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General => Armed Forces => World War One => Topic started by: Foxhunter on Sunday 12 June 22 21:16 BST (UK)
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Good Evening
After much searching over the years I was excited to finally find some records of my great grandfathers service in the Great War. Sadly no service record appears to exist but I’ve located pension ledger, medal rolls index, absent voter and medal awards cards.
He appears to have been medically discharged a few months before the end of the war. I’m not sure if there are any further clues from the codes as to the nature of his affliction?
Also everything just states 1st london regiment, is this 1st battalion of that regiment?
If anyone can give me any more information I would be very grateful.
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Yes the 1st. Btn. was the 1st. City of London Btn. London Regt. R. Fusiliers.
The pension ledger might give better details as to his wounds.
His medal roll states he was in France until 18/8/17 so he had a long
period of recuperation before being discharged.
On the 10th./11th. Aug. 1917 they were in the line & received 17 casualties wounded
by shelling.
The line being in front of Bodmin Copse South of the Menin road.
This was the Battle of Passchendaele.
After that they were in camp.
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Thanks jim
I’ve been struggling to locate the exact locations of his regiment during the war.
This is the pension ledger but again im unsure as to what the codes and various dates mean, I had assumed from this he had been injured in August 1918.
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The Silver War Badge Rolls shows that he was discharged from the Army due to his wounds and he was awarded a Silver War Badge (number 4385084) to wear in public to show that he had served in the war and had been medically discharged. His entry in the Rolls shows that he had enlisted on the 12th December 1915.
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What you have is the index card which was an aid to
locating the actual ledger.
Across the middle you can see the ref. no. prefixed 11/M
which is the region dealing with the pension.
11/M included London with M=Military.
My understanding is that there are no region 11 ledgers
in existence.
The date is when he received it on discharge not the date he was wounded.
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Thank you for your help, it seems unlikely I’ll be able to obtain any more information then but it’s more than I knew before!
No one seemed aware he had been injured during the war so he obviously never spoke about it.
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This map shows Bodmin Copse in square 19.
They were in the line just in front so probably
in Java Avenue.
All the red lines are German trenches so this shows that the Army
had pushed back the Germans & taken their positions albeit at huge cost.
https://maps.nls.uk/view/101464636
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Thank you very much for the information, I have spent the afternoon reading through war diaries and am now planning a trip to Ypres!