hayton Dell


Kathie

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Arthur Dell is one of twenty soldiers on the Port Aflred War Memorial in the eastern Cape, South aFrica. He was 15th Siege Battery, RGA and died 5 October 1917 and is buried at tincourt. He "died of sickness'. I have not found much on the RGA, nothing on 15th Seige Battery.. How do I find out what sickness, what he and the 15th Seige Battery were doing there? If he was in a UK outfit (as opposed to South aFrican Infantry) would there be more records somewhere? How do I find out if he is mentionied in any ltters, diaries, books etc? I am wanting to personalise all twenty names. any help appreciated.

Kathie

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Kathie

You've already posted info requests for several of your men. As a war memorial researcher myself, can I suggest that you need to take a slightly different tack, as well. If you were researching one soldier, I would suggest you click on the link to The Long, Long Trail mother site (top left of this page). It has loads of information about units and also a section called "researching grandad". This will tell you what might be available in official records. I appreciate the added difficulty that many of the records will be UK based and you are, I presume, in South Africa. But I think that's what you need to do.

Google searches will also find quite a lot of info - not least because there are a growing number of websites researching local war memorials. There are also "official histories" available which you can buy and which, whilst rarely mentioning ordinary soldiers by name, will tell you what was happening.

A good nosy round will give you some very good clues about what is available and what is not. For example, there is almost zero possibility of you finding out what illness this particular chap died of.

If I can also offer a further bit of advice (and I hope you will accept that I offer it with every good intention) - you will find that there are some very experienced & knowledgable people who contribute to this (and I don't mean me). You'll find they are much more prepared to help if you ask specific small scale questions rather than general ones. You can, of course, also use the Forum's "search" facility to see if your query has been asked and answered before.

Hope this isnt discouraging you. War memorial research is a fascinating exercise - bringing life to men who are just noted on a memorial. Click on the link to my website below - it'll show what's possible.

John

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