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General => Armed Forces => World War One => Topic started by: las camelias on Thursday 07 January 16 12:00 GMT (UK)
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I’m researching the names on Wiltshire war memorials and have got stuck with this one:
M2/182194 Private Harold Thomas Fry, Royal Army Service Corps, 593 Mechanical Transport Co att. V111 Corps Heavy Artillery.
Killed in action 12 April 1918 age 33, commemorated Ypres Reservoir Cemetery, Belgium, Grave Ref 111.E.15
593 Mechanical Transport Company was formed in October 1915; an Ammunition Column for 33rd Brigade RGA, they served in France under XIV Corps and VIII Corps as “H” Siege Park
Can anyone help by telling me where Private Fry’s unit was on 12 April when he was killed and hopefully what was happening there? I’ve been going round in circles on this.
Many thanks
LC
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Hi
Take a look at this sites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Lys_%281918%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazebrouck
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Thank you for taking the time to send links to the sites, but they don't tell me which battalions, etc. were involved in those battles ??
LC
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That number looks to me more like a WW2 serial number assigned to a man in the RASC.
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The service no is correct. Definitely WW1.
LC
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Have you searched for him on the CWGC web site?
Have you seen ( with your own eyes) the details on a war memorial?
There are several inconsistencies in the details which you have given
He was in the "Army Service Corps" which had not at his date of death been awarded the "Royal" prefix.
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Soldiers Died in the Great War
Harold Thomas Fry M2/182194
Enlisted Salisbury Wiltshire
Residence Tisbury Wiltshire
Army Service Corps
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CWGC
H Fry M2/182194
KIA Age 33
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Tisbury War Memorial - H T FRY
WW1 Plaque St John's church Tisbury -Drv Harold T Fry RASC
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Harold Thomas Fry - Birth registered June Q 1886 Alderbury Reg District (Wiltshire)
Making age at death (1918) 33 which corresponds with age given by CWGC
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Could you please explain the inconsistencies
Thank you
LC
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Army Service Corps
NOT "Royal" at his date of death. Sorry to be pedantic, but it may help you in further searches.
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Oh, for goodness sake, is that it? I've just spent half an hour dragging all the info together to send to you and you are picking a hole like that? In fact, on the WW1 Memorial it does say Royal, even if it is technically incorrect. I've researched nearly 200 WW1 casualties of now and I really thought I had gone way way astray after you said "there are several inconsistencies in the details you have given".
Please, don't do that again to anyone.
LC
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Genechasers link is correct.
V111 Corps was part of Horne's 1st. Army.
In April 1918 the German army was well into it's Spring offensive.
The 1st. Army engaged them at the Battle of Lys.
They were active from Messines in the North to Bethune in the South over the date of his death.
The ASC became the RASC in 1918.
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Thank you very much jim1 for taking the time to explain that. I can now continue with the bio.
I shall be happy when I'm finished with this one!
LC
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Hopefully to be helpful:
The great difficulty with finding a location for a man in that type of unit is that he was part of the giant supply and transport organisation supporting, in his unit's case, the Corps Heavy Artillery of VIII Corps. That is not one unit but a number of heavy artillery units assigned to provide fire support for the whole of the battle being waged by the infantry and armour across the whole of the Corps front, a matter of some miles. The heavy batteries were themselves some miles to the rear of the line of contact and their supporting siege park (which was found by 593), located ideally near the centre of mass of the artillery units. There were a number of different tasks for the men of the ASC company, he may have been a clerk recording issues of ammunition or a driver delivering the same ammunition up to the guns. Whatever, unlike with Private Smith of the 10th Amesbury Hussars who we can, with the help of a unit war diary, be fairly certain where he was on the day he fell, our ASC man is much more difficult. He could have died as a result of counter battery fire on the Siege Park (ie when the enemy artillery try to knock out your artillery and its support), as a result of an unlucky shell when going about his vital business or, as with another ASC man I looked at recently, simply had a traffic accident which may have been recorded as enemy action.
Actually VIII Corps was 2nd Army. The link by Genechaser to the Battle of the Lys, in which 2nd Army's VIII Corps was engaged to the north of 1st Army, brings you to the area over which the Corps, and hence its artillery, was fighting. The Corps HQ on 14 April 1918 was at a place called Blendecques which may well have been in its centre of operations. The map in the Great War history https://archive.org/stream/storyofgreatwarh07churuoft#page/292/mode/2up/search/German+Offensive
and the narrative will give you an idea of the area in which Second Army was fighting in (Blendecques is just south of St Omer).
I appreciate you don't have the resources to download a multitude of NA documents but, for the record and in the knowledge that NA say they are in the process of digitising, here is the record for 593 in the period of interest.
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_st=adv&_dss=range&_ro=any&_p=1900&_q=593+AND+Siege+AND+Park
I wish you luck with your most valuable task, especially as there is a vague possibility that an distant ancestor may be on the Tisbury list, grandmother's grandfather (!) was a Tisbury man.
maxD
Further brief reference http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/the-army-service-corps-in-the-first-world-war/army-service-corps-mechanical-transport-companies
go down to "The ASC MT Companies attached to the Royal Garrison Artillery as Ammunition Columns / Parks"
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What proportion of their transport was still horse drawn in 1918?
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I suggest an hour or two on Google might turn up as good an answer as I could give from the same source!
maxD
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Max, that is extraordinarily kind of you to go to so much trouble. I shall read and inwardly digest. Thank you.
What name for your grandmother's grandfather?
LC
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You are most welcome, I enjoyed doing it.
I have sent you a PM.
maxD