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General => Armed Forces => World War One => Topic started by: Artful Owl on Wednesday 18 October 23 20:24 BST (UK)
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Hello,
My grandfather served in the Duke of Wellington's West Riding Regiment 10th Battalion. He entered France on the 26th August 1915 and was listed as wounded in the casualty list on 20th December 1915. Is it possible to find out where he spent those few months in France, where he was fighting and where he was wounded please? He survived and was returned to England to a hospital in Stoke on Trent.
Thank you
Ruth
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The War Diaries on the National Archives site may be of help
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/british-army-operations-first-world-war/
You won't find your bloke mentioned personally unless he was an officer but you may be able to find where his unit was at any given time.
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Hi Ruth,the 10th DOW battallion landed at Le Havre in August 1915 it was raised in Halifax September 1914
as part of the large expansion called for by Lord Kitchener you will know the famous poster "your Country Needs You!As far as I can see it was not engaged in a particular battle at the time but was in the vicinity of
Armentieres from November 1915 to new year 1916.If you don't mind giving his name more may be found.
regards Steve.
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You can find the relevant war diaries for the 10th Bn here: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7353259 You just need to register with TNA and you can download them for free. The part you need is in the first of the 3 pdfs.
On the 20th December 1915 no attacks were reported and the Diary says they had a relatively quiet day. In fact, in the evening of the 20th they were withdrawn from the trenches and were in billets back behind the front line. The only incident I can see around that time was a report of one man in A Company who was slightly injured on the morning of the 18 December when the Germans fired 6 shells towards the Battalion's trenches.
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Hi Ruth bit more info,on 20th December the battalion were in reserve billets behind the lines but supplied working parties to the front line at a place called Bois Grenier repairing trenches more than likely, their
billets were at La Rolanderie Farm.These working parties for obvious reasons were usually at night and often
were shelled by the enemy which may be the cause of his wounding.
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Hi,
Thank you for your replies, will this help further?....my grandfather's name was James Mason and his army number was 13623. He also had a Labour Corp number 167308. He was badly injured in his hip and always walked with a stick in later life. The wound report date was the 20th Dec, would that be the date he was actually wounded or would it have been earlier?
Thanks
Ruth
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Thank you so much stevej60, I've just seen your reply after posting mine. That could certainly explain his injury. He told my mother that he was at Ypres, so Bois Grenier is near enough to fit into the family story.
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....my grandfather's name was James Mason and his army number was 13623. He also had a Labour Corp number 167308. He was badly injured in his hip and always walked with a stick in later life. The wound report date was the 20th Dec, would that be the date he was actually wounded or would it have been earlier?
The Casualty Report was compiled by the War Office based on returns sent back to them by the General Hospitals based in France and Flanders, so there was inevitably some delay. I think it is possible that your grandfather could have been wounded up to 6 days or more before the report which issued on 20th December, since the returns sent by the hospitals were compiled on a weekly basis. A close reading of the war diaries will probably give you a better idea of when he was wounded.
His transfer to the Labour Corps came later on as it was not formed until 1917. However it may be that he was transferred because he was no longer considered fit enough for Infantry duties after his recovery. While the Labour Corps was no cushy number, they were often deployed slightly further back from the main fighting. More about the Labour Corps here: The Long, Long Trail (https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/the-labour-corps-of-1917-1918/)
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Good morning Ruth -- you have given your grandfather's service number for the Labour Corps as 167308, this number was in the first block of numbers (up to 170140) which were issued in April and May 1917. (source of information - 'No Labour, No Battle' by John Starling and Ivor Lee)
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Thank you to everyone who has answered my question. I now know much more than ever before about my grandfather's war service. I am grateful to you all for taking the time to reply.
Thank you
Ruth
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Ruth,
If you execute an exact search via the British Newspaper Archive specifying: "Mason (13623)", you will be rewarded with just 2 results - in respect of articles referencing your grandfather (both published on 30th December 1915) from The Sheffield Daily Telegraph & The North Star (Darlington).
As what you will see are just (OCR) snippets, to view the full articles you will need to register with the BNA - which you can do for free & which will then grant you sight of an initial 3 pages at no cost.
Willyam
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The two newspaper articles that Willyam mentions just show Mason. 13623. J. in list of wounded soldiers. No details given of what the wounds were or the place where the soldiers were wounded.
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Thank you willyam and AllanUK,
I have a subscription to Find My Past and have found both mentions on there.
Yes AllanUK, just in the list of wounded, but there were a few more wounded too and one death.
Could these all be from working parties to the front line as stevej60 suggested? I think I need to read through the war diaries to see if anything is mentioned in them. I have downloaded them from the National Archives.
Many thanks
Ruth
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Good luck in your search.
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Thank you AllanUK,
Thanks to you all we now know more than we previously did which is fantastic. A family reunion yesterday of all his surviving grandchildren (12) sparked a renewed interest! The War Diaries will be a fascinating read.
Ruth
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Hi Ruth the link may not work the website is Captain Tunstals company a blogspot about the 10th DOW very interesting day to day diary of one company of the Battalion.
http://tunstillsmen.blogspot.com/2015/08/
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Hi Steve, this is incredible, thank you so much! Guess what I'll be doing for the rest of the afternoon! It gives such an insight into what their life was like at Bois Grenier and how my grandfather probably got injured. My family and I are thrilled to have this to read, thank you again!
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Happy to help Ruth,everything would relate to James maybe he wasn't in that particular companybut he
would have shared their experiences and hardship's.
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Thank you @Andy J22 for posting how to get access to war diaries.
I have now managed to download the relevant one and find out how my uncle died. Many, many thanks.